Digital TV Antennas Find Frugal Young Fans

NY Times ^ | December 5, 2010 | MATT RICHTEL and JENNA WORTHAM

[brityank]

Rabbit Ears Perk Up for Free HDTV

Julie and Anthony Bayerl of St. Paul, Minn., love watching prime-time shows on the sleek 50-inch television in their bedroom. They also love that they pay nothing for the programming.

The only thing they do not love is how a low-flying plane, heavy rain or just a little too much movement in the room can wipe out the picture.

“If someone is changing in there, it messes up your reception,” said Ms. Bayerl, a legislative assistant. “We try to stay very still when we watch television.”

The Bayerls are using an old technology that some people are giving a second chance. They pull free TV signals out of the air with the modern equivalent of the classic rabbit-ear antenna.

~ ~ ~ snip ~ ~ ~

“My husband’s best friend thinks we’re big dorks for having rabbit ears and not cable,” Ms. Bayerl said. But when their introductory price for cable TV and Internet access expired this year and the bill soared to $150, the couple halved it by cutting TV. “It wasn’t something we were willing to pay for,” she said.

Many pay TV customers are making the same decision. From April to September, cable and satellite companies had a net loss of about 330,000 customers. Craig Moffett, a longtime cable analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein, said the consensus of the industry executives he had talked to was that most of these so-called cord-cutters were turning to over-the-air TV. “It looks like they’re leaving for the antenna,” he said.

[wheresmyusa]

"And why did analog need to be ‘freed up’- for what?"

If i'm not mistaken....and i very well could be, the reason for the switch was to make more bandwidth available for wi-fi & cellphones.

[Nowhere Man]

My best antenna for HDTV I have used is a set of Rembrandt rabbit ears from 1959 which my parents got as a wedding gift in that year.

[ADemocratNoMore]

Lots of good DIY designs out there, this one looks good too.

Google “fractal antenna”, easy to build and reportedly works quite well.

[Oztrich Boy]

[Titan Magroyne]

Hiya FRiend, thought you might find this thread of some interest.