Growing Rabbit Ears in The Search for the Perfect Antennae

Quest for the Holy Antennae Grail
The time has come to find antennae options for at least one of our three HDTVs.  "What?!? Has anything changed with your desire to go cable free?", you ask.  Nope, it's little more than the desire a few of us around here have to watch the Oscars or an NFL game- say- the Super Bowl once in a while.  Or accessing some terrific television programming that we might otherwise watch individually on our computers.

Blogging Delays Equal Antennae Displays
When exploring solutions for this portion of our to find cable-free content viewing solutions, I almost decided to give up on an antennae for a while.  We went through 6 different digital TV antennaes, both indoor and outdoor, starting with products that are on the lower end of the price range to see what works at which price points.

Eureka! Striking Gold with An Indoor Antennae

For a while I though that perhaps I needed to try eating more lettuce, carrots celery and growing bigger ears myself to finally find an indoor antennae device that works well for the location of our home.  For the record, living in a large Southern city, we have ample reception options from the major television networks and other TV broadcasters.  

Viewing the charts from the FCC website, it seemed very likely that an indoor antennae would do the trick for us.  However, when selecting several antennaes from Home Depot, Radio Shack and Best Buy and Amazon.com, several of the products once taken out of the box seem little more than molded aluminum foil on a stand.  The lack of reception and completely paltry coax cable may be why I almost decided to take a break from this part of the project mission of improving our viewing experiences.  

We finally found a solution for at least one of the rooms with an indoor TV antennae.  You might be surprised with the best product results, which will be revealed in our next TV Antennae Update posting.   

Hair, Make-Up and Church Prophetesses
You know that your reception is even better than cable tv when someone like Jimmy Kimmel looks good on television, albeit with a TON of tan-ish makeup on his face. The clearer, crisper picture with digital HD broadcasting is far far superior to any cable coax output because there's no compression over the air.  Everyone looks 10 lbs thinner with less broadcast distortion.

So far, we're getting more than 24 channels over the air waves, which includes digital and analog broadcast.  I'm hoping to augment the number of channels we can view with a little patience and some minor adjustments to the rabbit ears on the indoor digital TV antennae.  In the meantime, I've got to share my surprise at the sheer number of church channels that we have in the current mix.  It's a lot and the broadcasting must be cheap and a good ROI when considering how many channels there are. I didn't know what a Prophetess is until tonight.

Compass Reading Makes a Fashion Comeback
Like upturned collars about to make a strong showing in fashion houses again, knowledge of magnetic North, and your Boy Scout / Girl Scout compass reading skills will make a roaring comeback in this portion of your cable free journey.  Oh, and let's not forget patience.  To wet your appetite for the next Antennae Update posting, you can explore signal strength for your home by checking out this US government site: http://www.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/maps/  If you can access more than 4 of the major TV broadcasters over the air, it might be worth a try.


I'll cover more specifics with you on which types of TV antennaes you may need to consider in the next post,  along with the different requirements for receiving different types of channels. Stay tuned.  Air tuned.