Hi everyone!

First of all, I'd just like to say that this will be my first time venturing in HD programming so I'm very new to all this HD stuff. Anyways, I have a Toshiba DLP HDTV(65HM167) I just bought so I'm trying to see if I can take advantage of its HD capabilities and receive free over-the-air HD broadcasts. I have a subscription to Time Warner Cable, but I only have a regular non-HD cable box since I'm fairly content with receiving regular digital channels. Although, reason I'm making this thread is I am really interested in being able to watch those free HD channels.

Now, I called my Time Warner Cable company, and pretty much, the bottom line is that even if my goal is just to watch the free HD channels, my monthly bill would still go up around $10 a month despite not getting anything extra really(They charge you for upgrading your cable box to an HD box, and some other ridiculous programming fee even though I'm not getting any extra programs). Now, this is quite absurd if you ask me.

This is where you knowledgeable folks in these forums come in to hopefully help me out. I've read a few informational sites and forums before posting here about how you can gain access to these free over-the-air HD broadcasts by simply having a tuner and some sort of antenna. Now my HDTV says that it has a built in ATSC/NTSC/QAM tuner, so would this classify my TV as already having an HD Tuner, meaning I won't have to buy a separate HD device? If that is so, what type of antenna do I need to buy in order to get these free HD broadcasts, and how do I go about setting this up? Also, will me still having a subscription to Time Warner and using their regular digital cable box have any possible complications with this antenna?

Sorry for this being long, but I do hope that someone can help me out with my situation. Thanks, and I'll be checking back a lot!

You just need to hook up an antenna. Do a channel scan and you should be able to pick up your local digital channels most of which have a lot of HD programming. If your tv has a QAM tuner you can also just plug your cable directley to your tv (don't use your cable box) and do a channel scan. You will be able to get any channels that your cable company does not have encrypted which is usally just your local channels but sometimes some of the HD channels are not encrypted. You may have to do new scans occasionally as sometimes the channel numbers change.

Thanks for the reply Buckeye! Concerning the antenna, what exactly should I be looking for if I walk in a store and asked for one(or if I searched online)? Like I said, I'm a real newbie when it comes to HD so I really need to be guided by the hand lol. Are these antennas easy to install and program?

If possible, could you provide a link for a good antenna, that way I know where to start and what to look for?

The best antenna for you depends on a lot of things: Where will you be installing the antenna? An attic? Outside? By the TV?

Also, how easily will you be able to get the channels? To find out, you could do one of two things. One is for you to plug in your zipcode here, and let us do all the heavy lifting.

Or, you could do the work yourself and get more specific on what signals you can pick up and how easily. To do this, go to http://www.tvfool.com and click on the TV Signal Locator button. Follow the instructions, then when the results come back, simply put the mouse cursor over the results, right-click and then "save image as" the image into your hard drive. Give it a name that's easy to recall for when you want to post it online. That way, you can easily transfer it to AVSForum as an attachment.

Either way, we could help you find a proper antenna for you.

Depending on where you live a cheapo set of rabbit ears will work. Here is a link to a good place to start. It will tell you what stations you can get and what type of antenna you will need. http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx

I have a Phillips Silver Sensor Indoor Antenna, model PHDTV1, that works great, I got it at Circuit City for $20. I also have a Phillips Silver Sensor Amplified Indoor HDTV Antenna, model PHDTV3. It works fine as well but it cost me about $50 at Circuit City.

Indoor antennas work fine where I live but depending on your location you may need to place it in your attic or get an outdoor antenna. Good luck and enjoy your HD.

Thanks for the reply Buckeye! Concerning the antenna, what exactly should I be looking for if I walk in a store and asked for one(or if I searched online)? Like I said, I'm a real newbie when it comes to HD so I really need to be guided by the hand lol. Are these antennas easy to install and program?

If possible, could you provide a link for a good antenna, that way I know where to start and what to look for?

Radio Shack has some of the best antennas around. An antenna isn't rocket science and they are easy to install. I currently use Radio Shack's largest roof antenna and receive all Chicago channels perfectly from 40 miles away. You can get all cables and mounting equipment and hopefully some helpful information from your local Radio Shack.

Thanks for the helpful replies everyone! Mikemikeb, here's the tvfool.com website info I got; hopefully it'll be of good help:

Oh yea, and I should say, I would prefer to get an indoor antenna if possible. I've never really installed antennas before, but don't you have to snake cable wires outside if you opt for the outdoor/roof antenna(I wouldn't want to do this)? So definitely, indoor would be my first choice.

Before you buy an antenna why don't you just get a standard cable splitter. Disconnect the cable from your TW cable box, put the splitter in line and connect one output back to your TW box and other output to the back of your TV where the QAM input is located. Now do a scan and if all goes well you will get all your local HD channels without having to buy and setup an antenna. Heck, if you just want to try it out first just disconnect the cable from the cable box and connect it to the QAM tuner on the tv, scan and see what HD channels you will receive (should be all your HD locals). If satisfied, insert a splitter so that you have two outputs (one for the cable box and the other for the QAM tuner). Doesn't get any simpler than this.

^^^ Hehe, good thinking Zagor! I'll try that now!

Before you buy an antenna why don't you just get a standard cable splitter. Disconnect the cable from your TW cable box, put the splitter in line and connect one output back to your TW box and other output to the back of your TV where the QAM input is located. Now do a scan and if all goes well you will get all your local HD channels without having to buy and setup an antenna. Heck, if you just want to try it out first just disconnect the cable from the cable box and connect it to the QAM tuner on the tv, scan and see what HD channels you will receive (should be all your HD locals). If satisfied, insert a splitter so that you have two outputs (one for the cable box and the other for the QAM tuner). Doesn't get any simpler than this.

That technique worked for me with Comcast.

In addition to the lHD feeds from the local stations, I even managed to pick up a couple of unscrabled HD stations such as HGTV. This will, of course, vary depeding upon your cable system.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=611957

^^^ Hehe, good thinking Zagor! I'll try that now!

Let us know your results.

OK, z32razer, reading those TVFool results, two words come to mind: Oh dear.

You must be having mountains blocking you. 22 miles to the transmitters and such putrid reception? Mountains have to explain it.

Do you have an HOA? If so, there's a statute called "OTARD" (search Google) that allows you to put an antenna on the roof, if you own the roof, and the roof isn't a "common area" that the HOA owns. If it's a common area, I don't see a way you'll be able to get many OTA TV channels. If it's not a common area, or you don't have an HOA, you have a chance here.

You'll need a VERY big antenna, probably the Winegard HD8200P, hoisted on a mast about 40-50 feet above ground, pointed exactly 119 degrees clockwise from due north. You can buy one at SolidSignal.com. You'll need to ground it; the folks at Radio Shack can help you with that (and sell you Gold Series RG-6 cable to link the antenna to the TV tuner). The best mast you can get is actually plumber pipe, like the kind you'll find under the sink. Quite wind and corrosion-resistant.

Or, you can just try for clear QAM. With them, you'll be subject to random frequency changes, strange PSIP remapping (like two channels at, say, 43-7, or channel 11 HD being on something like 23-4), lots of blank channels, maybe a missing channel or two, that sort of thing. Good luck!

I agree. The key column in the tvfool.com listing is the one labeled "Rx(dbm)" which is a measure of the raw signal strength. Your strongest signals are below -100. I have Radio Shack's largest combination VHF/UHF antenna on my roof, and the weakest station that I can get reliably is right about at -100. It's possible to get somewhat better UHF reception with other antennas, especially with a UHF-only antenna like the Antennas Direct 91XG, but there's no way you're going to get anything with an indoor antenna.

For comparison, here's my tvfool listing. I once experimented a bit with a very simple indoor antenna, and was able to get some of the stations near the top of the list (down to about -60 dbm), but not very reliably. I had to put the antenna right next to a window facing towards the transmitters. At -100, no way.

Thanks for that detailed reply mikemikeb! Unfortunately, I do live in a place surrounded by mountains. In fact, my city is called Santa Clarita VALLEY <<< Valley, hills, mountains.....yea you get the picture lol.

Luckily though, I took Zagor's advice earlier and decided to just directly connect my cable to my TV and do a channel scan to see what comes up. Lo and behold, I got some HD channels!! WOOOT! Granted, I only got a few, but I did pick up most of the major HD channels ie. ABC, NBC, and MY ALL IMPORTANT KCAL9HD for my Laker games! WOOO! Some of the other HD channels I picked up had a wide variety of quality from very clear to no difference from a regular channel. Still, I'd say this was a good result especially after your analysis and seeing as how I'm not using any antennas at all at this point.

What I'm thinking now is that since I am able to pick up pretty much the one HD channel I care about, I might opt for a small indoor antenna to boost the signals that I am getting however much I can. With that said, do you have any recommendations? I looked at Newegg.com for some antennas, so let me know what you think about these, and of course, if any of you have recommendations:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882145017

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882172011

What do you all think?

I agree. The key column in the tvfool.com listing is the one labeled "Rx(dbm)" which is a measure of the raw signal strength. Your strongest signals are below -100. I have Radio Shack's largest combination VHF/UHF antenna on my roof, and the weakest station that I can get reliably is right about at -100. It's possible to get somewhat better UHF reception with other antennas, especially with a UHF-only antenna like the Antennas Direct 91XG, but there's no way you're going to get anything with an indoor antenna.

For comparison, here's my tvfool listing. I once experimented a bit with a very simple indoor antenna, and was able to get some of the stations near the top of the list (down to about -60 dbm), but not very reliably. I had to put the antenna right next to a window facing towards the transmitters. At -100, no way.

Hehe, thanks for breaking down the Rx column, I didn't really know what it meant. lol That's kinda discouraging that my highest signal strength is around -100. Dang this place I live in! If this is true though, how come I'm still able to receive the major HD channels? Like I mentioned in my post above, will buying one of those antennas I mentioned somewhat increase the signal strength of the channels that I am able to get? That's really only my goal now since I'm able to get my sports channel in HD. I don't really care about the others.

That's kinda discouraging that my highest signal strength is around -100. Dang this place I live in! If this is true though, how come I'm still able to receive the major HD channels?You're getting QAM from the cable company, which usually has a fiber feed directly from the station, or at worst gets its signal over the air in a more friendly environment than you, then passes it on to you.

Like I mentioned in my post above, will buying one of those antennas I mentioned somewhat increase the signal strength of the channels that I am able to get? That's really only my goal now since I'm able to get my sports channel in HD. I don't really care about the others.An antenna at your place and the cable feed are two independent "feeds", shall we say, and no antenna will make your QAM signals more powerful. In addition, since the QAM signals are digital, and you have a solid picture, there is no "better picture" attainable. The same thing applies with OTA/antenna HD signals.

I'm just wondering: What other QAM HD channels do you get? Any PBS stations? FOX? CBS? Those last two are nice for when NFL games are on -- you can invite your friends over and give them the gift of HD Envy. Oh, wait, when the Super Bowl is on (K)NBC in January of 2009, and on Sunday nights and for select playoff games, that's another channel there for your football fans.

By the way, four more things:

1. If you ever want to pick up an antenna feed, you will have to reconfigure the TV to pick up only antenna/OTA signals. Your TV manual should tell you how to properly set up your TV to pick up OTA channels.

2. Your TV will not be able to intelligently determine whether or not you're picking up an antenna feed or a QAM feed. So switching between sources without reconfiguring your TV each time & doing a rescan isn't possible.

3. You can't combine cable and OTA signals into one cable, hook that cable up to a TV, and expect to get both OTA and QAM feeds. It's not going to work.

4. Don't forget that if you ever lose KCAL or any channel your friends expect you to provide if they come over, you'll need to do a fresh scan of available QAM channels -- your TV manual should tell you how to scan the QAM "dial".

If you have any more questions &/or comments, feel free to bring 'em up.

Thanks for that followup on QAM mike! Luckily, I seem to be getting good results from the QAM seeing as how I get CBS, NBC, KCAL, FOX, ABC and a few other misc HD channels.

Now that I know what setup I'm going to be using, I think I'm going to be buying a splitter to split my cable connection into two lines. My goal is to be able to switch between the QAM feed and my regular cable box, but I do have a question concerning coaxial cable lines if you by chance know the answer. I'm thinking about inputting one of cable lines from the splitter directly into my TV to use for the QAM, and the other into my cable box, but the problem arises in where do I put the line coming out of the cable box to? I would usually put that cable line from my digital box directly into my TV, but seeing as how I would now be using that for my QAM feed, I'm wondering if I could use one my TV's many inputs. Are there any coaxial to RCA converters out there because I was thinking about connecting the digital cable box to one of my TV's RCA inputs. Any other suggestions?

I'm thinking about inputting one of cable lines from the splitter directly into my TV to use for the QAM, and the other into my cable box, but the problem arises in where do I put the line coming out of the cable box to? ... Are there any coaxial to RCA converters out there because I was thinking about connecting the digital cable box to one of my TV's RCA inputs.Doesn't work that way. The RCA composite video standard's designed to carry narrowband (about 10 MHz) analog video, not 1 GHz (1,000 MHz) or more of digital data. Your TV won't be able to decode QAM via any input except for what you're using now.

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if the cable box passes the QAM channels through unharmed, no splitter required. The box might need to be turned on, but see if channels come in with the box turned off first. Report back here with results.

It also sounds like you've got a very basic cable box, if it only has RCA-out. You should consider upgrading to a newer model which has component, VGA, or HDMI out (double-check with your TVs connectivity to see what your need is...)

Enjoy the clearer world of HD, my friend!

Santa Clarita is a dead zone for OTA. The same is true for Simi Valley where I live. As suggested by a previous poster I have a Winegard 8200 UHF/VHF antenna with a Winegard 8275 UHF/VHF preamp. I have it mounted on my chimney. (The winds are creating havoc with it this week but it still is good.) I get all digital stations except channel 13 digital.

If you decide to try to get OTA I am guessing that nothing less than somethine similar to this will do any good.

Rick R

Hehe, I just checked behind my cable box to see what was back there(never payed attention to it before lol), and what do you know, it does have other outputs! Let's see, it has DVI, S-Video, YPbPr(the ones with blue, red, green colors), an optical digital audio, your regular Red and White audio outputs, and finally, a Black color Digital Audio output I've never seen before. Seeing as how I would just be outputting a regular non-HD cable box signal, I was thinking about just using the YPbPr along with the Red and White audio outputs. Would any of you recommend otherwise, and have me use any of the other outputs I listed? Again, thanks for all the great help fellas!

Go with the best connection possible. It's entirely possible that there will be some HD channels that you can get through the STB that you can't get just through the coax-TV connection. For instance, in my area, ESPN HD is available, but I can't get it through QAM, I have to use a Comcast STB.

And as a money saver, if you didn't already know, you can use any RCA cables for your component hookup, unless you're real picnicky about your cable color coding!

;)

Hehe, I just checked behind my cable box to see what was back there(never payed attention to it before lol), and what do you know, it does have other outputs! Let's see, it has DVI, S-Video, YPbPr(the ones with blue, red, green colors), an optical digital audio, your regular Red and White audio outputs, and finally, a Black color Digital Audio output I've never seen before. Seeing as how I would just be outputting a regular non-HD cable box signal, I was thinking about just using the YPbPr along with the Red and White audio outputs. Would any of you recommend otherwise, and have me use any of the other outputs I listed? Again, thanks for all the great help fellas!Sounds like you already have a HD cable box if it has DVI and YPbPr outputs. What is the make and model number?