Monday, June 28th, 2004
HDTV Over-the-air Receiver and Antennas
Since moving to Arlinton Heights, I’ve been trying to get HDTV over the air. The experiment didn’t succeed — I could only get 3 channels (WGN, ABC, and PBS). Without FOX and NBC, it wasn’t worth it.
However, when a channel did come in with HD content, it looked awesome! The nature specials on PBS were very clear and in widescreen high-definition (you could really see that bobcat fight the snake).
For the record, I used a Motorola HDT-100 high definition television receever on an open-box deal from Circuit City (for $270). It worked well, but had to be returned in the end because …
… it turns out I live on the wrong side of the apartment to be able to receive signals from the Sears Tower and Handcock building in downtown Chicago. I did have some luck with the Gemini Silver Sensor UHF antenna — it’s very directional and helped with the multipath problems caused by the signals going through my apartment building. A good website on general antenna info (for dummies) is here.
Also, antennaweb.org is a great website. You type in your address and it can tell you what direction all the TV stations are from your address and then recommend an antenna type.
