ATSC 3.0 OTA channels in St. Marys

1stGenSMIB

Active Member
Sorry to hear about the SD HomeRun box issues. I had heard of those before but never did enough research to try one.

Since this thread has come back to the top, I will take this opportunity to thank @RoseRed for bringing YTTV to my attention. It has been an acceptable alternative for us and our DirecTV equipment has been returned to AT&T (Still have not removed the dish from the roof, but it is on the projects list.)
We are running the YTTV app on various age FireTV sticks, and the only issue we've experienced is occasionally the app 'locking up' where it just stops playback and repeats the same one second blurp it got hung up on until we reboot the Fire stick. Only other minor issue was on my shop TV...the audio got out of sync, and after trying lots of stuff, uninstalling and reinstalling the YTTV app on that Fire stick fixed it. With the latest trend of these streaming companies allowing you to easily add a new device to your existing account with a simple URL on your phone (or whatever), those types of things take minutes to resolve. The "DVR" thing works just fine too. The Live TV guide is not quite as easy to use as I thought DirecTV's was, but it isn't terrible. It also always has your most frequent programs up at the top, so daily stuff like News is quick to acquire without 800 clicks/menus.
All this other tech (digital TV/ATSC, etc.) is still interesting and cool, but YTTV has solved our immediate issues and we are back to one remote, since the Amazon remotes are pretty good at being programmable to control things like the Sonos speakers, and an old Harmon full size A/V receiver.

sorry for the hijack on ATSC 3.0....back to your regularly scheduled programming. :rolleyes:
 
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Sneakers

Just sneakin' around....
Update: I ended up installing the Televes DAT Boss LR mix antenna and still couldn't manage to pull in WJLA at all.
Sorry it didn't work out for you. Are you using a rotor? Without a rotor, I'll pull a few channels. With a rotor and that antenna, I'm easily over 50 channels now. Many are garbage, tho. Quite a few DC and Baltimore channels.

I also found that using an unconventional installation of the antenna got much better reception. Replaced the metal upright pole with PVC. Removed the ground plane/lightning wire. Yeah, I know it should be lightning grounded, but the reception is far better without it.

I inherited my dad's 6 month old TV, and it's WebOS internet-ready, so I can now get hundreds of channels. Haven't even investigated the subscription services yet.
 

LightRoasted

If I may ...
If I may ...

Off topic, but internet related. Do libraries still have books, or have they replaced them all with computers connected to the internet?
 

Grumpy

Well-Known Member
If I may ...

Off topic, but internet related. Do libraries still have books, or have they replaced them all with computers connected to the internet?
:lol: Funny, just saw an announcement on the groundbreaking for a new library in the Twin Beaches and wondered that myself.
 

sparkyaclown

Active Member
I am picking up 58 channels, most are garbage. My goal was WJLA, which is really the only channel we watch of the locals besides PBS stations which come in great. Unfortunately while WJLA's tower is within a mile or two of the others, their signal just seems to be too weak. I originally planned to mount it in my attic but it was just too large to be able to successfully point it in the right direction so it ended up on the peak of my garage and while not as high as my main home roof, it offered a better unobstructed view of the direction I needed to face it. I have since considered adding a rotor but haven't really looked into them yet.
 

1stGenSMIB

Active Member
I had my antenna kinda pointing in between DC & Baltimore, but found with a really high gain 91-XG antenna and UHF signals, a rotator (and an amp) makes a difference. Today's rotators are not the big brown box with a dial like Grandma had on top of her TV, the Channel Master I had 10 years ago still required a wire, but the box was tiny and it even had a remote. This one is programmable - https://www.solidsignal.com/rca-programmable-outdoor-antenna-rotator-with-remote-vh226f
 

1stGenSMIB

Active Member
How long/what are the dimensions of that antenna??..looks cool. I liked my 91-XG and way up on the roof it was just a cool high tech looking antenna, capable of bringing me the world, and not as gaudy as the ugly old school VHF/UHF combos, but it was over 6 ft long.

Here is what I ended up with on the roof at my old house in the Myrtle Point area about 12-13 years ago. I have probably shared this before, but originally I had read the FCC was gonna move ALL TV up to UHF, so me and buddy that I worked with (he lived over in the 7th) had this cool idea to solve all of our problems and get 91XGs and give DirecTV the big F You! Well, when some channels stayed VHF (discussed in other threads), I ended up getting a dedicated Hi-VHF antenna too..which when coupled with the rotator (since I also realized pointing the XG between Balto & DC was not good enough) then necessitated guy wires and stuff. It was a cool experiment but an absolute failure. There is a science to this, and I was just dipping my toe in the pool. I noticed the Televes has a LTE filter...Guess I could go dig into the FCC spectrum allocations to see why they'd do that, but I had times where reception was perfect, or zero..I always thought I had other problems like interference. It was never reliable enough to stop paying DirecTV for local channels. My old neighbor and I keep in touch, and I heard recently the new owner ripped all that junk down. He probably got about $5 at Super Salvage for the metal. 🤷‍♂️

antennas2.jpg
 
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Sneakers

Just sneakin' around....
84 x 34 x 29"

 

PeoplesElbow

Well-Known Member
Just FYI I read a comment on a Facebook OTA group that said the only way to watch ATSC 3.0 with HDHomerun software on a PC or FireTV otherwise you will be beating your head against the wall.
 

sparkyaclown

Active Member
Just FYI I read a comment on a Facebook OTA group that said the only way to watch ATSC 3.0 with HDHomerun software on a PC or FireTV otherwise you will be beating your head against the wall.
While the unit actually was working, I found the PC streamed it great, Fire TV was barely passable.
 
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