On Thu, 2 Sep 2010 05:44:52 -0400, "Robert Green"
wrote:

Baltimore or Washington.

I'm in the same area and in the same boat and live in the shadow of a hill
that obscures the line of sight with the big TV antenna complex near the
Sears near Tenleytown. The problem I had with the rotor is that my DVR has
no way to rotate the aerial to the proper direction for the channel I want

They never do, do they?

to record. Since I have two DVRs, I ended up putting two antennas in the
attic: one optimized for DC and the other for Baltimore. I segregate my
recording based on that. Stations coming from Baltimore go to DVR one,
stations from Washington, DVR two.

Very clever. I haven't tried this yet but someone on
sci.electronics;.repair said one could use a splitter (combiner, same
thing) to connect both antennas together, implying that there would be
no problem interactino. No one contradicted him but I never asked
further. I figured I would try it, so there wasn't much point to
discussing it. But I havent' got the omni-directional antenna yet.
Still, I do have that 6 or 8 foot wire.

Later this year, I am going to mount a
tall mast on the chimney and put up the rotor again, with the largest aerial
I can find to pull in the stations like 22 that broadcast from Annapolis, 90
degrees away from Baltimore or Washington and some other transmitters that
aren't located with the other major towers. )-:

I still get dropouts, though, from overhead planes, rain clouds and elves.

Dropout is the word! Mine are all elves. I've never seen a reason.

(IOU, I am not sure what causes them, but I do know they proliferate at the
ends of programs where they're saying "Of course, the killer had to be -
silence, splotches, more silence and finally the picture returns).

I've been pretty lucky. It usually comes back when they're on the same
jeopardy clue, or it drops out during commericals or during part of
the news I'm not interested in.

But a week ago, I missed the last 5 minutes of Alfred Hitchcock. I
went to zap2it.com , but it only gave a generic description, good for
all episodes. I was going to search on the description.

So I looked for alfred hitchock full episodes and got
several hits. I thought I would have to start watching each, but they
each had one still shot from the given show, and mine had the back of
a nurse's head with a guy facing her whom I actually recognized from
the show. I rarely recognize anyone. So it took only a couple
minutes to find the show, and I let it play in the background until I
got to the last 5 minutes. It ended just like I remembered from 45
years ago!

As fuzzy
as analog was, I don't remember losing key parts of the transmission they
way I do with digital.

Right. The arrogance with which they asserted that it woudl be better
than analog.

I've also discovered that there's an incredible
variation in tuners. The Polaroid DVR doesn't get half the channels that a
new, no name 7" portable can pull in off the same aerial. Probably a 7 year
difference in date of manufacture, though. I have noticed that even my
friends with FIOS have problems in rainstorms because the weather affects
the satellite transmissions from orbit to the FIOS dishes.

Very interesting. Thanks. I noticed this years ago with analog
tvs, and also with radios, that famous brand doesn't make much
difference

Still, I'm happy with basic cable, OTA HD and Netflix. And having a DVR
with a commercial skip button. I don't think I could watch TV anymore
without one.

I didn't know they made those. A year or two before the switch, a
friend gave me a VCR with commerical skip, but it turned out the whole
machine didn't work. I wonder if I was supposed to know that. Anyhoe
I didnt' get it fixed before the switch. I still plan to connect a
VCR to watch movies I bought for a dollar and never watched, and
things I recorded, but there's no rush.

--
Bobby G.