Trying to help out my parents....here is the problem....they have regular cable coming directly from the wall to the TV using coaxial. I went over and hooked up an antenna in the attic and didn't realize they didn't have digital cable through an external box(and they don't want to pay for HD but have an HDTV)

The problem then arises because there is only 1 coxial input on the TV. The guy at radio shack told me I could hook up a splitter backwards and combine the signal and it would work when the TV automatically programed its channels....it doesn't. I tried the OTA by itself and it works fine cable works fine on its own but I can't get the HD OTA when they are combined into one signal. My parents don't want to buy a receiver or pay for an external box right now so do I have any other solutions?

The problem is that the OTA networks and the cable company use the same the channels for different programs so you can't mix them using a splitter. You need a switch so that you can select which source to go to the TV connection

thanks

The problem is that the OTA networks and the cable company use the same the channels for different programs so you can't mix them using a splitter. You need a switch so that you can select which source to go to the TV connection

Hmmm, this might be clunky, but... Do they have a VCR with a cable-ready tuner? If that were hooked to the TV's composite inputs, then, they might run the cable to the VCR and use the recorder's tuner to watch their basic cable. The OTA antenna could then be hooked up to the coax in on the TV. I'm assuming that the TV lets them switch between its inputs.

Besides having to get used to switching back and forth and remembering to change cable channels on the VCR remote (or VCR setting of a multidevice remote), if they are getting unencrypted QAM channels with the HDTV, they'd probably lose them going through the VCR.

The upside is that they might not have to buy anything new for this arrangement.

Or use S-video out on the VCR and in on the TV if both devices have S-video jacks.
You'd still use the L+R audio RCA jacks for this variation.

If you haven't tried already, your parents TV might be getting the HD locals through clearQAM cable. Although with the way Comcast* has been shuffling the channel line-up recently, that might be more confusing for your parents.

ft

* channel shuffling is by no means limited to Comcast. Insert the name of your cable company here.