I’ve been wondering... Is there any TV still available “over the air”. In other words, if you still have an old analog TV, is there some kind of antenna that pulls in anything, without having cable, dish, etc? Just curious.
There are plenty of channels "over the air", but they are all digital now. You'd need a digital converter box to watch them on an analog TV.
> Is there any TV still available “over the air”. In other words, if you still have an old analog TV, is there some kind of antenna that pulls in anything, without having cable, dish, etc? Just curious.
Yes, emphatically yes! I quit satellite a year or two ago. There are more digital channels over the air than there used to be analog channels. You need a digital tv to see them, of course — which, I believe, all tvs are now — or an analog tv with a digital converter box.
I have an old indoor powered antenna, rabbit ears (about $20 or $30), and am near Columbia, SC, a medium-sized city. (A non-powered antenna wasn’t good enough.) I receive free — supported by advertising — over-the-air hd transmissions of NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, three educational channels (including PBS), two retro or vintage channels (old tv shows), a couple of old movie channels, a Spanish-language channel, a programming-for-blacks channel, several weather channels, and a religious channel (and maybe some more — I don’t have them all enabled on my tv). Also, I find many tv shows and old movies on the net.
The main thing I miss is access to some of the ESPN broadcasts. Through my ISP I can see ESPN2 and ESPN3, but I can’t see ESPN broadcasts live, only later in rebroadcasts on ESPN3. On the whole, though, I’m pleased with what’s available. It’s nice not having to pay monthly bills for cable or satellite.
Not analog but I bought the radio shack $25 antenna (looks like a black square 2”high by 12” long by 12” wide) and was able to get all my local channels in digital quality plus a bunch of junk channels like I listed in my previous post. Got rid of it when I found the comcast split thing.
Yes, yes more than ever.
If you don’t live in the boonies any old cheap antenna will work.
TV’s less than about 5 years old already have a digital tuner.
Site to check out: http://www.tvfool.com/
You need to get a set top converter to recieve over the air TV with an analog set. Wal-Mart has them for about $40.
Not really. The neighbor has an analog tv and when everything converted a few years ago, he got some sort of antenna that was supposed to bring in stations over the air. It didn’t work. For a while, here in the country, we could get one station that was 40-some miles away (don’t know the mileage as the crow flies) but it wasn’t long before they shut that tower down so now there’s nothing over the air. YMMV if you live in the city.