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Joined
11/29/2011
Location
Ogden, UT
US
There is a TV antenna in my attic from the previous owner. The antenna coax isn't connected. There are 2-3 other coax cables, I'm guessing are from the cable company, these also aren't connected. With the coax cables I described, is it possible to get over the air TV? Should I just start connecting stuff and see what happens? I don't want a surprise cable bill because I connected cable TV to my house.
You have to dumb it down if you answer as you may have guessed, I don't know much about this.
You have to dumb it down if you answer as you may have guessed, I don't know much about this.
I just want to get the major networks and another local channel to get local fights.
I think Friday when I'm off I'll just start hooking shit up.
Im actually trying to save you a bunch of work. How many TV's? If one or two, I would just go out and buy two digital antennas and hook them up directly and not mess with the attic issue. This may sound like a dumb question, but how old is the TV(s)?
Regardless, the picture quality is incredible.
The Shop
Since it is just one TV, then I would go out and buy one and not mess with the other. They are fairly inexpensive and connect right up and you are good to go.
I have dish.
I also have an old antenna in the attic.
Go coaxial from the antenna to the coxial fitting in the back of the flat screen tv.
Then hit the input button on the tv itself, or input or tv on your remote.
Mine comes up as hdtv 1, or hdtv 2, or video 1, or video 2.
HDTV 1 brings in satellite dish. 2 brings in the attic antenna.
It will not be cable. It will not be satellite. It will be signal coming directly from the local station.
I get Ohio, WV , Pittsberg and a weak Maryland station.
Run a search on both. Moving, or turning the antenna in the attic will help bring in more local channels.
It's a hit and miss, but once you find the right position, it should bring in all the local stations.
I went up there, we got one station to come in kinda fuzzy, then I turned it while Donna would yell "better,
better, no, go back, go back, better, RIGHT THERE. KEEP IT THERE".
Satellite goes out, we switch to antenna. Storms don't really mess with antenna like it does dish.
Like it is mentioned above, if it wasn't for History, HBO and Moto, dish would be gone in my house.
Oh, and it's free, and it's legal.
I never thought it would.come.to.old.guys explaining.to someone young how.to.hook up an ota antenna.
Holy crap.
It's like.hooking up.jumper.cables.except if.you get the antenna wires hooked up wrong YOU COULD.DIE!
You used to get them with TVs rabbit ears. A little square box with 2 screws on one side for the 2 wire antenna and coax on the other.
Any element antenna will pick up digital,you just got to get to coax thru what i described above.
If the antenna has horizontal and a vertical element setup it is uhf and vhf. ,horizontal is vhf, vertical uhf.
I use one,new tvs,flat ones are digital ready,old cathode tubes are not and need a decoder.
They work good and have a feature that lets you use it as a DVR recording it to a USB device.
I couldn't get the files to play on anything but the box but it is still handy for recording stuff you want to watch at home.
Whole set up is about $50..
Watched "the hit" a while back. Billy dee Williams and Richard Pryor ,it was great.
Problem is you need fast internet to stream. It's like they got you. You pay $80 a month fro fast interenet then sub services (netflix, hulu, amazon video, ps vue)and you're back to 100/mo for cable. Form the cable company if you bundle all together its like 100-130. They got you anyway. You'll pay, lol.
And now ISP's are dabbling with calculating your data and charging you by that. So when Cable goes belly up, and the Directv sattelite turns into orbiting space junk......you'll be paying for DATA like you do on your cell phone plans....GRR.
Digital smigital, it don't matter.
I got started on something like this. It was already there.
But, like this one, you couldn't turn it.
So, I made up a 30 inch by 30 inch square frame out of PVC pipe.
Drilled 1/4 holes, I inch apart, down the sides.
Stripped some copper wire, 14 gauge, threaded thru the holes so I had a 30 inch square of copper wires running thru
it 1 inch apart.
Put that on a PVC pipe that sticks down into the garage, thru the ceiling by about 2 feet.
I can turn it from the garage.
Got one of these from Lowes, in the electric dept.
They still sell antennas believe it or not.
Copper wires to this adapter, adapter to coaxial cable, cable to flat screen.
Fuck the man.
I never thought to look at lowes for the transformers. Radioshack wants a sixpack for them.
My buddy got a RV type at the fleamarket. It is a 50 buck rotating unit,small,maybe 20 inches. He got it for 5 bucks ,new ,in the box.
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