ClearCast HDTV indoor antenna -- overhyped?

[Jeffhs]

I originally purchased the ClearCast indoor HD television antenna (which should arrive here shortly; I would have received the antenna by now, but a mixup on the address -- the person who took my order neglected to include my apartment number [!] along with the street address of the apartment building -- caused FedEx to return the antenna to the shipper ) to check local reception of Cleveland's DTV channels, but it looks as if I may eventually be using that antenna as my primary source of TV signals. The reason is that, according to Time Warner Cable's web site, the cable operator is still in the process of converting the system to digital -- which may explain why I still get a bunch of NTSC analog channels on my cable. Once the digital conversion is complete, however, those NTSC analog channels will have been moved to one or more digital tiers of service, which means of course they will no longer be watchable on standard cable (read: no more just connecting your cable to the antenna terminals or coax jack on the back of your TV, as VK member RadioTVNut discovered when his cable provider switched to full digital recently). Subscribers will have to rent either a full-size Motorola or Scientific Atlanta cable box or a device known as a DTA (digital transfer adaptor) to view these channels once the conversion is 100 percent complete.

Viewers with standard flat screens will only get their area's local network affiliates; the channel positions for cable stations like CNN, A&E, Animal Planet, et al. will either be blank or your screen will show nothing but snow.

Note that, once your cable company has transitioned to all-digital, you will need either a cable box or a DTA to receive all available channels (other than broadcast channels) on your cable -- even if you have a flat screen. Here's why. Your FS TV's NTSC/ATSC/clear-QAM tuner will not receive most or all channels on digital tiers, almost certainly because these channels will be carried on the cable in QAM format. The broadcast stations will not be affected, as they are already being transmitted digitally in the clear-QAM format.

Time Warner, and most other cable systems in the US, are converting their cable systems to full digital because, as one VK member put it in a recent post, the subscribers want high-definition, so analog must and will disappear from the cable TV landscape -- never to return. We may not like it, but that's progress.

Analog NTSC TV was the standard in North America for over 60 years, but times have changed in the 21st century. If we still want to watch TV we will have to go along with the cable company, or else put up an antenna (with a converter box for knob-tuned TVs) and watch only broadcast stations. In my case, I am not concerned in the least about the fact that Time Warner Cable is transitioning to full digital, or the impact it will have on my TV viewing habits. My two favorite TV channels, Antenna TV and MeTV, are on subchannels of Cleveland's FOX and CBS affiliates, respectively, so if my antenna picks up those two stations -- and if it does, the picture will be perfect on both the network stations and the subchannels, as DTV is all or nothing -- I will be happy.

I have been keeping track of what channels I watch regularly on cable, and found there are a bunch of stations I haven't watched in years -- or at all. I won't miss them when I go back to using an antenna, although I get a feeling that I may have the devil of a time receiving channel eight or 19 with the ClearCast -- if my recent experiments with rebent coat hangers are any indication. I was unable to receive those two stations with the hangers (even a very large rectangular one), and believe me I tried every location in my apartment I could think of, but no luck. I may have better results with the ClearCast antenna, but still I have my doubts. One station I am sure I won't be getting with this antenna is the RTV affiliate, which is located in Canton, Ohio -- seventy-odd miles from here. Channel 19 will be a problem because, according to AntennaWeb.org's findings for my location, good reception of this station at this distance (30+ miles) requires a roof- or tower-mounted antenna with possibly a mast-mounted preamplifier. Since I live in an apartment building, this is definitely not an option for me, so I am hoping against hope that the ClearCast antenna will pull in the station and channel 8, which my makeshift DTV test antennas did not pick up either.

Since the ClearCast has a 60-foot length of coax cable connected to it, I will be able to try it in more locations around my place; maybe (hopefully) there is a spot somewhere where both CBS 19 and FOX 8 will come in as well as every other station my test antennas received. I will post the results of my tests with the ClearCast antenna as soon as I know for certain what stations I can and cannot get here; maybe, since the ClearCast antenna is built better (I hope) than were my cobbled-together test antennas (which were connected to only the center pin of a very short length of coax by a length of zip cord), I will find a spot where the CC antenna will get even more stations, since I live near Lake Erie. Who knows -- perhaps this summer I may get some Detroit stations and perhaps a Canadian station or two. I am located roughly one mile from the south shore of Lake Erie, with southwestern Ontario just a hop, skip and a jump across the lake, so I may have quite a few (well, a few, anyway) Canadian DTV stations coming in when the weather cooperates. We shall see.

I am not, however, expecting miraculous results from the ClearCast (i. e. reception of stations 100+ miles distant); if the antenna brings in the Cleveland network stations and their subchannels, that will be plenty good enough for me.


Stay tuned. More to come.