I'm thinking of upgrading to an HDTV and have some questions for those getting OTA HD in the Bay Area.
I live in Berkeley and it looks like while I get most of my networks from SF, I need to also point toward San Jose, 57 miles away, to get NBC. I've been looking at the Channel Master antennaes, but I can't tell if you have one station in the blue range and the rest in the green or yellow ranges, whether you can just point your directional antennae at the blue and pick everything else up off the rest of the antennae, or whether you'd need two directionals or one that can point in two directions.
Also, on antennaeweb, it has a column that's supposed to read "live now" for digital channels that are being broadcast, yet none of the bay area channels say "live now." Most are blank. I take it for granted that the digital broadcasts are available right? You can't get HDTV from an analog broadcast, can you, and I know that's available OTA. Also, I assume that all the digital channels are UHF, so I need to buy the antennae that can reach 60 miles on UHF to get NBC, don't I?
If I go the HD route, I'll be using Directv plus OTA, so I will need to get all the networks in HD to really make the investment worthwhile (as directv will give me either none, or only CBS HD). I'd appreciate if anyone in Berkeley, Oakland, Albany, etc. can sound off on their OTA experiences.
Thanks for the input.
UPDATE: I was asked to add the info below to my post. I now live in a hilly area in Oakland and can't get OTA reception any more. Too bad for me.
Viewers in the San Francisco Bay Area will find the following sites very useful for finding local digital stations:
Bay Area DTV - HDTV Channel List - http://www.choisser.com/sfonair.html
FCC DTV Reception Maps - http://www.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/maps/
Locate TV stations available at your address and compute expected signal strength and directions -
http://www.tvfool.com/
I live in Berkeley and it looks like while I get most of my networks from SF, I need to also point toward San Jose, 57 miles away, to get NBC. I've been looking at the Channel Master antennaes, but I can't tell if you have one station in the blue range and the rest in the green or yellow ranges, whether you can just point your directional antennae at the blue and pick everything else up off the rest of the antennae, or whether you'd need two directionals or one that can point in two directions.
Also, on antennaeweb, it has a column that's supposed to read "live now" for digital channels that are being broadcast, yet none of the bay area channels say "live now." Most are blank. I take it for granted that the digital broadcasts are available right? You can't get HDTV from an analog broadcast, can you, and I know that's available OTA. Also, I assume that all the digital channels are UHF, so I need to buy the antennae that can reach 60 miles on UHF to get NBC, don't I?
If I go the HD route, I'll be using Directv plus OTA, so I will need to get all the networks in HD to really make the investment worthwhile (as directv will give me either none, or only CBS HD). I'd appreciate if anyone in Berkeley, Oakland, Albany, etc. can sound off on their OTA experiences.
Thanks for the input.
UPDATE: I was asked to add the info below to my post. I now live in a hilly area in Oakland and can't get OTA reception any more. Too bad for me.
Viewers in the San Francisco Bay Area will find the following sites very useful for finding local digital stations:
Bay Area DTV - HDTV Channel List - http://www.choisser.com/sfonair.html
FCC DTV Reception Maps - http://www.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/maps/
Locate TV stations available at your address and compute expected signal strength and directions -
http://www.tvfool.com/