Wacky, Tacky OTA Gear (What NOT To Buy!)

[name777]

OMG, thanks guys for bumping up this topic... I haven't had such laughs for quite a while

[sterney]

they sell that titan piece of crap at a few electronics shops here in Toronto. I took it out of the box and its so junky it's hilarious!

[ota_canuck]

I got real tired of pigeon doodoo on my antenna and roof so I put up one of those fake owls to keep them away, but it didn't work. That fake owl probably cost more than one on those Titans. I'm gonna order me one of those wacky looking Titans. It looks like it will scare the pigeons away. And they said it's guaranteed to work anywhere. Who knows, maybe I can pick up a few extra channels from China at the same time.

[ontherooftop77]

haha thats a funny one, in dixie and matheson there are stores that are selling even more and more channel master 4 bay clones for like 20-30 bucks and they must have like 20 different kinds now with weird comapany names, one particular antenna the 4 bay had the wiskers like half an inch thick and flat and looked like spiders ( if only I had a picture) and people were buying this garbage.

[holl_ands]

Originally Posted by weehaggis

I'm wondering if anyone knows anything about this antenna.

The cartoons just get better and better.....

Note the fol. uses folded dipole elements vice bowties in the one above:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...php?p=16809408

"Full USA Coverage"
"No color codes needed, our antenna works everywhere"
"Grabs local signals with ease! 100+ mile range in any direction."

They might be decent medium range UHF and short range Hi-VHF antennas,
but with the hype, who knows......

[JamesK]

On a related note, does anyone here remember those ads for cheap colour TV adapters for B&W sets? A friend's father fell for that one. The colour "adapter" was nothing more than a sheet of plastic that you'd tape to the front of your TV. It had a blue tint at the top, pinkish in the middle and green at the bottom.

[stampeder]

Ya, there was another similar con to the colour converter that allowed you to turn your 26" set into a 40" (unheard of at the time):

It was just a fresnel lens, and a badly designed one at that! Ironically some of the original TVs had such small CRTs that they needed fresnel lenses to make the picture viewable, but as for this add-on that came along much later, it was a swindle because the laws of optics state that fresnel lenses also reduce the image quality as they enlarge it.

There's a photo and general description of the TV fresnel lenses here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresnel_lens

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by stampeder

Ya, there was another similar con to the colour converter that allowed you to turn your 26" set into a 40" (unheard of at the time):

It was just a fresnel lens, and a badly designed one at that! Ironically some of the original TVs had such small CRTs that they needed fresnel lenses to make the picture viewable, but as for this add-on that came along much later, it was a swindle because the laws of optics state that fresnel lenses also reduce the image quality as they enlarge it.

My grandmother had one of those. In her case it was actually helpful as she had macular degeneration and enlarging the image on the TV was helpful to her. Her vision wasn't good enough to notice any image quality reduction.

[stampeder]

I think they're all wacky and tacky, but which one did you mean in particular?

[cptcarter]

Hey all,

I'm just wondering if anyone has any experience with these smaller antenna's that are popping up on ebay. They make it sound as if they are really good but I find it hard to believe considering the size and price.

I was browsing ebay tonight looking for antenna's and I came across several postings for a small antenna which claims to grab channels from 125 miles away and comes with a built in rotor and a high gain amplifier. They are selling for about $70, I was wondering if anyone has had any experiences with these.

I am in the Windsor, On area so the digital channels from Detroit are fairly close to me. Any input?

[hkaye]

Doesn't look like a very good antenna. You can buy a better antenna for around the same price - Channel Master 4221HD that would work a whole lot better than this.

The rotors on these antennas are useless because there is no feedback telling you which direction the antenna is pointing so unless you are sitting on your roof with your antenna and can see which direction it is pointing you're driving blind.

I'd suggest sticking to the brands and models recommended in this post -

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=97121

Or if your handy building a DYI antenna found in this post -

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=119489

[roger1818]

Saw an ad. for this antenna on a strange website called "Digital Home Canada."

[stampeder]

That would be from one of the ad servers, not from this site...

Notice how they directly stole Sony's "Full HD 1080" gold and black logo?

Originally Posted by Sony

All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Sony, BRAVIA, Sync, Theater Sync, BRAVIA Engine, make.believe, and the Sony logo, Full HD 1080p logo and BRAVIA logo are trademarks of Sony.

My Sony SXRD had that logo on it.

[kgb]

Hi there, Look at this gear ,,,,,, http://www.china-antenna.com/product...1&id=5&typed=3

[re_nelson]

Antenna of 22nd century

Wow...it 's a shame that I use Firefox since the webpage clearly states -- and I quote verbatim:

Recommanded IE5.0