TV Antenna's

warminmn wrote: Some are in towns of course, but they look for high spots, and cheap land to build on, away from airports and close houses.

I'm on the wrong mountain. If you look at the Wyoming Valley it might be 4 or 5 miles wide and about 1 to 15 miles long. I'm on the one corner opposite the corner the towers are on. I was looking at google maps, the guy behind me who's house is about 500 feet away and another 100 in elevation probably gets reception. The houses across the street might even get it. You can see the daylight... this is about the exact direction they are in.

Rob R. wrote:
They say that Richard can get only channel 32.

I'm getting 32 and 31 but those are in opposite direction with no mountain, if the trees weren't across the street I could probably see them blinking. When I originally tried the antenna I was inside the house, I get a really good signal outside. This house is masonry, not sure if that has anything to do with it. Those two channels were sometimes flaky in town.

scalabro wrote:Oh well. High speed internet & Netflix then

I already had intentions of getting something, I think it was sling I was looking at they had plan with HBO, TBS, History, ESPN and about 20 others that are pretty common for $20. If I can't get local channels it's a deal breaker. They used to have a service for this a few years ago but a lawsuit shut them down. They tried getting around the rebroadcast rules by setting up a building with a bunch of little antennas and stream that to you. Seems a little counterproductive for the TV stations because they have no service like that.

Richard,
The dirty little secret is each of the broadcast networks and affiliates on cable systems demand not only carriage but also a fee (about $3.00 or more monthly depending on the Network with CBS demanding the most) from cable systems for each subscriber. Then as you know, copyrights have everybody by the nuts and bolts and finally the utility pole owner charges for each pole at variable rates depending on the pole size and of course the municipalities want their fees for rights of way. Little wonder cable systems charge as much as they do because they have so little bargaining powers left. It won't be long before each of the above figure out a way to charge viewing fees that will amount to far larger average TV entertainment revenue the current bundle rate cable systems currently charge.
Snuffy

snuffy wrote:Richard,
The dirty little secret is each of the broadcast networks and affiliates on cable systems demand not only carriage but also a fee (about $3.00 or more monthly depending on the Network with CBS demanding the most) from cable systems for each subscriber.

This is itemized on my cable bill as $5...

Little wonder cable systems charge as much as they do because they have so little bargaining powers left.

I honestly have no sympathy for them, they are as bad everyone else.

It won't be long before each of the above figure out a way to charge viewing fees that will amount to far larger average

I honestly don't think so, TV is wasteland of crap. 280 channels of crap... LOL Once people begin picking and choosing exactly what they want consolidated distribution is going to evaporate and a lot of those channels are going to disappear. Take the MLB for example , through their service the local games are blacked out but available 90 minutes later. If enough people start signing up for that at some point they are going to say to themselves why are we dealing with the middleman cable companies and networks when we can distribute it ourselves?

Cable companies like Comcast are going top end up being like the phone company providing you a service. This why net neutrality is important. They may have to increase rates but that's fine.

Rich, are you suggesting that the gov't get more involved than they are now? They created this crap-storm. Get ready for a total crap-storm if they get into "net neutrality" ..

davidmcbeth3 wrote: Get ready for a total crap-storm if they get into "net neutrality" ..

The internet has been operating under Net Neutrality since it's inception, it's now law. That is the only thing that has changed. You the consumer will pay for what bandwidth you want, I the content provider will pay for what I want. If you are paying for slow speed or I'm paying for slow server speed you're going to load my site slow. Vice versa if we are both paying for high speed access you'll get a fast website. The ISP like Comcast sitting between us does not get to interfere with that, that's all net neutrality is. They need to provide equal access to any service or content.

What is important about this at this point in time is companies like Comcast will be prevented from leveraging bandwidth. For example MLB decides to dump the deal they have with Comcast Cable TV in favor of providing over the internet. Comcast cannot throttle your speed to that service.

Now do you see why net neutrality is important?

Thanx fore that explanation Richard. When the Net Neutrality thread was about, I could never get a grip on what it meant....

In a perfect world net neutrality would be nice but there are a couple of ugly other issues that get in the way. Two of those issues would be contract law that is constantly being negotiated and renegotiated by content providers and distribution systems. Secondly and more important for the content providers is policing the system and that can get awfully expensive when the provider must now figure out a way to determine whether a viewing is a public performance or a single viewing and risk super expensive copyright violations. And as for contracts I'm not sure the FCC or any government agency can stop time for all contracts to be unified.

I should also add that the itemized $5.00 charge for local channels is really not meaningful on a bill because that doesn't capture the variable costs charged by each local broadcaster to each cable system. Comcast might only be charged a buck while a smaller system might be charged $5.00 for the local ABC broadcaster.

Personally, I see net neutrality as window dressing in the grand scheme of things.
Snuffy

snuffy wrote:In a perfect world net neutrality would be nice but there are a couple of ugly other issues that get in the way. Two of those issues would be contract law that is constantly being negotiated and renegotiated by content providers and distribution systems. Secondly and more important for the content providers is policing the system and that can get awfully expensive when the provider must now figure out a way to determine whether a viewing is a public performance or a single viewing and risk super expensive copyright violations. And as for contracts I'm not sure the FCC or any government agency can stop time for all contracts to be unified.

I'm not following you Snuffy. If CNN wants to make an exclusive deal with Comcast or any other company to provide that service either through cable TV or Comcast's website they can do that. Whether such a deal between Comcast and CNN is lawful has nothing to do with Net Neutrality and that would be completely separate issue. Copyrights, licensing etc.... that's completely other matter.

With Comcast you can login into their web page and watch CNN, you can also watch other news networks. If Comcast wanted to give CNN preferential treatment over Fox on the Comcast website they can do that.

What Comcast can't do where delivery over the internet is concerned is give CNN preferential treatment outside of their own website service. If I'm directly paying Fox for their news service they cannot throttle the connection to Fox's service.

coalnewbie wrote:Rob and I have PMed on this before. It is a source of amazement to me that he can get a good selection of TV channels in a location where even the glaciers get lonely. As for me in the middle of civilization, (if you can call living next to a bunch of liberals civilized) I can received very little. Luck of the draw I guess.

It helps when you live in a big valley and the broadcast towers are on the highest mountain. Line of sight straight to the antenna.

Gee rob, that is nice tree. That almost looks like something you'd expect to see out west. When you come around the last corner and can see home do you say to yourself, only 10 minute to go?

Now you know what I mean when I talk about the wind! Imagine a strong wind coming off those fields when it is below zero. That picture is actually taken from my dad's driveway. His reception pegs the signal meter in the tv...mine only goes to 85% or so due to a few trees between me and the lake.

I probably won't be so lucky in Vermont, unless I live on the top of a mountain.

It seems we diverged into two issues and kind of like diagramming a sentence. I was defending the costs behind CATV's programming costs and you having the issues with net neutrality. I'm naturally biased to private property rights and if someone doesn't like the service I offer on my property well that's their tough luck. Since cable properties own the wire and equipment it's their prerogative to set the service terms. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't be a happy camper if my service is throttled back but it's up to me to accept or reject the service, not ask the FCC to decide winners and losers. Believe me, I've got plenty of issues with the FCC's regulations from Part 15 through cell tower operators having preferential constitutional rights over my constitutional rights. Just my philosophy.
Snuffy

I bought that antenna, got it for $35. Was a little bit of drive but it was selling for about $100+ so an extra drive for 1 hour was worth it. I was assuming it was going to be used but it appears to be new. Some of the stuff was still in plastic, don't see any signs it was used but I guess that will not matter much anyway.

If it don't work I have a brand new antenna for sale, $50.