Tag Archives: house

They have television over the air now?, Part 3

In my two previous posts about antennas, I explained what I did to research and install an over-the-air TV antenna. Now that I’ve gotten everything installed, I’ll share with you my results.

The Channels

These are all the stations (including subchannels) that I pull in with my new installation.

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They have television over the air now?, Part 2

In my previous post, I discussed how to gather the necessary information for installing an over-the-air TV antenna. To sum up, you need to know where the broadcast towers are and what frequency they broadcast on. In my case, I needed a rooftop VHF/UHF combo antenna, and I needed to point it just east of due north.

In this post, I’ll talk about the equipment I bought and how I actually installed it.

I got pretty much everything from RadioShack. I have given RadioShack a lot of shit in the past for being a crappy consumer electronics store, but they were the only store around that had everything I needed, including the antenna and mounting hardware. Home Depot and Lowe’s had none of it.

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They have television over the air now?

In this age of fiber optics, premium cable channels, and satellite TV, a lot of people have forgotten that there exist television stations that broadcast their content. You know, over the air. As in, they transmit electromagnetic waves through the air from a big tower. No cables required.

There is one important reason to be interested in this new-fangled wireless transmission: it’s free. What’s that? It’s ad-supported? Millions and millions of cable subscribers willingly sit through advertisements and they PAY for the privilege. It’s time to wake up America. You are getting screwed. Seriously. And somehow all these people have been convinced that cable television is a UTILITY, that is, something they can’t live without.

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I don’t need any help, I’ll handle this one myself

Scenario: You move into a new house. You notice that the smoke alarms look kind of old. You’re not sure if they’ll actually work in a fire. One of them actually chirps for no reason every so often. You decide to replace them, but you keep putting it off.

Then one night before you go to bed, your wife decides to throw her favorite pair of pants in the dryer so they’ll be ready for her in the morning. But during the night, that bird’s nest in your dryer vent, which you’ve been meaning to clean up, causes a lint clog. It catches fire while your sleeping, the alarms fail to go off, and you die a slow, horrible burning death.

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An Open Letter to a Certain Someone

Dear Mrs. (Mr.?) Chirpy,

I regret to inform you that I was forced to evict you from your new home. I am sorry that after all your hard work, I so easily destroyed your hopes and dreams of a simple life and a family. Unfortunately, your new dwelling was in an inconvenient and potentially dangerous location, and I had no choice but to do what was best for me. Just know that you will always be in my heart, and your ingenuity and perseverance serves as an inspiration to many. I will use the rest of this letter as a tribute to your accomplishments.

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