So we’d recently cancelled our cable andhad to resort to broadcast television living once again.  The $20 antenna that I bought functioned pretty well.  I was pretty surprised since, I didn’t know how well we’d get any broadcast signal at all.  The LA transmitter towers sit just north of Pasadena, a mere 60 miles away as the crow flies, and passes over some hilly terrain to get all the way out to Ventura.  I was thinking about buying an outdoor antenna, but they ran about $60.  I thought I could do better than that.  So off to the internets I went!

I found a plan to make a functioning (not pretty) UHF antenna with 6 coat hangers. I only had two when i started so when Jen asked me to go garage saleing with her I knew I’d found my opportunity.  Seriously, it’s not easy to get metal coat hangers unless you need something dry cleaned.

Having acquired the 6 needed coat hangers i still needed to buy a few parts.  I needed a 300 ohm to 75 ohm transformer and some washers.  Grand total was about $9.  $8 of which was on the transformer.  I could have gotten it for $6 but I thought I’d splurge on the gold plated connectors.

After about an hour and a half of messing around the garage, I had a pretty terrible looking antenna built.  I put the antenna up on the roof of my condo so on one would have to look at it.  Well, aesthetically it looked terrible, but it functioned way better than i thought it would and better than the $20 indoor antenna that I installed outside did. 

I got every channel that I did with the indoor antenna, and the signal stregnth was way better.  With the indoor antenna, the only channels that had signal stregnth above 60 were 5.1 and 2.1 and that was only most days.  13.1 only came in during the day and it was weak at best and I didn’t get 9.1 at all.  I’m even pulling in stations from Riverside (crazy far away) but they’re in Vietnamese, but I still get ‘em.  That counts for something right?

All in all, I’d say that was a pretty successful project.  There are a ton of digital stations out there that I’d imagine most people didn’t even know about.  There are even in-between channels that pop in.  Like 5.2 which broadcasts TV shows from the 70’s and 80’s like Soap and The Benny Hill Show and there’s an entire Qubo and Ion television station that I’d assumed was only available with cable.  That and I’m not friggin’ paying for cable at all.  The only drawback is that I have to watch The Daily Show on the laptop, but even that’s not so bad.  Total win!

Well, i did it.  I cancelled my cable and haven’t died of complete boredom.  Probably because i have other things to do.  So far, Netflix, Hulu, and an over the air digital antenna are doing just fine.  Even in Ventura, i get a surprisingly high number of channels.  I have the LA ABE, NBC, CBS and Fox affiliate and most of the independent networks.  the only one i don’t get is channel 9 and all that means is that i won’t be subjected to Lakers games throughout the winter and spring.  If there even in a basketball season this time, but i digress.  

So far, so good on the not paying for cable thing.  And everything is in beautiful HD, except for the FOX station, which i can only pick up in standard on channel 11.2 unless i go up to the roof and adjust the antenna.  Right now all i have is an indoor antenna that i set up outside because i was too cheap to shell out the $40 for a decent outdoor antenna.  All of the broadcast antennas are north of Pasadena (a mere 70 miles away or so) and there are tons of hills in the way and we still pick up all these great channels….for free.  So, if you’re complaining that you don’t have cable or that it’s too expensive, go on out and get yourself an antenna for your digital TV.  even an indoor one will work.  I got mine for $20.