Mikepier wrote:
On Jul 18, 8:51 pm, Aaron Fude wrote:
Hi,

I have one of these puppies on my roof (the picture is not of my
roof).

http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecac...rge/files/arti...

that is currently serving no function as I have cable. It does
serve
as a convenient ledge for birds with all the predictable
consequences. Is there any reason whatsover to keep the antenna
there, e.g. for a broadcast HD tv signal, or can I remove it
without
any future regrets?

Thanks!

Aaron

I would keep it for a couple of reasons. If your cable goes out, it
would act as a backup to get the major local channels.
Plus, your cable provider compresses the HD signal quite a bit to
cram all the channels on one cable.
Whereas over the air signals you get from your rooftop antenna
receives clear uncompressed signal from the transmitter directly by
the TV station.

Uh, HD is highly compressed over the air as well. Fits into the same
bandwidth as an analog broadcast signal, and there are often several
subchannels carrying different programming. The local channels don't
usually get compressed at all.

And like the other poster said, depending where you
live, your cable provider might not provide all the local channels.
Plus, you might pick up a station far away to get some freebies,

Not bloody likely with HD. Picking up the nearby stations is enough
of a challenge. It's not like analog broadast where the signal
degrades by getting fuzzy--with HD the degradation goes from perfect
picture to nothing with no gradations in between.

for
example an out of market NFL game or an MLB baseball game.

--
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--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)