On 6/10/2014 9:10 PM, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 6/10/2014 8:25 PM, Mr. Luddite wrote:



If you are withing 20-25 miles of the transmitting tower, this super
duper antenna works splendidly for capturing HD broadcasts:

http://flowtv.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/ill12.png


I just tried an experiment for kicks.

I have a small, single pole antenna that I use on my receiver for FM
reception. It's half of an old rabbit ear antenna.

I hooked it up to my TV and did an autoscan. My house is probably
35-40 miles from the nearest transmitting antenna in Boston and the
single pole antenna is just sitting beside the TV. Autoscan found 7
digital channels.

Here's the antenna:

http://i802.photobucket.com/albums/yy303/Eisboch/antenna.jpg


Here's channel 7 in Boston using the single pole antenna:

http://i802.photobucket.com/albums/yy303/Eisboch/Channel7.jpg

Here's channel 2 (PBS) in Boston (blur is due to slow camera shutter
speed. HD picture on TV is perfect):

http://i802.photobucket.com/albums/yy303/Eisboch/Channel2-2.jpg

Only goes to show that there's nothing magic about the revised and
modernized rabbit ears that are being marketed as "HD Antennas".



As an afterthought I just did another experiment.

We have Comcast cable TV and I have a HD cable box also hooked up to
this TV. I put the box on channel 7 HD and then compared it's picture
to the same HD programming being broadcast and picked up by the little
single pole antenna. (Switched "input source" on TV back and forth
between the two).

The broadcast HD picture using the antenna is noticeably superior to the
Comcast cable HD picture. Much clearer, much more "HD" looking.

Comcast compresses HD signals in order to get all their "stuff" on a
cable. The broadcast signal is the way it's supposed to look.