Antenna Makers Put Free TV On Radar Of A Pay-TV Society

investors.com ^ | April 24, 2009 | Patrick Seitz

[Las Vegas Dave]

The lowly TV antenna is making a comeback, and bringing free TV along with it.

Sales of over-the-air TV antennas jumped last year thanks to the digital TV transition, as users upgrade their gear for better reception.

At the same time, some consumers looking to save money in today's economy are dumping cable and satellite pay TV services in favor of free broadcast television.

Makers of antennas, as well as local broadcasters, hope to drive more viewers to free television by touting its merits.

Besides being free, broadcast television offers the best high-definition picture quality, because it's uncompressed. Cable and satellite operators compress their HD channels in order to squeeze in more channels on their bandwidth, which degrades their quality.

Plus, most local broadcasters are now multicasting, with each providing up to six extra subchannels for viewers to enjoy.

Even if they can't persuade pay TV customers to switch to broadcast-only, antenna makers and broadcasters hope to get them to at least use antennas on secondary televisions in the home. Once households experience free TV, they might be willing to make the switch at some point, people in the industry say.

"We're seeing a huge uptick" in TV antenna sales, said Lou Lenzi, senior vice president of product management for Audiovox 's (VOXX) antenna manufacturing unit. "Some of our customers are reporting anywhere from a 50% to 100% increase in sales over the past 12 months."

< snip >

"A lot of people are rethinking spending $50 to $100 a month on pay TV," said Grant Whipple, national sales manager for antenna manufacturer Winegard, of Burlington, Iowa. "People are talking about not going out to eat or cutting out this or that, but I can save a lot of people well over $1,000 a year by putting up an antenna."

[Bigh4u2]

Correction..

Doppler effect = Capture effect.

[Las Vegas Dave]

Did you consider putting on a mast on your roof top??

What did antennaweb.org say about your location?

[Gondring]

The initial decoder boxes had a hard time discriminating between the different signals.

Like any other ‘new’ technology, they were prone to bugs in the system.

Of course, there were the crowds here who laughed at those who waited to get the boxes til after the initial ones (and when the coupons had run out), saying there was no difference and people should have gotten the early ones.

In any case, despite being technical, there's a huge mental block across the part of my brain that should handle electrity, ASP/DSP, etc., which is very odd, considering the relatives I have who did some remarkable work years ago, and younger ones currently working in the field ("hey, bro...I got a question for ya..." :-)

[JZelle]

I did consider that and know it would improve things, but I didn’t want to deal with it at the time, especially with the HOA. AntWEB showed limited choices due to distance and terrain, so I went for broke and got the best UHF antenna and amp I could find.

[Bigh4u2]

You really don’t need a ‘special’ antenna.

I’m using my old outdoor antenna that I’ve had up for years and a 10db amplifier that works fine.

Especially since I can ‘rotate’ the antenna in any direction and pull in signals as far as 150 miles away with no problem.

[SonOfDarkSkies]

I enjoy Special Report at the end of the day. Other than that and NCIS, I really don’t watch TV.

[Las Vegas Dave]

Some channels will still use the VHF frequency from channel 8 through 13.

FCC.pdf file is below that shows state by state the assigned frequencies;

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-06-1082A2.pdf

[yazoo]

Yeah, but can you get LOGO tv through your roof antenna? I think not.

[krb]

I LOVE the "Retro Network". I had no idea about "Run for your Life" or "It takes a Thief" until they started broadcasting them. And then there tons of shows that I do remember, like The A-Team and Airwolf. I hope they pick up the original Wild Wild West sometime!

[I Drive Too Fast]

I didn’t have “ON TV”, but I remember it. I had the other option that was available at the time. Remember “Select TV”? The box had a green button on the front. If you wanted to purchase a pay tv event (whether movie or special) you hit the button within 10 minutes to purchase it.

[ConservativeMan55]

bttt

[mbraynard]

Given the availability of premium programing on the internets (Hulu, TVTorrents, AdultSwim, SouthParkStudios, etc.) and the high quality of OTA broadcasts, there really isn’t any reason to have cable anymore.

[dfwgator]

That’s why the cable companies who also provide Internet want to start charging for excessive bandwidth usage, they want to force you to use them as the sole source of programming rather than the other sites.

[Pontiac]

If only there were something worth watching on broadcast television.

[Nowhere Man]

Old movie re-runs & old TV sit-com reruns.

We get two RTN's here over the air here in the Western suburbs of Pittsburgh. RTN is Retro Television Network which shows old shows from the 1950's to the 1980's. I use rabbit ears, my best set is a Rembrandt model from 1959.

[Nowhere Man]

Does anyone remember “ON TV” from the late seventies, they would show premium movies over a UHF signal, and you had to purchase a descrambler to get the signal. But you could still get the sound. I remember they would show soft core porn late at night, and you could tune in and hear the action, plus every once in awhile the picture would “straighten out” just enough that you could see clearly what was going on.

We didn't have it here in Pittsburgh but I think there was an ON-TV station in Cleveland.

[mbraynard]

heh - Verizon FIOS for the win!

[bert]

What is the approximate size of that antenna?

I built a fractal antenna that is about a foot square and it works pretty well but I wonder about scaling up to a lerger size.

[puppypusher]

I'm really surprised that the airheads in Washington haven't tried to require licensing of each T.V.receiver like the do in Great Britain.

God!Lets hope that never happens.

[Erasmus]

"Besides being free, broadcast television offers the best high-definition picture quality, because it's uncompressednot compressed so much. Cable and satellite operators compress their HD channels up the wazoo in order to squeeze in more channels on their bandwidth, which degrades their quality."