Replace Cable TV with Rooftop Antenna for Local Stations?

It seems you might need a converter from analog signal to digital....all stations are converting to digital I think....

http://www.northpine.com/broadcast/mn/tv.html

http://www.amazon.com/b?node=979935011

maybe you didn't have it hooked up right....

http://disablemycable.com/

Agree - ya needs a converter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_television_transition_in_the_United_States

If the TV is only three weeks old it will have the converter built in.

Without knowing the terrain and power levels of the broadcast TV stations I cannot say anything with a certainty. At the same time 18 miles is not that far for a TV broadcast. A quick search engine result led me here.

Back to good old-fashioned "...over-the-air (OTA)..." reception!

Wow! Where have you been? I have to give you a GA because you are so right! I am about to the same due to cost. Vendors have become parasitic!

I wholeheartedly concur. There is so little on TV that can add value to our thinking that it's not worth whatever effort it takes. Use a DVD player and play the things you want rather than what is being "fed" by people who want to make us dumber than what we already are as a society.

We haven't had a TV for years and it was great for the kids because they read, they played outside, they did productive things. The TV is just a "mind musher".

any TV is only as good as the signal you feed it.pay someone to measure your strength. the attic is killing you, get that "Aeriel" out where it can do its jobhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjBs5TXhZFs

I've got my Mohu antenna mounted in my attic and I'm picking up all the signals the antennaweb.org site says I should get.

Unless the OP has a metal roof, the TV signals should be picked up about as well in the attic as outside. If his house has aluminum siding, that could be a problem since there would be some shielding at the gable ends.

This Mohu antenna will NOT work from inside a house with metal roof?

The TV signal travels on the water table, go stick the antenna in the creek.

I put a 50 mile antenna from Walmart, ($30), in my attic, hooked it up to my existing home cable, and it works great. I had to get a converter for each room, and get 27 channels.

Make sure to get a Roku type device so you can fill in with Netflix and Youtube channels. $8 a month.

This site may help in antenna selection and positioning.

http://www.antennaweb.org/

I am very old school and about to enter the septaugenerian club (no choice or rather did not like the alternative). I installed a 40 foot tower and a channel master and get about 30 channels under normal conditions. The antenna is installed with a rotor and sometimes I get more channels depending on where I point. I find most just show the same stuff anyway so I leave it fixed due south, I live on the border with USA and near the mouth of the St Lawrence with L. Ontario. I have no cable available and satellite was poor if I wanted to stream. My internet is weak and over the air via a tower.

The reason for the tower was to get better internet reception but it did not pan out so I use the tower for TV and it is great. I do not miss cable and weaned myself from most sports addictions. I am left with one addiction for soccer and once was able to stream when I had cable and watched lots of English Premier. The internet on the island is too slow for anything but mottled streaming and so I quit.

Can the Roku device be something that may help me get better streaming from my internet. My internet is supposed to be 10 Mb/s but I do not think I get 1Mb/sec. very slow. We had a lot of trouble getting internet and even approached US suppliers but they seemed reluctant or stopped returning calls. I share with a neighbour who has zero reception for internet but using satellite for TV. Our internet provider allowed us to share with a good wireless booster. It would be great if I could once again watch soccer. Yeah I know an I grew up with baseball, football, and hockey. I started streamng a lot of college soccer when my girls played varsity. I am interested in Roku but never knew of them. Can they boost a weak internet signal for streaming.

I got a less expensive version of Roku from Walmart, called Movienite. I don't have the fastest internet, but if I order something from Netflix it temporarily boosts the speed.

I don't really use the antenna for anything but local news and weather. Prime time TV is out, since everything is too sexed up for my 7 year old daughter. I don't know why they feel like we have to be bombarded with that stuff in every show.

Both Netflix and Youtube have good documentaries, etc to watch, and no commercials.

I finally got around to watching Lost.

Be sure to use the TV's auto-learn mode rather than manual tuning to try to find active chasnnels. I made that mistake with a Samsung, then was later surprised to find about 20 channels when the auto mode was used. Those digital channels were all very high quality too.

1) Which antenna did you try? Was it a UHF only? Most OTA signals are now VHF.

2) Which LG model do you have? Are you positive you have the TV configured to antenna input, and it did the scan for signals? That stuff is hidden in menus, but the instructions should guide you.

3) As noted by others, no antenna can see thru metallic insulation or metal roof. Is that your situation?

I'm in Woodbury and can pick up all local stations with just a length of wire in the living room.

SSCpal:

Well, matter of fact, it WAS a UHF (Eagle Aspen 2-bay UHF ant.)

I just spent 1/2 hr on Google trying to dig up info on channels (incl. wiki), not very successfully. AntennaWeb tells me we have up to 30 channels at my location, from RF channel 9 to 45, but nowhere is a UHF or VHF label. I feel bad for having returned antenna for full credit. So, where should I have gone for the info?

The TV is a brand-new plasma LG 55". Great product, lovely picture, miserable skimpy lousy inadequate directions. They saved money on paper anyway. Has just one cable input, labeled antenna. Did look for input configuration directions, found nothing, I'll try their chat website tonight. It did seem suspicious not getting ANY signal at all, but....

Thanks for your input.

You may have to go to the menu on your remote and simply have the TV do its own scan to put the available channels into the system. My neighbour was having issues and called a service guy who in a minute gave him 30 or so channels. New plasma TV should have this function. UHF VHF is not an issue with digital broadcast. I have a Samsung but if I point the aerial in a new direction and want a different set of channels, I must take the two or three minutes to program the TV. I use a channel master brand and have had good luck getting stations up to 230 km away. Most are about 30 to 130 km. I never saw any designation of UHF or VHF. Just digital.

Please ignore my previous comments. The digital channels are indeed broadcast in the UHF range; your TV will display a "virtual" channel instead.

Antennaweb is misleading; the "RF channel" given isn't the one you will see on your TV. It's been a while since I researched this; maybe someone else can explain this better.

If you can give us the model number of your TV, we might find the instructions online to configure it for OTA.

Here's an example: what used to be channel 5 moved to a UHF channel when the digital conversion took place. But your TV will display 5-1 or something like it. This was done apparently to make the transition easier for the user. The "-1" indicates that there may be subchannels, like 5-2 or 5-3. Digital channels can carry several subchannels in the same bandwidth as the old single analog channel.

So your UHF antenna was OK. The problem seems to be in the configuration of the TV. With the model number we may be able to fix this.

...and you don't need a converter. All TV's made in the last 5 years have digital capability.

"...and you don't need a converter. All TV's made in the last 5 years have digital capability."

Not all of us are watching televisions made within the last 5 years.

No, but the OP is.

Although TV stations are only 18 miles away, the non-reception problem encountered maybe more related to elevation locations? If your are seeing mountain ridges instead of the TV transmitter towers, it will be hard to get any receptions, even when using high gain antenna.

Additionally, line of sight between receiver and transmitter antennas is preferred for good signal receptions. Any obstructions in-between will attenuate or even cancel any signals that may bounce ... thus further reducing signal strength..

60 years ago I was way ahead of my time!

http://transition.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/dtvmaps/

this link will give you digital signal strengths.

The maps are extremely conservative. I am only supposed to get about 5 channels but i get at least 30 and more if I move my rotor equipped areal in a different direction. I have a 40 foot tower and am mere feet above Lake Ontario/St.Lawrence River. Ignore the map for most parts.