converter box questions/ setup helpski

R

rob2000

Gawd
Joined
Dec 24, 2005
Messages
970
first off thanks for any input or help. my friend is a working mom of two jobs and needs to cut some costs if possible. so i want to help her, and i come to the horde's hive mind to see what the guru's suggest.i dunno her budget but im gonna say $100-$200 max, the cheaper and still watchable the better. they have 4 kids. tvs for 3 kids rooms and the living room i think is the plan. possibly a 5th for their bedroom.




my friend wants to cut her dish service, and hook up the converter boxes. she is on a budget for one. two she asked me for help, but ive never done this for one. and two ive not found all the information i need to inform her all in one spot.

so the question is to eliminate pay service, what is needed to pull a signal now? just a converter box and antennae per tv?

i think all of her tv's are still the old tube designs. my friend thinks if there was a roof mounted antennae then that would eliminate the need for one for each tv. however since i have no idea i came here to ask the horde.

I told her maybe try one box setup to see if its liveable before buying hardware for all the tv's in the house. ive seen used ones on ebay for $10-$20 and i seen this one new at compusa for $27
http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4164499&CatId=4039
 
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You'll want to know what direction, and how far away the tv transmitters are, in order to determine what kind of antenna, or if its even viable.

These websites can help you with that info, punch in her address and it will display infos.
http://www.tvfool.com/
http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx

You'll probably see listings for a lot of channels, but you'll want to focus on the larger networks, nbc, abc, fox, etc.

You will want to pay attention if any of the channels are VHF, you'll need a different antenna than if they are all UHF. Theres also 2 subtypes of VHF, depending on the channel (VHF-LO is RF channels 2-6, VHF-HI is rf channels 7-13, UHF is RF channels 14-51).

What i call the "RF" channel, is listed as the "Real" channel on TV Fool. The virtual channel is what the station was when everything was analog, and is still their station identifier, but doesn't correspond to what they actually broadcast on anymore.
 
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