Since the switch to DTV, my reception has been great on several channels, and hit-or-miss on a few channels... the ones I watch the most of course. In the old analog days, a poorly received channel would be snowy and staticky, but usually still watchable. In the modern digital age, a poorly recieved channel is pretty much unwatchable. The picture either disappears for seconds at a time or displays a bunch of colored blocks as if you were playing a game of Breakout. On an analog channel you could still hear the audio pretty well even if the picture was hash, which was at least ok for listening to a baseball game. On a digital channel, it just pops, whistles, and clicks... if there is any sound at all.
I've always had poor reception at my house, but since I'm rarely there it hasn't been much of a problem. I did by a 'digital' rabbit ear antenna shortly after buying a new LCD HDTV last year, but it doesn't seem to be much better than a bare wire hanging out the antenna jack. I can lose channels simply by viewing from the wrong spot in the room. Last night, with nothing interesting on the 'good' channels and several things I wanted to watch on the 'bad' channels, enough was enough. I started searching the net for comparisons of DTV antennas and was either going to order a highly rated one online or go buy one if available in town last night. Instead, I had lots of hits on making a homemade antenna that had been getting good reviews and was cheap/easy to build. So, online plans in hand, here's what I did...
I've always had poor reception at my house, but since I'm rarely there it hasn't been much of a problem. I did by a 'digital' rabbit ear antenna shortly after buying a new LCD HDTV last year, but it doesn't seem to be much better than a bare wire hanging out the antenna jack. I can lose channels simply by viewing from the wrong spot in the room. Last night, with nothing interesting on the 'good' channels and several things I wanted to watch on the 'bad' channels, enough was enough. I started searching the net for comparisons of DTV antennas and was either going to order a highly rated one online or go buy one if available in town last night. Instead, I had lots of hits on making a homemade antenna that had been getting good reviews and was cheap/easy to build. So, online plans in hand, here's what I did...