OTA TV: It's Not Just About Cordcutting

Over-The-Air TV Can be a Great Add-on to Other Services Too

For some bizarre reason, people assume that if you use an antenna to watch TV you’re automatically a “cordcutter”. Truth be told there is actually a growing number of “cord-pinchers” or “cable squeezers” that have kept a foothold on their pay TV service yet added OTA as a secondary source to fit their TV needs.

In fact, this issue has been brought up many times in recent months as there is reason to believe this “unseen population” of Canadian consumers using OTA as a source for television is large enough to bump up the number of people using broadcast TV in urban areas in Canada from 1 in 10 to as much as 1 in 5 households.

The issue at hand is that in surveys done by the CRTC there is no clear identification of secondary sources of TV and usage rates. As soon as you are a pay TV or ITV customer at your address, the assumption by the Canadian government’s telecommunications giant is that your household is “on the grid” and has no use for the over-the-air signal being sent to you for free. As a result, this has led to a perceived small number of people that use broadcast TV services, affecting advertising demand and the way the regulator makes decisions that affect the broadcast industry and Canadian consumers as a whole.

With a bit of research and listening to some testimonials, your Average Joe has come across a whole number of savvy, cost-effective Canadians that have kept some aspect of a pay TV service and still use broadcast OTA TV. Here are some of these stories with the hopes of inspiring some of you out there to hop on the free TV bandwagon before the CRTC decides there is no bandwagon at all:

Secondary TVs

“The cost of adding another receiver for our TV in the kitchen was ridiculous. There was a flat fee to do the install and apparently a new switch or something was required as well and we would have had to drill holes in our walls to pass cable. It just wasn’t worth it for the hour of news I’d watch in the morning during breakfast and the background programming we like to have on when tidying up the dinner dishes.” This TV watcher got around the issue by simply hanging a flat indoor antenna to the wall, just above his wall mounted flatscreen TV. “It’s the perfect fit for our kitchen. We get all our major local stations, the image is crisp and the installation took up no room … no shelf for the receiver, no passing cables in the wall … I did it myself in an afternoon”.

Adding a flat antenna like the Mohu Leaf under a cabinet (above) or on the wall makes having a kitchen TV showing your local channels a space-saving breeze; regardless of the TV service you have in your living room.  Photo courtesy of www.gadgetreview.com

We’ve heard the same thing for countless other applications. “Did the cable company think I would pay over $150 for a HD receiver just to watch Jimmy Kimmel in my bedroom?” said another fellow using his indoor antenna as a secondary source of late night TV.

“I’m not watching Game of Thrones on my dinky TV when I’m on the treadmill … that’s what my home theatre basement setup is for. I just need something to distract me for an hour or so” said another TV viewer who opted for an antenna setup in their home gym. “Even from the basement, it was easy to get a coax going out to a wall-mounted compact antenna about 12 feet off the ground. Why would I pay a monthly rental fee for another receiver just for a few hours of TV a week?”

The pursists

“I couldn’t stand the simsubbing which meant missed plays and cut-off of the announcers” said one purist NFL fan that prides himself on his “dual feed setup” in his man cave on game days. “I catch CBS and NBC out of Buffalo and I’m not watching the hacked and slashed feed via my cable provider. I get the real commentary, the real commercial breaks and I don’t get interrupted when the post-game commentary comes on. Needless to say, our Super Bowl party is always at my house year after year and my friends are envious of my dual cable / antenna setup. I do need my cable feed to watch the weeknight games though so I wouldn’t be able to live without it.”  


Just in case …

Antennas seem to be the “Plan B” of choice for some satellite TV subscribers in case their signal goes down – sometimes due to bad local weather, rain fade, an issue at the uplink or snow accumulation on their dish during the winter. “Service calls take a while and are expensive, and it’s too dangerous to go up there on my own in the winter to clear off the snow and ice build-up. I use my antenna input to get by and usually after the sun gets at it for a few hours the dish is clear again” said one such user.

Don't be left out in the cold with no TV. A backup OTA TV setup can get you through those snowy patches as local OTA broadcasts are not affected in the same way as satellite signals by bad weather.

There are also more and more people also investing in handheld and battery TVs to get through blackouts and other types of emergencies / disasters. “We were without power for almost 3 days after a windstorm last summer. A portable TV antenna combo and a car adapter was our lifeline” said one such family.

New portable digital TVs use antennas to bring you crisp, HD pictures courtesy of your local broadcasters, even when the power or cable is out. Photo courtesy RCA.

 

Go mobile

“I laughed when I heard Bell Fibe was bragging about offering wireless TV receivers that can go anywhere; even outside” said one antenna aficionado “We’ve been doing that for years. My wife and I found it was such a shame to be stuck inside on a nice summer evening, and PVRing our shows to watch later at night was a no go as we’d fall asleep by then. We would routinely set up a small flatscreen outside and clamp an antenna to our railing for an evening of outdoor TV. I guess you can say we took the concept of having an outdoor living room to another level!” laughed one adventurous outdoor TV watcher. The highlight of his summer in fact was watching the Boston-Chicago Stanley Cup finals on CBC under the stars with some neighbourhood friends and some brewsies on his deck. When asked if the setup was difficult or cumbersome he said, “No, but we just have to find a way to keep the bugs off the darn TV screen!”

Watching TV a few feet from your house is one thing but what do you do when you’re a few miles out? TV antennas are still the TV provider of choice for the RV community, who once again because they have no address (and chances are their owners have cable at home) do not pop up anywhere on the CRTC surveys as OTA users.

Second addresses

There are many people that use antennas at secondary residences such as cottages. One ingenious person I talked to found a way to maximize the use of his pay TV satellite service by using his antenna.

“We have a 3-season cottage, and OTA reception up there is difficult. What we do is we had a satellite service installed at both our primary and secondary residences on the same account, and once we open the cottage we call our provider to swap our service form our city address to the cottage address.” This practice is a very well-kept secret amongst some providers who would rather get you to sign up twice at both addresses, and switching between either the primary or secondary address for satellite service is perfectly legal by the way.

“So this means we use our OTA setup in the city throughout the late spring, summer and early fall when we’re rarely there, but still nets us almost 30 channels. We PVR anything that we don’t have via OTA at the cottage and catch up on our viewing on the weekends when we head up. Then in the summer we’re up there for weeks at a time so we have our full service with us, and we swap back when we close up for winter. Our city OTA setup allows us to maximizes the flexibility in our satellite plan without having to pay a dime more”


Businesses

“I was pouring money down the drain” said one garage shop owner who was paying a monthly cable bill for essentially one SD channel he had running on one TV in his waiting room. Through a referral from a friend, he paid a one-time setup that gave him almost 20 free digital channels via a roof-mount antenna, and a splitter to a newly purchased 2^nd TV in his lunchroom as a bonus for his employees, funded with the money he saved by cancelling cable. “Once I got the facts it was a no-brainer to switch to an antenna. And to top it off, I’m now showing my clients an HD image.”

David vs Goliath

“I couldn’t stand the way (my pay TV provider) treated me.” Said one frustrated pay TV subscriber who also has an antenna in his attic.  “They would do anything to get me to sign on, and once they had me I was chopped liver. So I learnt my lesson, now I constantly shop around and drop my service once I’m not happy”. It seems to be a general consensus that pay TV subscribers everywhere are fed up with rising prices, outrageous add-on fees (why are you charging more for “digital service”?? Do you even support analog signals anyways?) and a Rubik’s cube of programming “packages” that satisfy only the interests of the people collecting the bills, not the customer. “Without an OTA setup I would never be able to pay hardball with these guys. They gave me grief about a credit they had promised me when I signed on, so after almost an hour of arguing I cancelled my service. What did I care, I still had almost 30 channels of free TV to fall back upon. Lo and behold a senior rep called back a week later and I was able to negotiate a better deal than I had before to re-sign. Since then they’re already raised the price on me twice so I’m keeping an eye on them … and because of my OTA setup running in parallel, I’m not afraid to pull the plug again if I see one more unreasonable hike. That’s the only way to send a message to the guys.”

Conclusion

Hopefully the above examples have (as a minimum) inspired some of you out there that it’s worth giving “cord-pinching” a shot by using a secondary TV setup by antenna– if not for convenience, for the health of your wallet and sanity of your finances.

Do you have any cord-pinching or cable-squeezing stories? Are you enjoying a free TV setup? Contact Average Joe today to share your story with us!

September 1st: Over-the-Air Television's Day in the Sun

A Day to Appreciate Free TV

When people find out that I use (and strongly recommend) an antenna as a primary source of television, the reactions are quite interesting:

 

“You can still watch TV with an antenna?”

 

“Isn’t the picture fuzzy? Aren’t you always getting up and adjusting your rabbit ears?”

 

“Isn’t that illegal? I thought the RCMP shut that down and the boxes don’t work anymore?”

 

“Aren’t there only like, 2 channels???”

 

Enter Canadian National OTA DTV Broadcasting Day‏, or affectionately known in the online world as Canada’s “OTA Day” (#OTADay in the Twittersphere).  OTA Day is the anniversary of Canada’s digital TV transition, which for most people passed by without much fanfare two years ago today, at midnight on August 31^st 2009.

The goal of this day to show appreciation for the various over-the-air broadcasters and the people that bring us local TV for free, and most importantly to raise awareness that OTA TV is still alive and well. In keeping with the spirit of this day, allow me to answer and elaborate on some of the major questions people have about watching TV via an antenna:

 

Yes, those rabbit ears still work

 

So what changed two years ago? Well, basically TV broadcasters got with the times and converted their equipment from analog to digital (think of the jump in quality when your old analog cellphones went digital, or when VHS tapes moved to DVD/BluRay). It was a huge investment and essentially rendered analog-only TV technology (which remained pretty much unchanged since the 60’s) obsolete. The good news is converter boxes can breathe new life into those analog-only TVs still in your home and if your TV is less than 6 years old, you’re already ready to receive the new digital signals.

This TV will need a converter but if you have a flatscreen, you’re already ready for DTV.

 

As for antennas, chances are you’re still good. As part of the transition, the TV broadcast spectrum was compressed meaning certain channels had to be relocated. The VHF-Lo bad of the spectrum was removed (channels 2 thru 6) and the UHF spectrum was capped at 51. So as long as your previous antenna was capable of receiving VHF-Hi and UHF channels, you’re good to go! If you’re in the market for a new antenna, the good news is this compressed range allowed manufacturers to improve and redesign their antennas with concentrated performance in this tighter range. The result is a new generation of smaller, more powerful antennas…. But I’ll get into that later.

 

No more fuzzy picture

 

Remember the days of trying in vain to move those rabbit ears and improve an image plagued by snow, static and ghosting images? Well those are a thing of the past. Just like when digital CDs eliminated the snap crackle and pop of vinyl records, the new digital tuners have filters and autocorrection that can remove these unwanted artifacts. The result is a crystal clear digital image coming in at resolutions as high as 720p or 1080i, and 5.1 sound. Some will argue that the picture quality is even better than satellite or cable due to the fact that over-the-air television is not compressed.

 

The only drawback? Digital reception is hit or miss – you will have a clear image until signal strength drops below 30%, where the tuner will not be able to display anything.

Check out the difference between analog (NTSC) vs digital (ATSC) broadcast technology via side-by-side real-time splitscreen in this video link. (Courtesy YouTube.com)

 

Over-The-Air TV is not illegal TV

 

OTA TV is governed by Industry Canada and the CRTC here in Canada and the FCC south of the border, similar to our local radio stations. And just like with radio, it is completely free and legal to receive this signal as long as you purchase the required equipment and that the broadcaster has a licence approved by the CRTC. Most broadcasters transmit over-the-air either because of legacy local TV stations and to have certain rights on local cable channels which pay lucrative amounts to re-transmit their signal to subscribers. In the beginning, cable TV was merely a community antenna (known as a cable head end) that received over-the-air TV signals and transmitted them via a coax cable system to subscribers at a minimal fee. Over time, cable only channels were added and we have the monster telcos that we have now, but the base channels are mostly still free locals!

 

Unfortunately, the term “free TV” has got a bad reputation because of illegal practices done in the late 90’s involving illegally modified satellite receiver boxes ("stolen TV" would be a better term in this case). People would modify set-top receivers intended for reception of legally free and unencrypted satellite TV channels to decode encrypted pay channels from service providers like Dish Network and DirectTV (legal unencrypted channels exist carried on international telecom satellites like international news channels and religious programming). Anti-piracy technology was put in place and authorities cracked down on the main sources of the modified hardware, essentially ending this practice.

 

Channel selection

 

If you live in an urban area and especially an urban area near the US border, you are in a free TV goldmine. The main complaint about over-the-air TV was that there weren’t enough channels. Sure, you won’t get the Pay TV only specialty channels (TSN, Discovery, CNN) but since the US and Canadian digital transition, channel selection has actually increased.

 

In the Toronto and Montreal areas, there are actually more free over-the-air channels, mostly due to the fact US stations adopted multicasting, a new technology that allows multiple programming to be broadcast on one channels. For example, a FOX affiliate added CW programming as its secondary. PBs stations can go 2 or 3 subchannels deep, adding networks like CREATE and WorldView.

 

You don’t necessarily need a hulking antenna

 

A lot of people think of TV antennas as heavy, large, clunky eyesores perched upon rusty towers. The fact of the matter is that while those antennas will still work with DTV signals, the digital transition sent a lot of antenna manufacturers back to the drawing board and consumers are reaping the benefits with new products. Super-compact antennas exist that are the size of a paperback book or even stick on a window can be used to replace rabbit ears and bring in local channels. Slightly larger antennas that are no bigger than a satellite dish can replace enormous deep fringe hardware in most markets. These new compact DTV antennas are even inconspicuous enough to be installed on apartment/condo balconies or other areas with no roof access. For example, in Montreal an antenna the size of a BBQ grill has enough gain packed into its design that it can bring in all line-of-sight channels.

 

Yet not all antennas are created equal – to find the best one for your particular location consult with a local antenna retailer, the manufacturer or visit the wealth of knowledge available on reputable online forums.

 

 

 

 

New antennas like the razor-thin Mohu Leaf indoor antenna (top), Winegard FlatWave AIR (center) and Antennas Direct Clearstream series (bottom) are new compact antennas that pack a lot of punch in a small package.

 

Over-The-Air broadcasting is not dead

 

In Canada, history was made in early 2013 as for the first time ever Pay TV companies lost subscribers for two financial quarters in a row. Skyrocketing bills, unreasonable fees, constraints in programming packages and bad service have more and more Canadians cutting the cord and looking for other options. So where have these viewers gone? For many in urban areas, over-the-air television has filled in to provide a good solid free channel base and some users couple this with streaming services to add speciality programming at a much more cost effective rate (Netflix, Apple TV)

It's a fact: cordcutting has come to Canada as consumers fume over rising prices (amongst other things).

 

In fact, using the example of Montreal, the city saw a rebirth of OTA with the national network CityTV recently setting up shop by buying out smaller outfit Metro 14; and a for the first time in over 20 years a new broadcast channel has installed a new transmitter and is set to launch in the coming month (Canal ICI). Other broadcasters in the city like V-Tele upgraded their transmitters to feed a wider OTA audience as their first installation was inadequate and was met with complaints from a larger-than-anticipated OTA-only TV following in the city.

 

On a larger scale, antenna manufacturers have reported a surge in sales in North America and new antennas continue to show up on the market and succeed. Tivo launched its newest Roamio products with built-in DTV tuners and a plethora of devices are flooding the market to get people to watch antenna TV on laptops, iPads and even turn home computers into fully customizable DVRs.

Sales in antennas have boomed (top) since broadcast TV went digital and new products keep coming out, like the HD HomeRun (above) which adds an OTA TV feed to your home WiFi network. (Photo courtesy NewEgg.ca)

 

OTA Day is also a sign of the growing resurgence of the popularity of broadcast TV. A growing community is showing its support and appreciation for the people who create and provide us with free TV and locally produced programming. Even retailers are jumping on board to use this weekend to provide boxing-day type sales on OTA gear.

 

Online OTA mega-retailers like Angel Electronics (above) and Save And Replay are some of the retailers offering OTA Day sales and promotions this weekend.

 

Conclusion

 

If you are a want-to-be cordcutter or just a savvy consumer looking to keep the money in your pocket and out of those of the Pay TV executives, do not discount the opportunities presented by over-the-air broadcast TV. And if you already are enjoying the services of your local OTA broadcasters, don’t be shy to take some time today to send them a note, email, call or tweet to thank them for their OTA feed.

 

Happy OTA Day everyone from your one and only Average Joe!

Dish Network DTVPal

Average Joe’s Recommended Converter Box for the “Anything but Obsolete” TV crowd

In my previous post I identified the “anything but obsolete” group as those that wanted to keep their analog TV for a while longer without breaking the bank, and yet enjoy the new benefits of the DTV viewing experience. For these people I recommend the DTVPal converter box from Dish Network (yes, the satellite company).

Model: Dish Network DTVPal

Package includes: Instructions, converter box, DC power supply, remote and coax cable

Inputs: co-axial antenna

Outputs: standard definition via RCA (yellow / red / white) and co-axial

Pros: Best program guide and user interface I’ve ever seen on a converter box, good picture quality, sensitive tuner, easy to setup and add / edit channels.

Cons: Remote cannot control the TV power, with the digital conversion over in the US the box is end-of-life and can only be bought off aftermarket sources (not retail)

The “WOW” Factor

Having tested a few converter boxes, nothing knocked my socks off like the DTV Pal. Unsuspecting test subjects at the Average Joe household thought that I had a satellite receiver connected to the TV; nobody could believe that this was running off an antenna. The program guide, the antenna alignment tools, the features and snazzy graphics … if you’re looking for the wow factor, this is the converter box that delivers it.
Appearance

The box itself is compact and discrete-looking with its black colour and only one green LED that lights up when in use. It does not look out-of place at all in a modern home theatre setup. The remote is ergonomic and looks high-end, its buttons are all a good size and are clearly labeled. There are no buttons or controls on the box.
Setup

The initial setup is one of the easiest I’ve seen on the market. An on-screen setup wizard guides you step by step through the installation process and lets you optimize your antenna placement before running a full scan, which is a very smart feature to have. Essentially you manually enter the channel RF numbers and use the signal strength to guide your antenna placement. For my test setup, I used one channel from the US and one local. Once your antenna is in the right spot, you go to the next step that runs a full scan; you sit back and watch as it identifies each channel it pulls in.Once the scan is done, it downloads the program guide with a progress screen similar to what the big boys on the satellite services have. I never had an OTA receiver box make me feel so classy. One note: if the box has been powered off for a while, the program guide will need to be re-downloaded with fresh information next time you start it up. The delay could be a bit annoying but this step can always be skipped. Besides that, the guide does update itself automatically every so often and if new channels are found they will be added automatically as well. You also have the option to perform re-scans without losing the previously scanned channels which is great for people that have signals coming from different directions and need to use antenna rotors or re-adjust indoor antennas.
As an extra bonus there is even an option manually punch in the RF frequency of a channel and see if the receiver can grab it, which is good for those hard to-reach channels that you just can’t seem to find in an automatic scan.

THIS is what a DTV guide should be!

Now the best part of it all – the program guide. By the way, Bell TV subscribers may find the user interface very familiar, and with good reason too as Bell essentially use re-branded Dish Network receivers. The program guide displays days of information (if available from the broadcaster) in a very easy to browse and user-friendly table. Not only do you get to see your entire programming selection at a glance, but options allow you to search the listing as well. Compare this to the program guide or “onscreen info” provided on the converter boxes in the big stores and you’ll see why this is easily its best in its class. It even beats out several newer satellite / cable boxes I’ve seen (yes Videotron, I’m talking to you: the 1990’s video game industry called, they want their graphics back). As a bonus, even the channel names can be manually edited in the guide to say whatever you want instead of the default DTV station callsign (i.e. "CTV-HD" instead of "WBRF-18")As if it couldn’t get any better, you can even search the guide for your program title and then set up auto-tuning to plan your night of TV watching and have the channels switch automatically. Once again, go ask those salespeople what do those other converter boxes have?

Ease of use:

The remote is well laid out which simply adds to the great user interface provided by the DTVPal. I absolutely love the “View TV” button which no matter where you are in the menu or guide automatically brings you right back to your show. The main program guide is one button away, and by using the left and right arrows you can access an on-screen minimalist version guide for browsing while watching your show.
Program info is also a button push away, and by default the antenna strength is shown when the main program banner appears which is an added bonus as it gives you a heads up to adjust your antenna if you see the bar a bit too low on the scale. In any case, at any point a warning message is automatically displayed if the level begins to drop to levels where degradation may occur, just like the big boys with satellite subscriptions have. Nice.Two small pet peeves concerning the remote: I would have loved to be able to control my TV power with this remote. The DTVPal remote is so ergonomic and sexy that I would have liked nothing more than to take my TV remote and archive it in a drawer in my TV stand. Oh well. The other thing is you may notice there are no dots or hyphens so keying in a DTV subchannel is a bit awkward: rather than dialling say 4-2 or 4.2, you need to tap in 0042 and the receiver will interpret it as 004-2. A small little inconvenience, but to honest with the guide being as good as it is I find myself changing channels mostly through the guide screen than anything.

Performance:

When compared to other boxes and TV tuners, the DTVPal was found to have the same if not better reception than standard tuners or converter boxes. During certain bouts of bad weather, I found the receiver held onto signals of lower strength much better than my TV tuner. The picture quality is good although other boxes may have marginally better results as per the Consumer Reports chart but there are really no majorly detrimental issues with the picture quality.

It sounds awesome, so where do I buy one?

You have to remember one thing – analog TVs are a thing of the past so a converter box is essentially a one-off piece of technology for obsolete equipment. The bad news is that with the DTV transition being over in the US, the market has shrunk and the DTVPal is no longer available for retail sale.

The good news however is that all those analog TV owners that gobbled up these boxes in 2009 in the US are starting to replace their TVs and are putting their used DTVPal boxes up for sale. With the Canadian dollar essentially at par (if not better) than the American, buying a used DTVPal off eBay or a similar website is your best bet to get this awesome box at a seriously reduced price.

With shipping included, you should be able to find a used DTVPal in good condition for around $50 USD, which is reasonable given the prices of new but inferior converters. As with all online purchases, just remember Average Joe’s golden rules for buying online:

- For used items, make sure the photos in the listing are of the unit that will be mailed to you

- Do your research on the vendor – do they have good feedback, are easy to contact and seem reputable?

- Inquire on which payment service will give you a better conversion rate. Don’t be shy to call your credit card company or compare their rates online to PayPal.

- NEVER ship across the border in anything besides United States Postal Service or Canada Post. Services such as UPS or FedEx will incur you extra brokerage fees that are more than likely not included in the price and are 100% your responsibility to pay once it’s delivered.

- Clean your used item when you receive it, especially in this case the remote which has been manipulated by strangers. I suggest using Lysol Disinfectant Wipes.

Conclusion:

Although you may be stuck with a standard definition TV for a while, the Dish Network DTVPal will let you enjoy those years with its awesome features. By far it is the only converter box out there that has that “wow” factor. If you want one: do your research, be patient and you’ll bag yourself a great deal buying a used unit in good condition online.

Wow, a Great DTV Offer From my Cable Company!

Only a marketing genious could turn an upgrade in free TV into a marketing pitch for a pay TV service.

Hey, did you know that all I need to do to get over the upcoming end of analog transmissions was to sign up for cable TV? They'll even convert all those pesky new digital signals for me! Wow, ain't that swell of those guys?

*Baaarrrrf*

Revenge of the Rabbit Ears – OTA Setups

It’s not Just About Going With an Antenna Only

Your Average Joe has been giving the details of what the new digital transition can mean for the Canadian coach potato. But how can an OTA setup fit into the plans of the averahe TV viewer? Well, OTA setups can be your sole source of TV entertainment or just a free “bonus” part of your TV system setup. Here are some of the most popular scenarios your Average Joe has seen out there and would like to share with you:

Existing OTA setups: Time to take a closer look

Did you know that as of today as much as 16% of Canadian television watchers don’t subscribe to pay TV? That is almost 1 out of every 5 TV viewers across the country. Right now, these people are most likley laughing. Day by day up until the August 31st cutover, the analog stations they receive via the airwaves are transitioning to digital. Their television sets and existing antenna setups are pulling in 1080i signals without any (or minimal) upgrade costs.

Perhaps you moved into a house that has an old antenna installed in the attic, or maybe you have a tower in the backyard that you disconnected a long time ago. It may be time to connect it up again and see what rolls in from the airwaves - you may be surprised!


The Cord Cutters: People that cancel their pay TV and go 100% OTA

Some people just can’t justify the cost of monthly fees for television service. Sure, certain TV watchers do it out of principle – they are fed up with handing over their hard-earned money to the big cable and satellite companies, tired of the barely justified “HD fees”, the rate hikes, the blackouts, the local TV taxes and cost of receiver rentals. Others would just rather save money that they can spend elsewhere. However for many it’s not just a finance thing - they just don’t watch enough TV to justify paying for it. More and more people now spend time in front of their computers instead of the TV. There are also people that are active and never at home. Families with young children who have a million other things to do in their spare time also fall into this category.

For these types of people the best TV is the free kind. An OTA setup with the major digital channels is perfect for them.


Analog Cable Subscribers: The best of both worlds

For analog cable subscribers they can have the best of both worlds. Analog cable has as a main benefit that it is still relatively cost-effective. The channel selection is extensive and no special receivers are required. Also, cable subscribers are not affected by the digital transition. The only drawback – analog cable is low definition.

What I’ve seen is a growing number of people adding an OTA setup to complement their analog cable. These people enjoy the wide selection of channels while having the option to watch certain shows off the HD feed coming in over their antenna.



Who said you can't have both? Analog cable subscribers can keep enjoying the channel selection and low price of their current service and switch when desired to an antenna setup to, for example, watch the HD feeds of hockey games on OTA networks such as CBC or NBC.

Stuck in the Past: Does it make sense to upgrade all that equipment?

Some cable or satellite subscribers are experiencing HD envy. They got on board the subscription TV train years ago, but now those standard definition boxes just don’t cut it anymore. But how much will it cost to upgrade? Existing customers rarely have bargaining power, and by the time they’ve bought all new receivers for their TVs, upgraded those cable boxes / satellite dishes / switches and then signed their lives away for HD packages, they may find themselves with a lot less clinking in the ol’piggy bank.

For those people, a cost-effective solution is to add an OTA setup to complement their existing system and bring in those crisp pictures without upgrading their equipment and downgrading their bank accounts.


Satellite Subscribers: Add on for free and scale back on the pay stuff

Satellite subscribers are usually stuck selecting package deals, often having to pay more to have HD channels. What most don’t know is that their satellite receivers are most likely already OTA ready, but no one told them!

Yes that’s right – it may be time to flip back through that never-opened user guide and see if your box will accept an OTA coax feed as well as the satellite feed. You probably don’t even know about it but could be watching or PVRing HD shows from your antenna right there with your satellite programs, all with the same guide and remote. And if these channels duplicate the channels you’re paying extra for, why not cut back and save some money at the same time?

Still not sure if your receiver can support DTV? Simply call your satellite subscriber’s technical support, provide your receiver model number and see how you can activate the OTA feature.


It was there all along?? This PVR satellite box from the “Blue” satellite company has an extra coax connector and an option in the menu to access local channels from an OTA antenna setup, it was just never activated. Once setup, the OTA channels appear in the program guide and can be treated in the same way as the programming coming from the satellite feed.

Welcome to the 21st Century – Internet and free OTA

A growing number of people are longer watching their TV through the… um… TV. More and more Canadians watch their movies via a PS3 and Netflix, others stream TV shows directly from a laptop to their screen. DVD collections have been transferred to terabyte sized hard drives. More and more viewers are downloading their shows from online retailers so they can watch without interruption and pesky commercials. In the end, pay TV is starting to look less attractive, especially since an increasing number of people are finding it more cost-effective to cancel pay TV and spend the money on internet packages with faster speeds and larger bandwidth quotas.

An OTA setup is the perfect system to compliment these types of internet TV setups. A reasonable antenna can easily add the major networks in stunning HD quality, giving easy access to live TV, local news and extra content – all without the monthly fees.


Ready for a Piece of the Action?

OK, so you’re sold. Average Joe has opened your eyes, you’ve read these posts the past few months and you’re ready to jump on board. But before you do – you have one nagging question – if OTA is so great, why haven’t you heard about it?

And that is one heck of a good question.


Next episode: Why is all the publicity concerning DTV OTA mysteriously MIA?

Average Joe is Back!

Ladies and gents, boys and girls, kitties and doggies - YOUR Average Joe is back and ready to roll!

After welcoming a new member to the Average Joe family, I'm finally back with some free time and once again I’m ready to share my findings on new products, raise the flags on bad deals and talk about plenty of other great stuff. As a special treat I'll be starting the year with a recurring segment to shed a bit of light on something that I believe can affect anyone and everyone: television.

Feel like you've put too much of your money in the pockets of the cable / satellite companies? Have you spent your cents on those questionable "special" boxes and dishes, only to be left in the dark? Computers and downloading got you scratching your head and watching your shows on a tiny monitor instead of the big screen in the man cave? Well, then you don’t want to miss this.

I'll be dedicating most of the year to shedding the light on a great and economical alternative/complimentary service. Oh, did I mention that not only is it 100% legal, it's actually regulated by the government? Best part is: you probably have the ability to use it now anyways ... and just don't know about it!

Stay tuned (no pun intended) ...