Question about Charter, HD, my roof & tonight's(TTech) game

[toneful]

Folks, i have Charter HD in FW but Charter does not carry ABCHD. I have a conventional TV antenna on my roof but the coax cable is not connected to it. Cqan i get the ABCHD signal by simply running a coax from the antenna to my HD coax input on my TV? I have never tuned in an over the air broadcast into my relatively new HD set...just the cable box signal via HDMI.
I have a rather rickety old half rotted wodden ladder so any risk in volved would have to be done with a degree of certainty that there would be a payoff. Sooners in HD is a worthy payoff.

Also, i think the coax cable i have is RG56, fwiw.


thanks in advance.

[fadada1]

duct tape, peanut butter, and a gallon of jade colored paint. that's all you need to make it work.

[Tulsa_Fireman]

No.

[soonersn2007]

The game will prob be fuzzy anyhow, even in HD because ABC HD broadcasts are substandard.

[toneful]

The game will prob be fuzzy anyhow, even in HD because ABC HD broadcasts are substandard.
Over the air HD broadcasts are better than satellite/cable HD. No compression.

[Tulsa_Fireman]

According to who?

Off air in the VHF band is susceptible to a slew of issues, not limited to interference. Besides, last time I checked, most systems are still allotting 6 meg bandwidth per channel, just like off-air.

I'd take HD through the pipe over off-air all day long.

[OUAndy1807]

I've never seen HD that looked better than over the aid when it's right. Just go buy a $50 receiver and don't worry about it.

[aurorasooner]

Off air in the VHF band is susceptible to a slew of issues, not limited to interference. Besides, last time I checked, most systems are still allotting 6 meg bandwidth per channel, just like off-air.

I'd take HD through the pipe over off-air all day long. Last I checked, HD OTA was UHF. If I were you, and there is an ABC OTA HD transmitter close enough (I don't know where the WFAA HD OTA transmitter is in the D/FW area --Dallas, FW, in between), you might just head down to radio shack and pick up an amplified uhf HD antenna, set it on top of your HDTV, and connect it to the antenna/cable in, and auto-program it, and see if you get WFAA HD. If you're using your roof antenna, just make sure it's not a VHF only antenna, and that your coax is in good shape as the UHF signal will degrade worse with sh*##y cable, bad F-connectors than a VHF signal (regular OTA ch. 2-13) will. (BTW, if you can't receive the HD signal with the rat-shack set top antenna, then put it back in the box and take it back tomorrow. It doesn't have to be radio-shack, you can get them at Target, Wal-mart, etc. Also , if you just run Co-ax up to your roof-top antenna and plug it in to your HDTV and don't ground it properly and your roof-top antenna isn't grounded properly , then you'd better make sure you disconnect it from your HDTV set before the next thunderstorm.

[Whet]

This website should help you with over the air HD programming in your area.

HDTV Stuff (http://www.hdtvpub.com/local/localarea.cfm)

[bluedogok]

HD is UHF, the VHF frequencies are the ones being shut down for television and sold off. OTA-HD is better picture quality (if you can receive them) because the signals are not compressed like they are on cable or satellite. Most of the time I watch the OTA feed instead of the satellite feed through my HD-DVR.

Most roof antennas are for VHF or UHF, I am using one that I bought 9 years ago and is half broken because a tree grew into it, I have a new one that I haven't bothered to install yet. I still get a strong signal even with it in the condition that it is in.

In most cases you would just have to hook it up to your TV and try the tuner, you will either get the signal or you won't. There will not be snow or anything like that. The antenna location seems to be near Cedar Hill (click for map) (http://tiger.census.gov/cgi-bin/mapgen/gif?lon=-96.978056&lat=32.585000&iwd=750&iht=750&mark=-96.978056,32.585000,bluestar,WFAA-TV_DALLAS_TX&on=water,miscell,counties,places,CITIES,&off=streets,GRID,shorelin&ht=0.5&wid=0.5).

To see which way to point the antenna, try AntennaWeb (http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx)
FCC - WFAA-DT Info (http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?list=0&facid=72054)

[ruf/nekdad]

FWIW I get both Dish Sat local channels and OTA local . OTA is by far the better signal. Its digital, you either get it or you don't.

[toneful]

well, i did it. There are a few lines through the pic and it's hard to see what i'll get just yet cause they are showing a SD signal. Anyways, thanks guys for letting me know it would work.