I totally agree there is a real misunderstanding about OTA and HD!

I can attest (albeit anecdotally) about such misunderstandings. Aside from myself, absolutely no one in my neighborhood is using any form of a terrestrial antenna for television service. I know this from a recent meeting of our HOA where some 50 of us gathered to get our keys to the community swimming pool updated for the approaching summer. Because I'm a longtime resident and fairly well-known to my neighbors (as an ex-radio personality), I asked everyone I could about this.

Zip, nada, null. I alone am the OTA guy in that small universe I sampled. That's discouraging because this is an ideal location for OTA with a high elevation so that all of the co-located towers at Cedar Hill are LOS. One small, simple UHF/VHF antenna works well here and aiming is a snap.

There were the usual misconceptions that I heard at the meeting. "Isn't that illegal?" (since I don't pay for television when watching OTA) and "...you can still get TV with an antenna, I thought they stopped doing that..." and "doesn't your antenna interfere with the radio?". My smallish roof-mounted antenna has drawn only some mild rebukes in the past because "it's so ugly" (from neighborhood women) but it's been a fait accompli for some time and is now accepted merely as point of curiosity. Most of the guys think it (a Terk HDTVo) looks cool.

An attempt to advocate OTA and clear up the faulty notions fell on deaf ears. The showstoppers were lack of CNN, ESPN, Fox Sports and the local access cable channel for city council and school board coverage. This is also a moderately high-income area that's largely been immune to the recession so the cost of cable is probably seen as nominal by those in my area.

May you have better results with OTA advocacy in Canada.

re_nelson - your anecdotal evidence is a bit disappointing in that the US is ahead of Canada with its DTV conversion and active/willing participation of its broadcasters. You also have numerous very watchable sub channels, and many markets with 40-50 channels total.

I live in South Burnaby, BC, one of the better areas in Canada (outside of Southern Ontario and parts of Quebec) for OTA HDTV. Despite the "relative" ease of receiving Deep Fringe and local channels, the level of OTA awareness and acceptance in this area is bordering on nil. It is one of the best kept secrets (and perks) of living in South Burnaby.

Repeated walks and drives around this area has shown no signs of OTA "life", not a single roof top or balcony installed antenna. I look up at the numerous high rise apartments with glorious unimpeded South East facing balconies, and drool. Any decent 4 Bay antenna with unrestricted sight lines would pull in all the locals and many Seattle channels, I know this for fact, because at my house, even at 20" AGL, it is no problem. My own outdoor antenna setup is met with a combination of apathy (95%) and very mild curiosity (5%), and I get many of the same questions as yourself, with "Is it legal?" being foremost.

IMO, unless the OTA equipment suppliers become more assertive in promoting OTA HD, it will stay a small niche market, and the masses will remain ignorant of its benefits. Any "sizable" increase in OTA viewership will not take place, without the active and willing participation from equipment manufacturers, distributors and retailers, and a consortium financed marketing campaign would surely pay dividends for them. They have the most to gain financially, even a 5% increase in North American OTA viewership could put an extra $1 Billion plus into their industry.

ATSC is the best thing to happen to television since the advent of color, and its a shame that so few people are aware of its existence and benefits.

ATSC is the best thing to happen to television since the advent of color, and its a shame that so few people are aware of its existence and benefits.

Let me add that I, too, was among the ignorant until right around the DTV transition here in the US back in June 2009. But since my background was broadcasting (radio), the channel changes and new method of modulating the carrier had some technical interest to me. It was only then that I became of what a sweet spot all of this area of North Texas is for OTA reception (combined with some really great facilities at the transmitting farm, all around 500 meters HAAT and most powered at a megawatt).

In short, I became hooked and would now be considered an OTA addict. The problem is my interest remains strictly on the technical side with a fascination for receiving antennas, ATSC decoders, measurement tools and the transmitting facilities.

But when it comes to actually watching television for pleasure or information, it's back to the cable teat I go for ESPN, Fox Sports, Turner Classic Movies and the various news channels. That in spite of getting a grand total of 76 streams available OTA from some 30 different stations with just the modest Terk HDTVo. Sadly but realistically, the best content (at least for me) is on cable.

So as the sole OTA user in the universe comprising my neighborhood, I don't even really use the antenna setup(s) I have for its intended purpose.

You're dreaming if you think BDUs won't pass this on to the customers.

That's not what I'm sayin. All I'm sayin is it isn't as big a deal as what they might make it sound. Think about it, how many OTA stations would they have to pay out to, vice how many "specialty" channels they pay to carry now? And how much? In some cases they might even be paying themselves,
if that makes any sense.

The OTA Broadcaster like a CBC, or a TVO deserves something. It's not like they'd be holding cable companies hostage or anything, like an HBO or a Showtime probably does here. Like I said, it's been that way here for a very long time, and I just don't think it's that big a deal.

I was browsing on Kijiji yesterday, and was surprised to see quite a number "TV tower antenna wanted" adds! The facts about free OTA HD TV, are slowly spreading around the country!

.... and it even quotes Hugh!
http://www.moneyville.ca/article/974033--who-needs-cable-i-get-20-channels-with-an-antenna

Yep I just saw that article and apart from Hugh's line the information was really irritating - all the writer needed to do was tell people to come here. :D

Walking around the block with the dog now see 12 OTA antennae while last year counted 6.All are 4 or 8 bay designs.

In my neighborhood, there are now at least 3 antennas, where there were 0 before. 2 are 4228's, one is some sort of UHF yagi.

Here in Calgary two stores are reporting yet further increases in antenna sales. Also I am detecting that there are generally more people aware of the presence of OTA DTV and HD.

A guy around the corner just put up a UHF yagi aimed at the Vancouver stations. Too bad he isn't a reader here because he would find out that a reflectorless bowtie or GH would get him the Bellingham stations too! Nevertheless, OTA uptake is slow in the Vancouver area so far.

Yep I just saw that article and apart from Hugh's line the information was really irritating - all the writer needed to do was tell people to come here. :D
Anyone supporting OTA is a good thing. He throws in a link to this site, and then we slam him? What message does that send to his readers that came here looking for answers?

It was a critique that the material he supplied to his readers is sub-par. It is fair commentary. :)

Of all people in the world, yesterday Bob McCown on Prime Time Sports was explaining to Raptors analyst Jack Armstrong how OTA HDTV works and the merits of getting it...

Audio is available at...

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/fan590primetimesports/~3/P3_Ndixr3rE/PTS-2011-04-27-4-pm.mp3

It occurs at the top of the show for the first 8 minutes or so.

This segment starts at about the 7:20 mark and runs for a little over a minute.

Bobcat says that the signal you get from antenna "is about a million times better than what you get from cable or satellite".

He then goes on to say that this is because the cable and satellite signals are compressed whereas the OTA signal is not - which is not entirely accurate since the OTA signal is a MPEG-2 signal at a bitrate of about 19 Mbps which is actually still massively compressed compared to a full 1080i uncompressed HD signal. But it is true that it is better than cable/sat which is actually often recompressed down to a lower bitrate.

We're in the middle of a big windstorm in Ottawa. The local CBC Radio One afternoon show was soliciting tweets on downed power lines, etc. Someone tweeted that here cable was out, and thus she would not be able to watch the Royal Wedding tomorrow.

I tweeted back that cable is not necessary to watch the wedding -- CBC is available over the air for free in analog (4) AND digital (25 / 4.1).

My tweet was read on the air, so finally the CBC gets to admit on the air that they transmit OTA in digital! (If you look at the CBC Frequencies page, they only list Cable positions under the HDTV caption.)
Results for Ottawa, ON

Service


Frequency/Channel

CBC Radio One 91.5 FM

CBC Radio Two 103.3 FM

CBC Television
antenna 6
Shaw Direct 303
cable 8
antenna 4
Videotron analog Cable 2
Videotron digital Cable 6

HDTV
Videotron 606
Rogers Cable 513

CBC Newsworld
cable 26

That is a fun story thanks for sharing!

I did some office computer data entry volunteering for the local Conservative candidate. I brought in my small 7" LCD portable TV, and placed it near a southern window and got a few anlog channels. Then someone else brought in an analogue 17" portable CRT TV set. It ended up being on analogue 52, SUN TV, all the time (dohhh). There were quite a few people who were surprised that they could receive it for free. Making people aware of free OTA TV is the first step.

Walter your story continues to amaze me about just how many people that do not know about OTA.

Walter your story continues to amaze me about just how many people that do not know about OTA.
also, the telecom companies are trying their best to spread misinformation. when i called videotron to cancel my subscription to their television services, all three representatives of the company tried to convince me that my antenna would no longer be of any use after the transition to digital in august.

when i explained to them that in fact the opposite was true, the tone of their voice indicated to me that they didn't believe me or that this was completely new information to them.

i understand that they have their talking points to use to try to convince people to keep spending money, but i hate to think that some people will be confused/convinced by their outright lies.