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Post by franz on Jul 10, 2010 0:14:45 GMT -5
OK, let me begin by stating clearly I don't know much about the subject.
I am very interested in learning about it though since I apent yesterday watching a 9 man line crew install 6 new poles from the road to the house after the little tree incident. Today the phone company dropped by and did their thing. The cable company is an entire seperate nightmare, and frankly they have sufficiently pissed me off I may never again consume their product.
I looked into the wonderful new HDTV horsecrap and even found a FCC site that predicts what my reception will be should I invest in the concept of HDTV. 4 local channels really don't kick me out of the chair to head off to Wallyworld or anyplace else to buy a digital TV.
Then I hear about the FTA receivers that supposedly give me everything other than Time Warner programming by just buying the dish and receiver. I can live with that concept. All I ever watched on cable was Discovery, A&E which is becoming a craphole, and History with an occasional venture to the local crapola for the nightly joke called NEWS.
I spent an hour on googling FTA tonight and all I have are crossed eyes and a headache.
Anyone have experience with the FTA systems?
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Post by nutrivet on Jul 10, 2010 23:25:27 GMT -5
No. Didn't even check the references. I believe you may be talking about the 10'+ dishes. There was a thing about 10 years ago where many of the old large ones were abandoned or gave away. The new deal was a smaller. So i realize it is all digital now and there are descramblers now.
It seems there are many components which are available which could be arranged for reception.
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Post by nutrivet on Jul 10, 2010 23:35:02 GMT -5
That was lame. There is much newer i should read and get my eyes crossed.
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Post by markkw on Jul 11, 2010 8:10:42 GMT -5
Dish & Direct TV both suffer signal loss when you need it most ... like when bad storms are rolling through. 99.9% of the programming sucks and isn't worth wasting time with. Just my opinion, go with the old air antenna & digital converter box. A roto-tenna is nice but often not necessary, if you want to get full coverage without messing with a rotating antenna, you can use a combination three standarad semi-unidirectional (arrow) antennas set at 0°, 120° & 240° Now before someone comes off with the "three, are you out of your mind?" comment, these things can often be had for free because so many people are suckered into the dish/direct crap and if you look around, you can often get the whole deal, pole & all just for the asking. The giant-size arrow antennas, 72"+ in length, are no longer needed, the smaller 30-48" work just fine and usually don't even need an additional ground plane unless you're way on the fringe edge of the signal area. The newer model arrow antennas have omnidirectional coils, loops and/or butterflies built right into them so there's no longer a need to add them separately. If you are on the fringe, depending on how/where you install the mast, you can increase the overall ground plane by adding reflector dishes on the guywires or running crossovers (spider web) between the guywires. Normally you only need three crossovers spaced at about 36" intervals from the center of the mast/tower for even the worst reception areas.
Digital signals are not as height-dependent as the old UFH TV broadcast and you'd be amazed at how well the new little sealed loop RV antennas work when combined with a signal booster. My neighbor, the guy with all the vintage Mustangs, just got a new RV and I was able to tune in 28 channels on the RV parked under the tree canope as opposed to only 21 on the mast-mounted stationary antenna set out in the open that feeds his house. RV antennas are cheap-free too, hit the local junk yards, 2-3 of them set to the same 0°, 120° & 240° relative bearings take up a whole lot less space and don't require a high-strength or high-altitude mast. If you want to get real fancy and especially if you want the neighbors to leave you alone, get yourself one of the old 12' diameter dishes with the tilt & rotation assemby. Remove the microwave head and make a bracket to install three of the RV loops (airplane wing looking deals), same 0°, 120° & 240° arrangement but mounted so that the base faces the concave of the dish. The dish mesh & frame may or may not need to be well bonded to earth ground - it creates a massive ground plane when needed but often times if the dish itself is isolated from ground, it acts as a reflector. The rotation & tilt will allow you to fine-tune on a specific station which is helpful when you want to lock onto a distant signal that would otherwise be washed out by stronger local signals. If you don't have to contend with high mountains in close proximity, you only need the center of the dish to be at 10-12' altitude.
Last one is going with the new RV loops at 3-4 stationary points on the house itself. You can try running the separate leads into a common connection prior to the signal booster (if needed, some of the D-tv converter boxes already have a booster built-in) or if you want to have more gadgets to play with, you can get an antenna selector switch for a few bucks, they're only about $15 new so don't go wasting money on ebay crap. The D-tv signals no longer need the 300 ohm lead, 75 ohm coax works just fine.
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