My friends Sean and Stacy are one of those couples who are able to save money without seeming like they are suffering. They grow their own food in a ginormous garden. They find the best stuff on Freecycle and in Uncle Henry’s. And up until two months ago, they got 10-12 channels with rabbit ears on their 20 year old television.
When stations started to go digital, Sean and Stacy figured out their old television probably wouldn’t handle it well. This was fine, because they had planned on getting a new one anyway. What they hadn’t planned on was going from 10ish decent channels to two channels with crappy reception.
Oh but not for long my friends…
As Sean points out, these are public airways and as taxpayers, we shouldn’t have to pay cable and satellite companies to access these. And in addition to making people more aware of the issue via a letter to teh editor, Sean found a way to get their old channels (and then some) back with a solution that cost him a grand total of $15 in miscellaneous hardware supplies.
Stacy said they based the design off an ‘elephant ear antenna’. See this link for how to build it.
To further improve the elephant ear model, Sean put the ‘ear’ portions on hinges so he could angle them to get the best signal.
So if you have roof access and are slightly handy, you too can get digital television indefinitely for $20!
Image from: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2009/06/
“ This is exactly the information I needed! Our new apartment has terrible reception, and we really don’t want to spend the extra money for cable (that we won’t watch). We’ve been doing without TV, but we miss our evenings curled up on the couch 🙂 Thanks for the help!!”
“ Also as an FYI – you can install the antennae in your attic so you don’t need to have an unsightly contraption on your roof. That’s what we did and it works great! The hardest part was getting the wire from the attic to the TV in the living room. Required cutting some holes in the floor and snaking wires. But all in all, not too bad (which I can say since Sean did all the work!) :D”
“ Someone needs to buy that Sean guy a beer! He sure works hard, and is resourceful to boot!”
“ Oh another point…. just to remove any excuses for not giving this a shot… You can just as easily install this in a closet or elsewhere indoors – just be sure nothnig with great density is between it and the stations towers you are trying to receive (you can find that info online, I believe on the FCC website). Signals will pass through walls/insulation, but not dense things like chimneys, bookshelves (full of books of course), as well as large electronic devices (like a TV or stereo equipment) – I believe these create magnetic fields that mess with reception.Also, instead of a soldering iron, which many folks don’t have, you can just use a screw and a washer to pinch the stuff together. Just be sure you sand the surface down to shiny metal first.”
makes me wish I knew how to solder