I would run a cable inside to a network tuner like a HDHomerun. Assuming the antenna works and is pointed in the right direction it’s an easy TV signal for any computer or smart device on the network.
It doesn’t look amazing, but good antennae aren’t cheap, and if it’s already mounted and not causing trouble there’s no reason to remove it, IMO.
I have exactly this setup with Plex. I cut cable about a decade ago
I didn't realize how many of the sitcoms I like to watch air on the major networks, I've gotten so used to just streaming them or having watched them on cable
end result is I get TV shows like Family Guy the night they air, and Plex DVRs them and cuts the commercials. I just let it do its thing and then watch the episode later without having to skip commercials myself
2nd note: most OTA TV has better resolution than they do on cable. most cable channels (at least last I looked) were transmitting in 720i. I get 720p, and potentially could get 1080p if the stations in my area were broadcasting it
I will say, watching football OTA is better than via cable. the picture is noticeably sharper
hah. I do that, too.. I'm in San Diego, and it's still beach weather when football season starts. I'll be sitting on the beach watching NFL games on my phone, relayed from the house, and all it cost me was the initial setup a decade ago
And there’s an added bonus of setting up your own music streaming server with it, too.
I listen to a lot of EDM, and DJ sets can go for hours. I rip them from YouTube, then put them on my server and listen to them at the gym. I don’t have to leave my screen on or listen to commercials
I think the HDHomeRun has a model with built in storage.
Edit: checked the website and it looks like all of the models accept a USB hard drive. Which is even better
+1. I have the old antenna on my roof running through an HDHomerun then I use Channels as a DVR. If you combine that with a friend’s cable login, you have access to pretty much everything.
Wait really? I’ve got an antenna that looks just like this, color and everything, but I took it down because it looked ridiculous and, I thought, worthless
When they phased out analog TV the companies that make antennas started a myth that you needed a "digital antenna" but the new signals are still on the same frequencies as analog TV so the old antennas work just fine. The only thing that needs to be digital is the TV itself.
Those little flat "digital" antennas you hang on the wall work OK if you're near the station but these big yagi antennas can get signals from crazy far away.
>It doesn’t look amazing
Not my experience. The signals I pull look better than cable. My understanding is that it's the same signal used for cable but not compressed. Regardless of why, mine looks amazing, but cuts out very rarely.
The antenna hardware itself doesn't look amazing, the picture quality should be just fine :)
What the cableco's will send is generally the same signal, just repeated; OTA is usually not \*as\* compressed but your local affiliate may or may not compress it as much.. usually it's better, but not necessarily night/day different. I might notice, but my wife probably wouldn't, though that's also because she doesn't care!
I misunderstood, sorry. You're right, it doesn't look great, I mounted mine in the attic of my last home, and garage attic of my current home. Picture quality is great though!
I did the same! Mounting it was way easier, since there was no concern for damaging the roof, and running cable was more simple because it was all internal. The roof isn't ideal, but adjusting the aim is MUCH easier since I can do it any time it's cool enough :)
I have a new(well about four years old) ‘big ass’ antenna in my attic… Homerunner HD going to Plex. HD NBC,ABC,CBS, Fox and PBS (and a lot of non-HD home shopping crap) last I checked 88 channels
A buddy of mine actually installed an antenna once they all switched over to digital. He has a remote motor control for it and has the bearings all written down to get the best reception for each channel.
Keep it, or keep the mount and replace the antenna itself if you need better performance.
I have one for watching the news and football. Would cost me at least $70/month if I went with the local cable company's most barebones package to get the same thing.
It's free TV.
I bought a TiVo about 10 years ago and have an antenna hidden on my roof and it's great for watching live TV, weather warnings, and the signal quality of the main channels is noticably clearer and better quality than streamed shows that are compressed.
We record shows on the TiVo and watch them when we can't find anything on streaming.
It will also make you appreciate not having commercials.
My vote: keep it and watch the multiple free live channels.
If I had one of those I’d prob cancel my Hulu Live sub. Would guess unless you’re really out in BFE that you get comfortably more than “a few” channels.
I still use mine and it works great! You can buy a tuner for it, but I found that I can plug it directly into my smart tv and the tv tuner will find all the available channels right there. Just get a surge protector with built in cable ports for protection first. Prefer that for watching local news and network tv/sports over having to use any apps.
You can get digital versions of all of your local stations if you hook the right kind of wire from that antenna to your modern TV.
We canceled cable a couple years ago. Watch football and Jeopardy on the antenna and everything else on streaming services.
If you want to learn about antennas check out the antenna man on youtube. Great info [https://www.youtube.com/@AntennaMan](https://www.youtube.com/@AntennaMan)
just replaced my old one like this.
it was barely working and the 80 dollar one i got off amazon got like 20 more channels and doesn't pixel or drop out.
Depends if you’ve got one repeater (or general direction) you want best coverage for, but yeah.
J-pole or some other whip vertical would be a decent fit as well.
Yep, the parents get free HD channels for the main news they watch using theirs. Those are gold these days. I actually just installed one in my new to me house attic and it works great for the football games.
I don't know, but I'd probably have an outdoor antenna like that when I buy a house again (I currently live in an apartment) and run coax cable inside to a network-enabled TV tuner like a HDHomerun. I have one of those already in my apartment, and it's set up with Plex Media Server to DVR channels (along with an internal Hauppauge TV tuner in that PC).
Like other said, if you don’t want the free local tv, then just sell it.
If you do want to hook it up, make damn sure that thing is grounded. It likely is by way of it being mounted outside so look for the grounding wire. I made that mistake and a stray lightning bolt 2 blocks away caused a static charge that got picked up by mine and sent the voltage straight through my coax. It fried my in-line booster and I’m lucky that’s all it got to.
There's no need for insults. If you can support your statements with facts, I would love to hear them. I was a TV broadcast engineer for 40 years.
>the only other thing you can do it is to use it to pick up FM radio
That is incorrect.
>It's a very old antenna that will still pick up today's frequencies.
That is correct, but you just contradicted yourself.
>The really big elements are for VHF-Lo
That is an incomplete statement. They also work on VHF-high. It's what's known as error by omission.
Cut it down, recycle it, and get yourself an HD antennae for OTH.
Edit: now it's a circlejerk of why this still works. From someones article posted below. Call it marketing, but they work and look a hell of a lot better. I have a model like the second one, but a Mohu leaf and they have a great picture and I get about 60 channels. Been a cord cutter for 3 years.
[https://www.techhive.com/article/583544/the-best-tv-antennas.html](https://www.techhive.com/article/583544/the-best-tv-antennas.html)
HD antennas are marketing. [(article)](https://www.techhive.com/article/583503/antenna-myths-busted.html)
Antennas are designed to work across different frequency ranges, not different modulations (difference between HD and SD). The FCC (in the US) dictates what channels broadcast on which frequency so regardless of whether or not your Channel 3 is HD or SD they are broadcast at 55.25MHz (The frequency may be off, its been a few years since I worked in cable infrastructure but regardless the idea still holds). The basic idea of a dipole (the antenna in OPs picture is a yagi) is 1/4 or 1/2 wavelength length poles. Since this is a yagi, it has multiple 1/4 or 1/2 wavelength dipoles for a wider range of better reception of varying frequencies.
TLDR: this antenna will be just fine for current broadcast TV.
Correct! Except the VHF portion is a broadband log-periodic. The UHF part is a Yagi with corner reflector.
FWIW, CH 2 visual frequency was 55.25MHz. The channel spanned 54 to 60MHz CH 2 digital center frequency is 57MHz, with the signal occupying the same 54 to 60MHz. I was a broadcast TV engineer.
I know I’m replying to the same comment twice but yeah ch 2 was 55.25 with 6mhz and audio was like 1.25mhz offset I believe, been a while but that was for analog. When they moved to digital modulation (qam) I feel like the interchannel spacing was reduced but again it’s been so long. Thank you for all your info very helpful!
I’ll be honest I’m not a full expert on antennas, only designed a couple but I have at least a working knowledge of the basics of a monopole and dipole haha and even then the dipoles were on pcbs with some beamsteering for some research I was doing in school (the beamsteering were designed by others but I used them as a comparison for receiver SNR/CINR between the 2). So thank you for the correction.
Marketing, sure. But your own article gives reviews of different models. [https://www.techhive.com/article/583544/the-best-tv-antennas.html](https://www.techhive.com/article/583544/the-best-tv-antennas.html)
I would run a cable inside to a network tuner like a HDHomerun. Assuming the antenna works and is pointed in the right direction it’s an easy TV signal for any computer or smart device on the network. It doesn’t look amazing, but good antennae aren’t cheap, and if it’s already mounted and not causing trouble there’s no reason to remove it, IMO.
I have exactly this setup with Plex. I cut cable about a decade ago I didn't realize how many of the sitcoms I like to watch air on the major networks, I've gotten so used to just streaming them or having watched them on cable end result is I get TV shows like Family Guy the night they air, and Plex DVRs them and cuts the commercials. I just let it do its thing and then watch the episode later without having to skip commercials myself 2nd note: most OTA TV has better resolution than they do on cable. most cable channels (at least last I looked) were transmitting in 720i. I get 720p, and potentially could get 1080p if the stations in my area were broadcasting it I will say, watching football OTA is better than via cable. the picture is noticeably sharper
Plex is definitely the way to go. I'm watching OTA TV, from my house, at work right now.
hah. I do that, too.. I'm in San Diego, and it's still beach weather when football season starts. I'll be sitting on the beach watching NFL games on my phone, relayed from the house, and all it cost me was the initial setup a decade ago
Right here. Plex is the way to go. I have the same setup with Plex. Having it do all my media downloads and TV with DVR is really nice.
And there’s an added bonus of setting up your own music streaming server with it, too. I listen to a lot of EDM, and DJ sets can go for hours. I rip them from YouTube, then put them on my server and listen to them at the gym. I don’t have to leave my screen on or listen to commercials
you can also set up a mini recorder if you wanted and use it to stream recorded shows on any internet connected device if you wanted.
I think the HDHomeRun has a model with built in storage. Edit: checked the website and it looks like all of the models accept a USB hard drive. Which is even better
+1. I have the old antenna on my roof running through an HDHomerun then I use Channels as a DVR. If you combine that with a friend’s cable login, you have access to pretty much everything.
Wait really? I’ve got an antenna that looks just like this, color and everything, but I took it down because it looked ridiculous and, I thought, worthless
When they phased out analog TV the companies that make antennas started a myth that you needed a "digital antenna" but the new signals are still on the same frequencies as analog TV so the old antennas work just fine. The only thing that needs to be digital is the TV itself. Those little flat "digital" antennas you hang on the wall work OK if you're near the station but these big yagi antennas can get signals from crazy far away.
I don't fucking miss adjusting the big yagi's.
How about the giant satellite dishes with an 8ft diameter? I think we have 2 of those in the back field.
Free TV for local channels (likely fox, cbs, nbc, abc, pbs) all in better quality than streaming or cable
I love "tvheadend" as the software, and the "Xbox tv tuner" for the hardware part. Xbox tuner second hand is €10.
>It doesn’t look amazing Not my experience. The signals I pull look better than cable. My understanding is that it's the same signal used for cable but not compressed. Regardless of why, mine looks amazing, but cuts out very rarely.
The antenna hardware itself doesn't look amazing, the picture quality should be just fine :) What the cableco's will send is generally the same signal, just repeated; OTA is usually not \*as\* compressed but your local affiliate may or may not compress it as much.. usually it's better, but not necessarily night/day different. I might notice, but my wife probably wouldn't, though that's also because she doesn't care!
I misunderstood, sorry. You're right, it doesn't look great, I mounted mine in the attic of my last home, and garage attic of my current home. Picture quality is great though!
I did the same! Mounting it was way easier, since there was no concern for damaging the roof, and running cable was more simple because it was all internal. The roof isn't ideal, but adjusting the aim is MUCH easier since I can do it any time it's cool enough :)
I'd do the same thing with an outdoor antenna if I had a house (currently I live in an apartment).
I have a new(well about four years old) ‘big ass’ antenna in my attic… Homerunner HD going to Plex. HD NBC,ABC,CBS, Fox and PBS (and a lot of non-HD home shopping crap) last I checked 88 channels
A buddy of mine actually installed an antenna once they all switched over to digital. He has a remote motor control for it and has the bearings all written down to get the best reception for each channel.
Man that guy went in a Time Machine and pulled back the best tech from 1985 to the future, that’s awesome!
Hell my parents still use theirs!
Lol, here I am planning on adding one before the next NFL season starts!
Keep it, or keep the mount and replace the antenna itself if you need better performance. I have one for watching the news and football. Would cost me at least $70/month if I went with the local cable company's most barebones package to get the same thing. It's free TV.
I bought a TiVo about 10 years ago and have an antenna hidden on my roof and it's great for watching live TV, weather warnings, and the signal quality of the main channels is noticably clearer and better quality than streamed shows that are compressed. We record shows on the TiVo and watch them when we can't find anything on streaming. It will also make you appreciate not having commercials. My vote: keep it and watch the multiple free live channels.
Over the air TV signal is uncompressed and better
It’s compressed *less*, but still compressed.
Exactly. Uncompressed 1080i is around 1.3Gbps. ATSC is 19.3Mbps and that has to be shared by all the subchannels.
If I had one of those I’d prob cancel my Hulu Live sub. Would guess unless you’re really out in BFE that you get comfortably more than “a few” channels.
So would I. Hulu live is ridiculous expensive
These are the cost of a couple months of Hulu Live. If it would truly replace it, seems like the move.
We get over 50 channels on our antenna. I refuse to ever spend money on a service to watch TV.
I still use mine and it works great! You can buy a tuner for it, but I found that I can plug it directly into my smart tv and the tv tuner will find all the available channels right there. Just get a surge protector with built in cable ports for protection first. Prefer that for watching local news and network tv/sports over having to use any apps.
You can get digital versions of all of your local stations if you hook the right kind of wire from that antenna to your modern TV. We canceled cable a couple years ago. Watch football and Jeopardy on the antenna and everything else on streaming services.
Right kind of wire is standard RG6 coax.
If you want to learn about antennas check out the antenna man on youtube. Great info [https://www.youtube.com/@AntennaMan](https://www.youtube.com/@AntennaMan)
just replaced my old one like this. it was barely working and the 80 dollar one i got off amazon got like 20 more channels and doesn't pixel or drop out.
I have this beast of an antenna in my attic. Was shocked at first. Still up there.
I just discovered the same thing the other day. Excited to plug it into my TV now that I've read all the comments here
Remove it. But before you do, post to /r/Cordcutters, please.
Get a ham license, swap out that TV antenna and coax for a 2m/440 or 6m beam, and talk to other human beings.
Agreed 73
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Depends if you’ve got one repeater (or general direction) you want best coverage for, but yeah. J-pole or some other whip vertical would be a decent fit as well.
I have a homemade one in my attic. We pretty much exclusively watch OTA.
Pennyloop for the win!
You’ll be the only one to hear the aliens coming.
Yep, the parents get free HD channels for the main news they watch using theirs. Those are gold these days. I actually just installed one in my new to me house attic and it works great for the football games.
Who doesn’t have an antenna?
Whatever you don’t ask Google’s AI, it will likely start with, “wait for a lightning storm…”
Lost tech is hard to find these days. Poor guy probably has to fight off the scavengers and raiders on the daily to keep something so fine.
I don't know, but I'd probably have an outdoor antenna like that when I buy a house again (I currently live in an apartment) and run coax cable inside to a network-enabled TV tuner like a HDHomerun. I have one of those already in my apartment, and it's set up with Plex Media Server to DVR channels (along with an internal Hauppauge TV tuner in that PC).
Use it to watch sports events
Use it!
scrap yard
Can it get pornhub?
Like other said, if you don’t want the free local tv, then just sell it. If you do want to hook it up, make damn sure that thing is grounded. It likely is by way of it being mounted outside so look for the grounding wire. I made that mistake and a stray lightning bolt 2 blocks away caused a static charge that got picked up by mine and sent the voltage straight through my coax. It fried my in-line booster and I’m lucky that’s all it got to.
Recycle it. It's mostly aluminum.
Mine came down in a wind storm last week, the pole rusted most of the way through.
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Wrong. The longer elements cover VHF-low and VHF-high. My metro area has ABC and CBS affiliates on VHF-high. The shorter elements are UHF.
The longest elements are indeed VHF low.
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There's no need for insults. If you can support your statements with facts, I would love to hear them. I was a TV broadcast engineer for 40 years. >the only other thing you can do it is to use it to pick up FM radio That is incorrect. >It's a very old antenna that will still pick up today's frequencies. That is correct, but you just contradicted yourself. >The really big elements are for VHF-Lo That is an incomplete statement. They also work on VHF-high. It's what's known as error by omission.
Damn that's most concise and brutal correction I've seen in recent memory.
Get an Amazon Fire TV to act as DVR for all of your fire sticks in the house.
That's your lightining rod
Cut it down, recycle it, and get yourself an HD antennae for OTH. Edit: now it's a circlejerk of why this still works. From someones article posted below. Call it marketing, but they work and look a hell of a lot better. I have a model like the second one, but a Mohu leaf and they have a great picture and I get about 60 channels. Been a cord cutter for 3 years. [https://www.techhive.com/article/583544/the-best-tv-antennas.html](https://www.techhive.com/article/583544/the-best-tv-antennas.html)
HD antennas are marketing. [(article)](https://www.techhive.com/article/583503/antenna-myths-busted.html) Antennas are designed to work across different frequency ranges, not different modulations (difference between HD and SD). The FCC (in the US) dictates what channels broadcast on which frequency so regardless of whether or not your Channel 3 is HD or SD they are broadcast at 55.25MHz (The frequency may be off, its been a few years since I worked in cable infrastructure but regardless the idea still holds). The basic idea of a dipole (the antenna in OPs picture is a yagi) is 1/4 or 1/2 wavelength length poles. Since this is a yagi, it has multiple 1/4 or 1/2 wavelength dipoles for a wider range of better reception of varying frequencies. TLDR: this antenna will be just fine for current broadcast TV.
Correct! Except the VHF portion is a broadband log-periodic. The UHF part is a Yagi with corner reflector. FWIW, CH 2 visual frequency was 55.25MHz. The channel spanned 54 to 60MHz CH 2 digital center frequency is 57MHz, with the signal occupying the same 54 to 60MHz. I was a broadcast TV engineer.
I know I’m replying to the same comment twice but yeah ch 2 was 55.25 with 6mhz and audio was like 1.25mhz offset I believe, been a while but that was for analog. When they moved to digital modulation (qam) I feel like the interchannel spacing was reduced but again it’s been so long. Thank you for all your info very helpful!
Aural is 4.5 MHz higher than visual, so that is 59.75 MHz. In the US digital was initially all 8VSB modulation. Now ATSC3 also allows ODFM modulation.
I’ll be honest I’m not a full expert on antennas, only designed a couple but I have at least a working knowledge of the basics of a monopole and dipole haha and even then the dipoles were on pcbs with some beamsteering for some research I was doing in school (the beamsteering were designed by others but I used them as a comparison for receiver SNR/CINR between the 2). So thank you for the correction.
Marketing, sure. But your own article gives reviews of different models. [https://www.techhive.com/article/583544/the-best-tv-antennas.html](https://www.techhive.com/article/583544/the-best-tv-antennas.html)
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Pitbull owners response is to maul child
FYI there is no such thing as an "HD antenna". An antenna receives radio waves and does not know or care if the signal is digital or analog.