I don't know how long this clearance sale will last but the Radio Shack 16-3499, the Accurain HST 6000, is on sale for less than $90. Picked one up about one hour ago and so far much better than the Sammy SIR-T351.
Thank you very much for posting this alert. I've been on the prowl for a OTA receiver and I drove straight to RS after reading your post (I called first to make sure they had them in stock). I bought one of the last two units in Austin, TX.
The box looks to be a clone of the Humax HFA100 with one noteworthy difference: they deleted the RBG output (bummer).
So far it works like a champ - and I'm using a $6.99 RCA antenna!
It is is receiving channels better than my old SIR-T351. With the 351, after I upgraded the firmware to handle the DD dropouts, I was unable to watch any HD station without video dropouts every 15-20 seconds.
It takes about 2-3 seconds for the channel to change.
I am using the Radio Shack 15-1880 antenna and am 14 miles from the antennas. Right now my antenna is on the 1st floor of the house opposite the downtown antennas. I am not receiving all of my HD channels but I haven't had an opportunity to play with antenna placement yet.
How are Radio Shack's return policies on sale items? Thinking of purchasing one of the STBs to see if it can pull HD content coming from towers 26 miles away. If the STB doesn't work well then a return would be in order.
For those who have purchased the STB, please post your review/feedback. Thanks.
I just picked it up. Bought the 1 yr warranty for $10. A lot of trees in my area. Locks in all. PBS drops out sometimes, otherwise it is at 80% signal strength. Need to tweak my antenna direction. (a 25 yr old roof top) All channels are about 12 miles away.
Way better than the Motorola and Samsung 351 I tried in spring.
I too have a 351 with firmware update. I could not pick up WBBM-DT w/o lock up every 10 minutes. I just picked one up in downtown Chicago. I'm gonna put the 351 up on Ebay.
New to this whole OTA thing so forgive me if this is a dumb question. Is 80% signal strength good or bad? Would a more expensive model such as the LG lst 4200a lock signal strength at a higher % or is the signal strength % simply a function of one's location and the strength at which signals are transmitted from towers?
I just finished playing with the HST 6000 I got from Radio Shack today. Seems pretty sensitive, as I was able to get WBBM-DT in my living room with just some rabbit ears (didn't even bring out the CM7777
). My living room isn't the best place for TV reception; my bedroom in the west corner of the house is much better. My FusionII never ever locked WBBM-DT in my living room, no matter how hard I tried. I had to use a metal shelf/reflector in the west bedroom and the CM7777 to get anything off channel 3 on the FusionII.
Adding channels missed by the scan seems easy enough. Just punch in the RF number, lock the channel with some antenna fiddling, and then hit the add channel button. It'll pull the PSIP info and you should have all the subchannels in your lineup.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sullly11 /forum/post/0
New to this whole OTA thing so forgive me if this is a dumb question. Is 80% signal strength good or bad? Would a more expensive model such as the LG lst 4200a lock signal strength at a higher % or is the signal strength % simply a function of one's location and the strength at which signals are transmitted from towers?
I just finished playing with the HST 6000 I got from Radio Shack today. Seems pretty sensitive, as I was able to get WBBM-DT in my living room with just some rabbit ears (didn't even bring out the CM7777
). My living room isn't the best place for TV reception; my bedroom in the west corner of the house is much better. My FusionII never ever locked WBBM-DT in my living room, no matter how hard I tried. I had to use a metal shelf/reflector in the west bedroom and the CM7777 to get anything off channel 3 on the FusionII.
Adding channels missed by the scan seems easy enough. Just punch in the RF number, lock the channel with some antenna fiddling, and then hit the add channel button. It'll pull the PSIP info and you should have all the subchannels in your lineup.
Can you check and see if this box will scan for new channels/updated PSIP when turned off? The Humax has this feature,which would be great for unattended Dx.
Thanks for the tip, Moxie1617. I was able to pick one up locally tonight.
One thing that I haven't seen on any of the other receivers I've tried is that the meter shows both signal strength and S/N ratio.
I'm pleased with the tuner, and it seems to switch channels faster in only about one second, which is faster than any of the other boxes I've had or tried.
I don't like the guide all that much. It seems to have a very limited memory, so any scrolling causes the picture and audio to freeze while it tries to pull down the data.
All in all, it's not bad, especially for the price.
I just picked up one of these thanks to this thread. I too was looking to get a Humax but I couldn't find it in stock *anywhere*. But seeing that this was half the price and is supposed to be just as good, I couldn't really pass it up.
This is my first taste of anything HDTV so i'm a bit new at this. Just 3 days ago we picked up an HDTV but since we don't have cable/sattelite we had nothing to get an HDTV signal with, until now.
The unit seems to work pretty good. However, I am missing several channels, namely NBC, WPIX, and PBS here in NYC. Everything else comes in fine. The strange part is that the tuner reports that i'm getting 49% signal on these missing channels though nothing shows up on them, even though I get perfect reception on other channels with even lower signal strength. Even more puzzling, the unit reads *exactly* 49% for these missing channels and never fluxuates up or down, like the other channels do.
Is the unit defective, or could it be my antenna? I am planning on replacing the antenna soon anyway, but I'd like to know if I should take it back. I've rescanned several times with no effect.
Even more puzzling, the unit reads *exactly* 49% for these missing channels and never fluxuates up or down, like the other channels do.
Is the unit defective, or could it be my antenna? I am planning on replacing the antenna soon anyway, but I'd like to know if I should take it back. I've rescanned several times with no effect.
It's possible there is some multipath problem, but just as likely it could be those stations are actually down for maintenance. You might want to try verifying using another source whether those channels are currently running. PBS in my area switches from 4x480i SD channels to 1080i+480i at 8pm in my area. Some HDTV tuners have problems with the switchoff. NBC in my area broadcasts on VHF range, so many UHF antennae have problems pulling it in if they aren't adjusted properly. Those are other things you could check on.
Thanks, Moxie. Bought mine last night. I was ready to pay $215 for the Humax Monday morning, but couldn't find it in stock. Good thing. This unit seems to do exactly what I need, was easy to set up, and I'm getting the full set of stations here in Albuquerque with rock-solid reception.
Thanks for the post, Moxie! I bought two of them. One was the Demo (they never turned it on though) so they gave me an extra 1 year warranty on it.
They work great. I live about thirty miles (as the crow flies) from Seattle. I have tall trees between the stations and my antenna but I still get all the stations. My neighbor with an lst4200 has problems with a couple of them. My signal strengths are in the high 60's to mid 70's. I plan to shorten and clean up a couple of my antenna runs. I am using two passive splitters (good quality, low loss) and I don't know what signal amp would be good. I had a cheap RS one but it made the signal worse. Any suggestions would be appreciated. And would an HDMI to DVI adapter result in a better picture than component? (My TV had DVI but not HDMI - The component looks pretty good!)
BTW, there are no units left on the Kitsap peninsula (across the Sound from Seattle.) I was told that there were 6 left in the greater Seattle area at noon today.
For $190 My little (analog tuner-equipped) LCD TVs are finally showing me what they are capable of. I am very happy with the ease of setup and use. And finding all though little hidden sub channels was a nice surprise. Good deal, thanks again Moxie!
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