Originally Posted By: MedB

I pretty much stopped watching television several years ago and now average perhaps 4 hours a month (except soccer games!). But for many people, it's a daily thing so it is important.


Yeah, we ditched the TV in July 1999, so I'm with you there. I really just was hoping for something reliable for emergencies. The junkiest portable from a thrift shop could reliably get UHF 69 and 39 in this area with nothing more than a hunk of wire hanging off the terminals, I just can't believe how truly bad the digital coverage is by comparison.
this weekend, we're going to try ONE MORE TIME to get the antenna up. I have a tulip poplar that's REALLY tall, it towers above all the other trees. My neighbor is one of those insane tree-climber guys you hire for the scary tree-take downs. He's going to haul the antenna, pre-rigged to a 10' length of 2" Aluminum Pipe, to the top of one of the trees and anchor it up there. My rough estimates will have the mid-section of the antenna at about 90' AGL. I am still using Coax as feedline, even though I think twin-lead would do better, and I debated an antenna-mounted amp, but I've had too many of those fail. It's going to be about 140' of feedline until it gets to the house, at which point it will enter an amp and from there, it's going to a Pinnacle HD USB stick connected to a Mac Mini running Boxee and feeding a 22" LCD display. I haven't found anything but a patent to connect the rotor to the tuner for automated positioning, there's plenty of extra boxes out there, none of which I want to get.

The whole point may be moot. DTV may be a case of to little, too late, because I fired up my Verizon 3g wireless modem, and it streamed Hulu just fine, and from what I can tell, WiMax and other Over The Air Two-Way Broadband (OTA-BB) schemes are literally coming soon, and then it won't really matter what the broadcasters are doing, as we'll simply connect - similar to Wifi - the the WWAN in the area (and we have SOLID coverage from AT&T and Sprint, even out here in the woods) - and that's that.

On a positive note, all of this hoo-ha about DTV has revived my interest in Ham Radio, something I abandoned about 7 years ago. I still have some gear in a box in the basement and I think I might putter a bit with a Winlink and a packet relay sort of thing.