What's With Free TV

[flintstone mop]

EVERYBODY is talking about this new thing to get free TV and tell the cable/Sat company to fly a kite.
All these devices are high gain UHF panel antennas and they hope that you are in a good location to pick up what we all know about. ALL your HD flat panel TVs should have digital tuners now. Soo.....we have the local HD UHF stations. What are they offering? I cannot watch Network TV. PBS maybe. What are the UHF stations up to that would make me tell the cable company to shove off? Any Discovery channel, Fox TV News or CNN? I know the UHF HD stations can transmit 2 or 3 sub-channels. What is supposed to be so great?
TNX
Fred

[KA8WTK]

If you want to watch Discovery and CNN I think they are only on cable or satellite, not over-the-air TV.
I can get the major networks and PBS off the air with a yagi, but I don't have time to watch them anyway.

Bill

[K5UJ]

I'm a step ahead of you:  I don't watch TV. 

"TV is very educational--when someone turns one on, I read a good book."

--Groucho Marx.

[steve_qix]

It's not new at all.  Been there right along.  No pay TV over here of any sort.  Everything is off the air.

We get a *LOT* of channels.  But, anything that is subscription based (such as Discovery, Fox News, etc.) is unavailable over normal broadcast TV.

Now, to be sure, we watch very little TV (maybe an hour / week).  The high def pictures are really beautiful.

[KA0HCP]

Now into my third year without TV....

I have more free time, my blood pressure is lower without CNBC, Fox, et. al, but I do miss History Channel, Discovery, PBS.

[KB2WIG]

Watt's so hot about the History Channel?? Just a bunch of old news and re-runs.


kjlc

[Jim/WA2MER]

TV rots your brain.

[Ed/KB1HYS]

The best thing about Over The Air TV, no CABLE BILL.  Why ever pay anywhere from 60-120 a month for the drivel on TV?  Put that cash in my pocket, not the Cable (or satellite) companies.

[Pete, WA2CWA]

A quick search finds these over the air digital stations around Pittsburgh:

    Channel 8: WWCP-TV - (Fox) - Johnstown, digital channel for WWCP-TV.
    Channel 15: WPSU-TV - (PBS) - Clearfield, digital channel for WPSU-TV.
    Channel 24: WATM-TV - (ABC) - Altoona, digital channel for WATM-TV.
    Channel 25: KDKA-TV - (CBS) - Pittsburgh, digital channel for KDKA-TV. CBS O&O station.
    Channel 32: WTAJ-TV - (CBS) - Altoona, digital channel for WTAJ-TV.
    Channel 34: WJAC-TV - (NBC) - Johnstown, digital channel for WJAC-TV.
    Channel 38: WQED-TV - (PBS) - Pittsburgh, digital channel for WQED-TV.
    Channel 42: WPMY - (WB) - Pittsburgh, digital channel for WPMY. Owned by Sinclair Broadcasting.
    Channel 43: WPGH-TV - (FOX) - Pittsburgh, digital channel for WPGH-TV. Owned by Sinclair Broadcasting.
    Channel 48: WPXI-TV - (NBC) - Pittsburgh, digital channel for WPXI-TV. Owned by Cox Broadcasting.
    Channel 50: WPCB-TV - (religious) - Pittsburgh, digital channel for WPCB-TV. Owned by Cornerstone Communications.
    Channel 51: WTAE-TV - (ABC) - Pittsburgh, digital channel for WTAE-TV. Owned by Hearst-Argyle Television.
    Channel 12.1: WICU-TV - (NBC) - Erie, digital channel
    Channel 24.1: WJET-TV - (ABC) - Erie, digital channel
    Channel 35.1: WSEE-TV - (CBS) - Erie, digital channel
    Channel 35.2: WBEP-TV - (The CW) - Erie, digital channel
    Channel 54.1: WQLN-TV - (PBS) - Erie, digital channel
    Channel 66.1: WFXP-TV - (Fox) - Erie, digital channel

I love commercial free movies, shows, and lots of cool entertainment, so my 400 channels of cable TV keeps me happy. The typical ABC, NBC, CBS, stuff gets boring after awhile. 75 meter AM can never fill my entertainment needs.

[Tom WA3KLR]

I'm getting about 56 sub-channels over the air, from Allentown and Philadelphia PA, and NJ.  The list is growing.  I use an omni-directional antenna with built-in pre-amp.    This is much more than was available during the NTSC days.  

There are many PBS channels.  There are many old TV show channels too.  Yes it would be nice to see the Discovery channel, History channel and CNN once in a while but I am content with what I have over-the-air as I don’t have a lot of time to watch TV.  

There is now offered a French news channel on 24 hours a day “France 24” in English with a headlines banner and commentaries.  I watch it a lot.  I am absorbing a little Spanish since we watch some of the Spanish language programs especially the action movies offered by Telemundo and Telefutura.  

It all depends on where you live of course as to whether the over-the-air offering is a great thing or dismal; I am fortunate.  I want to eventually type up a list of the channels and other info but don’t have the time/priority yet.

[N1XBM]

We used to have Direct TV, after the price going up and up and feeling we are not getting more for all of the money we're paying we dumped the dish. I put an antenna up on the tower and pay for the 8 dollar a month nextflix. I do not miss satellite/cable TV one bit and will never go back. If I can't find anything on TV, I instead read.

[K4RT]

but I do miss History Channel, Discovery, PBS.

You're not missing much. I used to enjoy the History Channel, but they seem to have turned their focus to finding Sasquatch.

[Opcom]

The only thing so great about the free TV is that it is free.

I don't watch TV unless the computer is disconnected due to a storm and I want to see the radar. The idiotic things on TV compel me to avoid it.

I like the good ol analog AM radio in the morning. Traffic, weather, a patriotic tune on the hour, and out the door I go to work. AM Forever!

modular TV,
bring me the news.
unwrap my mind,
distort the views.
modular information on the TV set,
makes me want things I never thought of yet.

modular TV,
bring me the news.
unwrap my mind,
distort the news.
modular modulation on the TV set,
fills the brain with carpet remnants.

-Jay Wooldridge

[flintstone mop]

We used to have Direct TV, after the price going up and up and feeling we are not getting more for all of the money we're paying we dumped the dish. I put an antenna up on the tower and pay for the 8 dollar a month nextflix. I do not miss satellite/cable TV one bit and will never go back. If I can't find anything on TV, I instead read.

Ya it hurts as their prices keep going up for the 5 or 6 channels I watch.
My wife likes her Filipino channel and there's the catch. Gotta have the "basic service" to get international programming. The internet feed is too complicated for her to watch 'her movies' And the quality is terrible viewed on our flat screen. On a laptop, it's perfect. It's a long time struggling with this bill.
My TV time is around 9PM to catch up on the World's problems.
There must be contracts signed that the "cable/sat channels" are only on those services and not available on FREE TV. Some PBS stations air Al Jazeera TV...
Fred

[K5UJ]

I like the good ol analog AM radio in the morning. Traffic, weather, a patriotic tune on the hour, and out the door I go to work. AM Forever!

same here.  fire up the 1952 Admiral 5 tube and listen to the all news station on 780, WBBM.   Octal tubes.

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Ya it hurts as their prices keep going up for the 5 or 6 channels I watch.

Not sure which part is funnier: someone getting online to a radio site dedicated to promoting on-air AM operation to talk about watching TV, or getting online to the same site to say that you don't watch TV.

End the pain, Fred - shut the TV & computer off and enjoy some radio time. Take a refresher course in calling CQ, making old buzzard transmissions, and all the stuff that used to be more fun than being on the internet or watching the one-eyed monster. There is life beyond the media..... 

[W1DAN]

MOP-man:

There is much available on OTA (Over The Air) DTV (Digital TeleVision). Many main channels now broadcast sub-channels that are often old-TV, weather or unfortunately ad-TV. Looky here to get started:

http://www.rabbitears.info/

I use old rabbit ears (not extended) or UHF loops to pick up in-city TV. I have even used a piece of solder. If you are farther away, then a UHF yagi would be good. All TV's sold much have ATSC tuners to receive OTA TV, so you are ready to go. Do not buy one of those indoor preamped things you see on TV.  Plug in a UHF loop and hit "search" on your TV. See what you find and tell us your experiences!

For the time I have, there is more OTA TV available than I have time to watch. Cable-originated channels such as CNN are not available.

Also there is a hobby group using Free To Air (FTA) TV. They put up a dish and search the satellites for non-cyplered TV:

http://www.global-cm.net/mpeg2basics.html
http://www.ftalist.com/index.php


73,
Dan
W1DAN

[Tom WA3KLR]

I was off today and finally typed up the list of 58 over-the-air sub-channels I receive via 20 rf channels, north of Philadelphia.

xls and pdf versions attached below:

[W2VW]

Tom, no WWSI RF49?

[Tom WA3KLR]

Dave,

I looked at the spectrum analyzer plot I did last summer and I can see the rf on Ch 49 but it is about 19 dB below what the TV will detect.

[KA3EKH]

I take care of a couple public TV sites in Delaware and Maryland, WHYY 44.1HD, 44.2 and 44.3 along with 28.1HD, 28.2 and 28.3 and would think that with almost every broadcaster supporting two or three times as many program streams there is more today to watch over the air then ever before. The problem is that unless you do channel scans and build new channel tables you will never see any of it. The legacy names and channel numbers are not always what the channels are on. when the TV dose a auto scan  it builds a virtual channel table and allows you to enter the channels virtual name that’s all built by the TV reading available channels and there pids and building a table of available channels in your area. But if your antenna is aimed in the wrong direction that’s a issue, as far as signal level goes the ATSC signal only has to be twelve or thirteen dB above the noise floor for the TV to work unlike in the old analog days where you needed to be twenty or thirty db above the noise floor for a solid picture. With this in mind the FCC reduced the ERP of all the analog stations by ten or twenty Db. With channel 28 the analog  ERP was around 2.8 million watts being driven by a pair of 30 kW IOT amplifiers and now to get the same or what the FCC considers same  coverage our all solid state ATSC transmitter has a TPO of 4.5 kW and a ERP of around 300 kW. The VHF channels are way worse considering that High VHF analog was limited to 312kW and under ATSC they chug along at around 3.5 kW, most VHF channels were given UHF channels to use in the transition period and operated at high power levels for ATSC but for some weird reason wanted to return back to there VHF allocation after analog sunset and then when they migrated down to the lower VHF channel at reduced power got a big surprise. As far as content goes I have worked with and for both PBS and NPR stations for over thirty years and seen lots of changes, but think that maybe PBS has started improving some of there program lineup in the last couple years and if you cant find something to watch between PBS, ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX you just don’t like TV although CW and RFD may be TV Hell.

[K6IC]

Back in the analog days,  where Video was AM,  when in town,  could get every local signal with a hunk of RG-6 coax with a 12" clip lead indoors,  as an antenna.  Many many signals.  And at the remote Hammie QTH we got 24 VHF/UHF signals on a batwing antenna on a travel trailer.

With the change to digital, in town,   we get 4 channels fairly well with an outdoor antenna,  LOS to Mt. Sutro in San Fransisco (about 1600 Ft above surrounding terrain).  But departing aircraft from OAK cause intermittant reception,  and in cloudy WX,  need to reposition the antenna for almost every station -- very,  very poor reception.  And at the remote QTH (where NO signals are LOS),  get two channels almost solid copy,  and four others intermittantly.  These intermittants are often solid except for several hours around SR and SS.

The switch to DTV has been a giant step backward ...   very very poor reception on average,  vs analog.  Believe that the Broadcasters and the public were sold a bill of goods.

AM Video with FM Aural was king.  The change seems to be welfare for Cable and Satellite folks,  IMHO.  We still have nothing but OTA,  which really bites. Opinions, Vic

[Opcom]

I like the good ol analog AM radio in the morning. Traffic, weather, a patriotic tune on the hour, and out the door I go to work. AM Forever!

same here.  fire up the 1952 Admiral 5 tube and listen to the all news station on 780, WBBM.   Octal tubes.

Indeed. the old wooden Philco console here on 770 or 1080Kc, Selenium voltage doubler and a 25L6 that fills the room with that SE beam tube sound unavailable anywhere else. Loktals and a 19T8, 3 tubes in one. The FM is dead but who cares. AM BC Radio has so much to recommend it. It's good for the soul.

[ke7trp]

With free TV and hsmm mesh you can have free internet and TV both.  Mesh is neat if you have a group of hams in your area. You can run a 54G router and a 24DB gain antenna on your tower or roof top. Then connect to the system.  THe more on the faster the net. 100MB a sec is common.

C

[WBear2GCR]

run what?

hsmm??

wazzit?

             _-_-