welcome back friends and family of my
audience
greetings if you've never watched any of
my videos ever my name is Eric and I'm
an FCC licensed amateur radio operator
my youtube channel is called ham radio
concepts so you can think I do videos on
ham radio today is a big day for me I am
now a former telecommunications
installer internet cable and satellite
now I've taken my ham radio experience
my telecommunications experience put
them together to further my career to
bigger and better things can't say where
I'm going but I can tell you where I've
been the ride has been fun but it's time
to move on
now I could take my ham radio experience
my cable experience put the two together
in a video to educate you on how you can
take your knowledge and avoid paying
cable companies thousands of dollars a
year for TV that you can get for free
legally with an antenna a little bit of
knowledge you can put that extra money
back in your pocket and avoid paying all
those fees with free over-the-air HD TV
in this video I hope you watch every
single minute to get all the information
I put a lot of effort into it a little
bit of where it came from a little bit
of how it works and how to set it up for
your optimal experience you won't be
sorry
subscribe leave a thumbs up and comment
after this video let me know what you
think
it's a date I remember well June 12 2009
the Congress mandated the
analog-to-digital transition in the
United States for all television
broadcasting stations that were
broadcasting analog to ceased their
programming no later than 11:59 p.m.
local that day it was the most
significant advancement of television
technology since color TV was introduced
it really was but it started a y2k in
2009 people thought their TV they've
watched for years with a snowy picture
and rabbit ears was gonna disappear
unless they spent a lot of money people
were told their TV was garbage and their
antennas would no longer work unless
they bought new antennas they were
ill-informed but the people that
couldn't afford to accommodate or the
people that didn't want to let go of
their analog Sony TV there was a
federally sponsored DTV converter box
coupon program which I actually took
advantage of each household was allotted
two free converter boxes to accommodate
that old analog TV to accept the switch
to digital you either mailed it in or
you went online and filled out your
information and it was sending it to
coupons and you can go to a local store
that was participating or it would ship
you the boxes and I still have those two
boxes I'll show you those later in the
video
but now we've come so far since then
this was the beginning of when it
happened now we've come so far where we
have manufacturers that manufacture
really good antennas and we have all
TV's after 2007 are compatible with a
built-in tuner if it's a flat screen
manufacturer 2007 or later the goal here
in this video is to enlighten you and
show you kind of what the big deal was
to go to digital why did they do it
besides the fact that the transmitter
sites can lower their power because
digital is more efficient but there was
also more content more channels a better
picture Full HD sometimes better than
your cable you got now because it's not
as compressed it's a perfect picture for
free and that's the other thing I want
to show you is how to set it up and to
avoid paying these cable companies
enormous amounts of money I was an
installer I did install
services for a living and I watched
people struggle and say you know I hate
to do this but I can't afford it but
this is the only option I have and
you're wrong cut the cord
put that money back in your pocket for
other toys or hobbies or to feed your
kids or to survive put that money in
your pocket and avoid paying these cable
companies for TV you can get for free in
Full HD so a little Anatomy on how this
analog to digital conversion happens
what makes it so much better why did
they do it what does it mean when it
went analog to digital what are the
benefits well hopefully if you're a
subscriber to my current channel you'll
understand this perfect perfect sense if
you're a tech newbie don't worry I'm not
gonna leave in the dark I'm gonna
explain this as basic as I can so you
have an understanding on what this means
and how it works now you have an HDTV
and you want to receive over-the-air
broadcasting free from a television
station of course you're going to need
an antenna right and we're going to talk
about indoor versus outdoor antennas
coax connecting them amplifiers and more
but a big misconception is is my antenna
digital and they think that it has to be
labeled a digital antenna but in fact
the antenna
in theory just receives signals unless
it's got a bunch of active electronics
inside this antenna it's still an
antenna but there is a big huge
difference with my experience on a
poorly manufactured antenna versus a
really good antenna it's got to be
calibrated in tune properly to pick up
all those stations a simple piece of
wire in the air is an antenna but it
will not pick up these frequencies for
these TV stations what actually changed
in this process was the signal coming
off of the tower which went digital and
what that means well let me explain in
the past years years until 2009 channel
25 for example is local to me and that's
a ABC channel local to me and West Palm
Beach it for years was an analog signal
passing nothing more than traditional
audio and video over a six megahertz
bandwidth and for the non-technical
people that pretty much picture a one
lane highway you could fit one car in
that one
at one time okay now when they went
digital what they actually did digital
can occupy less bandwidth so they can
fit multiple channels in the same
one-lane Road so basically they made the
cars thinner fitting more cars on the
same one lane road now with that digital
they call it digital sub-bands so in my
situation 25 local here has five digital
sub bands dot 1.2.3.4 dot five certain
towers across the country may only have
two or three but you can see that they
could fit multiple channels in the same
six megahertz bandwidth or that one lane
road and with it going digital that
means it's now digital data passing what
everything runs on nowadays back to the
very basic binary ones and zeros on and
off digital data is binary even back to
the very beginning of computers
transistors came out and they were
operating on binary so you could fit
more channels in the same bandwidth and
with the binary and the digital you can
also fit data in there like electronic
program guide and station information
that's called multi casting multi
casting so you're casting multiple
channels or multiple network traffic on
the same bandwidth and that's where you
get the digital sub-channels so you ask
why did they do that what's the
difference you would think a wider
channel would be better right not
necessarily when it comes digital they
can narrow a lot more into a little
stream and it'd be ten times better so
what is this benefit to the people and
the station owners and the content
providers well instead of having five
channels here to broadcast five
different Channel 25 streams to one
antenna and putting up more antennas
across the country they can fit one
antenna and they can fit multiple
streams to your TV set without having to
add additional transmitters they can do
it off one transmitter and the same
thing happened with ham radio now if
you're not a ham radio person this may
not make sense to you but in the past we
used analog traditional analog voice
communications on various different
modes and
frequencies now when digital started
approaching for the users that follow me
DM Rd star and system fusion basically
they split that same let's call this
twelve and a half kilohertz of signal
they split it and now you can do voice
and half of it and data in the other
half so they can do your voice traffic
for talking and at the same time you can
do digital data for GPS coordinates call
signs and more all on that same path
so ham radio and over-the-air broadcast
TV are running about the same theory
here when it comes from analog to
digital now in this video I'll be
showing the tools and supplies I got
from the supplier that I used antennas
direct comm I've purchased from them in
the past before I even had a youtube
channel
and I thought this is the best place
where you need to go and get the stuff
the antenna that I have said we have a
couple antennas an indoor and outdoor
antenna this is by far of all my
experience the best outdoor antenna you
can buy this has the most range the most
gain and we'll pull in every station
that's possible from your area we're
going to set this up explain it unbox it
show you how to mount it but then they
also have stuff like mast mounted
preamplifiers that you can they call
their system the juice the amplifiers
for output HDTV distribution amplifiers
to wire it to all four rooms and not
have so much loss a powered splitter and
several units are available on their
site they also have different mounts and
different accessories that you can
purchase to mount your antenna for your
area and you're on your Eve and your
attic or wherever picked up one of these
and we also have a pull mount we're
going to use on the side of my from this
house here now the indoor antenna here
will show you the difference between
indoor and outdoor but what I really
want to stress is this is going to be
cool we check this out this is the clear
stream TV this unit here allows you to
take your wireless or your over-the-air
HDTV and stream it through wireless
devices on your home Wi-Fi like your
smartphone your tablet
your Roku player pause rewind and
fast-forward live TV you won't have to
have your DVR from the cable company
anymore they have all the supplies at
antennas to write comm this site is in
the description for the link and we're
going to go through the site and show
you how cool is on their site to locate
exactly what you need for your zip code
so I'm not my friend's house he said
Eric I want to go to antenna TV but and
cut the cable from my current provider
but I don't really understand what I
need to do and I said great this would
be a perfect opportunity to make a video
about it so what we're gonna do here is
we're going to use this TV in his living
room and the satellite boxes down there
so we're going to show you the basics on
two different examples his house is
pre-wired with a smart panel as all new
houses pretty much are if you get that
option and let me show you what that
looks like this is what you call a smart
panel and this has all the home wiring
to distribute throughout your home now
you may not have something as elaborate
as this it may look like this something
that an average house would have what
just wires outside in a box enclosure
and you can feed it all out there but in
this situation we have a smart panel so
here's where all the cable connections
are and one of these goes outside so
we're going to mount the antenna outside
and we're going to feed the signal in to
the connections here and distribute it
to the different TVs and I'll try to
explain that as easy as I can don't be
scared on how this looks basically in a
nutshell your signal is coming from
outside it's coming in here and it's
distributing through your home so what
we're doing is replacing the satellite
feed from outside with the antenna and
it's coming in to the same panel and
distributing to the same TVs so we're
going to be mounting the antenna today
on this side of the house and the
station's which you can find on several
websites or the clear stream
website that'll show you exactly which
way the stations are the station's I'm
looking for are going to be to the north
west and the south from here now
the satellite here the feed is going
right to that cable connector there and
that's where it's entering the
home so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna
disconnect the satellite feed and
connect my antenna right there the same
principle is happening in every
situation either your satellite or your
Comcast is coming from outside of the
home and going in so what you're going
to do is replace that source with the
antenna so we're going to mount the
antenna on this side let me show you
about that outdoor antenna so the
instructions are pretty clear that come
with it
colored Illustrated pictures and if
you're not getting it with the
instructions that are included you can
go on their site and they have some
instruction assembly as well so
basically how this works this is a they
call it an eight-day antenna and what
you're seeing here if you're one of my
ham operator followers you might see the
similarity here so in the box comes two
sets like this okay essentially it's
going to go together like this alright
and what you have here is this is the
fort this is called bowtie design
there's four of them here for UHF and
they're combined together there so
they're basically stacked all connected
all the way through and this is mounted
onto your reflector so if you're
familiar with yagi antenna is an amateur
radio you have a reflector than the
driven element this is kind of a similar
but for a different frequency if you
have one there then you're going to have
another one once you put this together
and in the middle you have a combiner
now the combiner is going to take one
coax from this side it's gonna take one
coax from this side and it combines them
together to one feet so now what you
could do is have two of these and face
opposite directions or you can
essentially really want to face them in
the same direction both of them facing
north both of them facing south but you
can swivel them one direction this way
one direction this way and accommodate
for several locations of antenna
broadcasting stations with
tenna but we're gonna finish putting
this together it does come with all
kinds of zip ties and hardware to mount
this together pretty easy to set up it
does come with coax jumpers to go from
the antennas to the combiner we're going
to talk about coax shortly so let me get
this finished and I'll show you what the
finished product looks like so now the
finished product I have to just snug up
the bolts here but I have both of them
here I have the combiner here and that's
gonna get tightened up once I mount that
on the mat here that'll pull the
combiner tight I didn't put the zip ties
on yet but it was only about 15 minutes
to set this thing up and make sure it
was right now like I said you could take
this and turn it like this if you wanted
to face it one way in the other although
your maximum gain is going to be phased
exactly like this so you're having two
antennas facing the exact same direction
you will still get antenna signals off
the back side of this the front of this
is where the receiving signal is
anything that passes through and hits
the reflector it kind of you know the
reflector keeps a signal so that you
have a front and a back now if you turn
it this way again you're facing right
now it would be West but you'd still get
signals off the backside if they were
close enough so you don't have to have
one from north and one for south if
you're in the middle of two strong
signals you'll also get signals from the
side but really this is directional it
does receive from this side and also you
can notice the the way this is
constructed if you're familiar with
antennas there's a spacing that's very
crucial between each element and the
elements and the reflector so there is a
technology here and a manufactured
process to make this thing optimal it's
not just thrown together and that's how
in TV antennas work let's talk about
coax for a second because you're going
to need coax cable to connect this
antenna now the difference between coax
I have a couple different pieces here
there's a big difference you want to
make sure you use rg6 not rg59 rg59 is
very thin and it it's not as good of a
quality cable for this kind of
application same thing goes with ham
radio the better the coax the better the
signals are less lost that's what you're
after is less loss to get maximum
now it helps to have good compression
fittings with a good tool and a good
stripper you want to stay away from the
crimp type at Radio Shack or Home Depot
and the gold ones if they say
gold-plated they're no good I can tell
you from experience as an installer for
years a gold barrel or a gold fitting
that was crimped on will always cause a
TV to pixelate when it's digital so this
kind of coax here is what's called rg6
quad shield and the quad shield means
you know you have an extra layer of foil
here okay you can see me peel that back
you have an extra layer of foil and
that's supposed to shield it twice as
good because now you have the braid here
for shielding the thing about this is
this is not solid copper conductor in
the middle this is copper clad steel so
copper clad steel is not as good as
something as solid copper but a
compression fitting this will do way
better than standard rg59 cable anyways
a regular compression tool like that is
really difference in loss between this
and a crimp on fitting you want to make
sure your stinger is not too long if it
is you want to cut that off well I don't
have cutters here but you want to make
sure that stinger is about flush with
the top of this connector believing guys
I've done this for years I know now
another type of cable would be something
that a lot of satellite companies use
and that is not quad shield but it's
solid copper okay now the difference
with this is you have your braiding
around here like this but this right
here is solid copper that can carries
power a lot better and also it also has
a less loss when you're talking about
solid copper versus copper clad steel
and the same thing a good compression
tool fits right on there nice alright
it's worth picking one of these up
online I got this on Amazon it's called
data shark link is in the description
you want to buy that but that's it now
barrels the same thing this is an orange
barrel this is a blue barrel and there
is actually a difference Direct TV uses
orange because that barrel is swept
frequency wise up to three gigahertz
this will pass up to three gigahertz of
frequency now you're not going to be
seeing 3 Giga Hertz on antenna so maybe
a little overkill this one here is what
the standard cable company uses that is
up to 2 gigahertz so Comcast or other
cable companies that don't use up that
way they use a barrel with a clear
insert and that's only swept to 1
gigahertz 1,000 megahertz so a good
barrel is definitely a big improvement
and if you're doing any outside
installations you want to make sure you
have the rubber boots on here that way
it keeps moisture out when you're
connecting outside if you live on the
beach and it's salty the rubber boots
will definitely keep the corrosion out
of the connectors for a long period of
time now if you buy premade cable from
the store premade they may have
something that looks like this now this
is okay this is says right on here rg6
and it does have some some sort of
factory made crimp on ends these are
compression fittings these are perfectly
well but don't go to the store and buy
premade rg59 that's not going to be good
for you even if you buy a 50 foot roll
from cop from RadioShack or Walmart with
the gold ends on it and it's supposed to
be the best there is and the best that
ever will be stay away from it because
it will give you degraded signal the
antenna does come with two pieces of rg6
with compression fittings on there from
antennas direct and they also sell cable
and stuff like that so that's your cable
lesson for today let's say you don't
want to put up a mast and normally like
satellites can be mounted on roofs
antennas Direct actually has a mount
here that would go on the roof and
basically your foot would go and get
screwed with the bolts to your single
roof keep in mind you don't want to
screw this over any living areas area
that's a practice with satellite
installation you always mount this over
the eave so that if the water leaks
through the shingles you don't have
water damage in your house so you can
put tar under here and mount this to the
roof and your bracket would go like this
and now you have a way to a fix your
antenna to the top of this mast antennas
Direct has that and some other style
mounts this would be almost identical to
a Direct TV style mount adjustable for
the pitch of your roof and able to mount
on any kind of shingle or wood platform
okay so for the purpose of this video my
friend here wants to have a longer Pole
and concreted and we're using a
telescopic flagpole so for temporary for
the purpose of this video I'm showing it
up there right now I can go a little bit
higher but it's not permanent so I don't
want it to blow over now
the coax take a look at this see this
that's a no-no if you have that
situation you have extra you want to cut
off what you don't need the reason I use
that longer piece is because he'll need
that when he gets the permanent
installation and he gets that up 15 20
feet remember just like in ham radios CB
radio or anything height is might the
higher you can get this the better the
higher above the roof line the better
now keep in mind you see that power
there you want to make sure please guys
do not come in contact with that power
if it falls this would not be an ideal
situation with it right here maybe over
a little bit and up and braced to the
he's probably at a bracelet to the
soffit there or possibly some guy wires
and a bag of concrete but you know you
don't want this thing to fall into power
lines you can be killed and if you I
wish I would've made a video of it years
ago my antenna on top of my tower blew
over on a February I think it was 2015
and hit the 13,000 volt power lines and
it destroyed everything from that
antenna through my house all the coax
turned into nothing disintegrated to ash
the backs of my TV's blown apart and was
sprayed plastic all over the wall it was
pretty nasty you don't want that thing
to contact power but what I did was I
ran that right into the main feed that's
going inside the house to that smart
panel all right so this is that juice
powered amplifier that I had got from
there the for output HD TV distribution
amplifier so basically what happens is
this is powered so it comes with a power
adapter you would put power plug this
into the power and this would go it's a
power now this is an active amplifier
your antenna signal will go here to the
RF in and then you have four outputs now
this makes up for long coax runs a
regular traditional splitter is going to
add loss for every leg you put on that
splitter so if you have a decent signal
and you split it eight times to feed
your house it's again turning to a poor
signal this actually makes up for the
loss in long runs on the fringe area in
multiple rooms or multiple runs off the
same splitter so here is that coax that
I found outside okay and this is going
to go to the RF band right now by an
antenna signal is feeding from outside
through the coax in the house all the
way to the sample and then what I'm
going to do is I'm going to borrow one
of these plugs here for one of these
Ethernet hubs and I'm going to plug this
in all right now you see the amplifier
is on now in the situation you don't
have this smart panel again you can use
a coax in a room that you don't have TV
simply find out and identify which coax
line that is plug this in say in the
back porch or in the garage
and feed that coax to wherever your
distribution point is outside you don't
have to have an elaborate setup like
this to do this so basically my antenna
signal is coming in here it's being
amplified and now I got to find out
where my living room feed is off this
splitter and plug it into one of the
outs keep in mind that you may not need
an amplifier sometimes an amplifier can
do more harm than good if you're in an
area where you're very close to TV sites
you can actually overdrive and distort
the digital signal which would make it
pixelate so a lot of people may not need
an amplifier but in this situation
because I'm right in the middle of West
Palm in Orlando Market and I have
multiple TVs that would need to be fed
with long coax runs in the size of this
house an amplifier made you good but the
preamplifier now if I didn't use an
amplifier I could use a pre amplifier on
the mast which I'll show you in a second
so this is the Juice UHF VHF antenna pre
amplifier system from antennas direct
comm and a pre amplifier is different
than an amplifier in fact in ham radio
we use preamplifiers on VHS
UHF sometimes as well let me explain the
difference now anytime you have signal
traveling over a long feed line or coax
you can sometimes get noise introduced
so let's say you have your antenna up
and you're picking up 80% signal quality
from the TV station by the time it gets
to the TV maybe it's dropped to 30% so
you automatically think you want to
amplify that bring it back up to 80 but
if any noise got introduced into that so
it may have dropped a 30% but you have
50% noise okay if you amplify that 50%
of noise it turns into 100% of noise
even though your signal quality goes up
with the amplifier also amplifying the
noise with a mast mount preamplifier
this is designed to go to as close to
the antenna feed point as possible so
before noise is introduced into the
system you're amplifying it at the
source and then you're sending that
amplified signal down the coax so that
by the time it gets to the TV
it's your 80% with no noise in it now
cable companies strategically put
amplifiers on poles on their network and
they put them strategically to amplify
before it gets noisy if they just
slapped amplifiers where there was low
service they'd be amplifying the noise
on top of the signal so before the noise
gets introduced they put another booster
and it goes down the line down the line
so they can boost it before it gets
noisy that's the same thing with an
amplifier preamp and what you might not
want to do is first you need to see how
far these stations are because again
more power can be bad you want to see if
your stations are close if you even need
an amplifier first off but if you do
need an amplifier choose one or the
other however you don't want to use both
because in some situations you're
sending a hot signal into an amplifier
to make it hotter and in return you're
actually losing channels because you're
over driving the digital and at that
point it loses packets of information
and turns into a distorted or no signal
at all if you have an HDTV flat screen
that was manufactured in the year 2007
or later it must have an internal
digital decoder built into the TV part
of the mandate now
a lot of people have a misconception
that this coax jack is only for old VCRs
or the old antennas and your new digital
antenna or digital TV over-the-air is
not going to work but in fact your
digital data stream is coming down the
coax and it goes into this F connector
that's called an F connector and the TV
inside takes that digital information
and converts it into a signal that you
can see on your TV with any digital
information that's with it such as
electronic program guide if TV supports
it or station identification
now if you have a TV manufactured
previously to 2007 it may say HD ready
and that doesn't mean that it does have
a digital decoder built in it simply
means that it may have a component input
on it where it can display 720 or 1080
on it but there are options for TVs
previous of 2007 that only are analog to
use this over-the-air HD TV service was
a digital to analog converter let me
show you that now so check this out here
was one of those converter boxes I told
you about that was coupon eligible right
here and you mailed out for one of these
in or two of them for your household
they sent you back so these boxes this
is an our tech I never heard of our tech
however there was a lot of companies
that came out out of a whim knowing they
can make some quick cash and they were
paid by the government with each coupon
and they were developing these things
and they probably had a business
afterwards people still use these and
they still work for analog TVs that
don't accept a digital station or
digital signal and they have cool
features like electronic program guide
and parental controls and closed
captions and all that it all comes in on
that digital station or digital signal
so this was one actually here's the box
right here the actual unit here and it
was nothing fancy it had a remote with
it it powered on you had standard output
composite output or an RF output for a
standard analog TV that was it channel 3
or channel 4 and you changed the
channels with the remote through this
box and then they had another one here
and a Craig Craig is familiar they made
some C B's and some other stuff back in
the day clocks and whatever else I think
they still still do make them the
buttons are missing here for the
channels but the same thing you had
remote with it if you lost the remote
for this unit you were doomed and had a
standard analog composite output or an
RF output so yes these both will still
work they have electronic program guides
if you you know use one of these on your
old Sony Trinitron or whatever and but
now they have new advanced models that
actually do DVR and full electronic
program guide with scheduling and 1080p
and all that stuff so it's probably
going to come up on your TV and say the
tuner has not been set up if you've
never used antenna so what you got to do
based on your TV is you want to go and
scan for channels and this is going to
say a channel source antenna find
channels now it's going to start pulling
in and check in every channel analog and
digital it's probably not going to find
any analog but we're going to see how
many channels this finds and what it
looks like alright so after a channel
scan just put the antenna about eight
feet off the ground
picked up 22 channels I bet you if I
push that up another 10 feet you'd
probably get more channels but to look
at the picture here full HD
zooming up here if I could see it
there's 25-1
remember I told you about the digital
sub-channels there's 25 to 25 3 I'm 27
now 27 let me tell you about 27 this
channel is by far actually 27.2 is one
of my favorite channels of all time this
channel plays all the stuff that you
will never get on cable Sanford and sons
WKRP in Cincinnati all in the family all
kinds of it's called antenna TV is the
channel and it is only on antenna you
cannot get that channel on cable so you
can see here on the top that's broadcast
in 1080i depending on the channel and
the broadcast 1080 right there 34 - 1w
TV x all high def full high-definition
now again 22 channels only with it that
high I'm going to push it up a few feet
and see what kind of difference that
makes and imagine if you had it up on
the tower or on a pole at 50 feet above
the air what kind of signal you could
possibly get we had to get it up higher
to see what would happen it's about
10-15 feet above the ground
we went up another 10 feet so let's do
another scan so moving it up just that a
few feet I went up to 28 channels and
that's face in Orlando but I may not be
exactly on target based on compass
heading that's where the antenna point
app comes in it's called antenna point
in the iOS app store currently only on
Apple but I think they're working on
Android and basically from antennas
direct comm they developed their app
it's got a good Help section in it with
different pages to show you but
basically what the app does is gives you
an idea using your phone like a compass
and an arrow in the middle to tell you
which way you need to point your antenna
to see which TV broadcast towers now a
little word of advice here
you see the little rings in the middle
the app is basically showing you for 35
mile 50 mile and 70 mile range from the
towers so it can show you okay these two
towers here in the yellow are in the 50
mile range I need an antenna that can
pick up signals 50 miles away there are
a lot of manufacturers and antennas
being sold that tell you 150 and 200
mile range it's inaccurate if you're a
ham operator you do know VHF and uhf is
line-of-sight meaning it's not going to
travel around the world it's not going
to get lost in the atmosphere and
propagate around the world but it can
propagate on a good evening in certain
months of the year spring and summer and
fall and winter even where a station
from my experience I've gotten stations
before across Florida and Tampa to the
East Coast here on Florida on a good day
and it didn't last long but it actually
picked up the signal the majority of the
signals are about 70 miles now if you're
up 50 or 60 feet
you may go beyond that because this is
based you know basing 70 miles on the
average height above ground that people
can mount their antennas not everybody
can put 160 feet up in the air but by
all means if you can get one up 100 feet
in the air you're gonna pick up a lot of
TV so you can actually look on here
it'll show you the TV transmitters and
you can click on them and it'll show you
the TV station on that tower and then
you know which way you need to point it
like this to get that station so it
looks as if I turned the antenna the
opposite way where there isn't really
any stations and I'm only picking up 10
off the side in the back side of the
antenna so it does make a difference
even though you're higher above ground
you think you can be real high if you
don't have a point in the correct way
you're not going to see all those
stations that you could potentially get
with your antenna so for the people that
can't put it out your antenna yes you
live in an apartment or a HOA believe it
or not though you can by law put up an
antenna in an HOA but that's a whole
nother you can look up the otar and the
link is in the description however the
indoor amplified
Clearstream flex antenna
this out this thing is like a piece of
vinyl
I mean it's thin look at this and this
goes on your wall looks kind of
aesthetically pleasing it comes with the
cable that you would connect from the
antenna to the amplifier that comes with
it now this is a power amplifier to give
you additional strength for being inside
because of course inside antennas versus
outside with all your home structure is
really going to be a significant
difference but plugging this in line so
you got one that goes from your TV to
here to TV and then to antenna goes from
here to the antenna and you can power
that either by the USB port on your
flat-screen TV if you have one if you
ever wonder what that USB port did well
one thing it does is power or it comes
with your wall wart adapter so you can
plug this in and power amplify your your
antenna here and we'll see this says in
my area I'm lucky to get three channels
based on my market in my area with an
indoor antenna we'll see how that works
so the the clearstream flex is pretty
cool it's reversible black or white to
make it appealing to your taste and your
motif here
I recommend mounting this if you're
gonna buy it behind the TV if you can
get away with mounting it to where it's
not too bad let me put it some way from
behind the TV will make a little bit of
a difference compared to you putting it
directly behind this electronic device
so for the time being it does have a
shirt grip sticker so you can choose a
side you want you can apply this
adhesive and stick this right on the
wall right behind the TV or if you can
get it up like this be even better
it doesn't look at that and again this
is going to go from the antenna
like this just keep in mind any time any
company tells you you're going to get a
hundred channels or something like this
it's not possible they're not trying to
idea antennas too right they they said
three channels is about my area of what
I'm going to get for an antenna like
this if someone tells us as seen on TV
1995 they'll get 50 channels it depends
on where you live doesn't this is an
antenna it's an antenna is an antenna
going difference between this one and
the other one is the 20 DBM line
amplifier that goes with this and I have
this plugged in USB to the TV so with
the indoor antenna it said in my area I
would expect about three channels
digital and that's about what it found
three I don't have it permanently
mounted here yet I just kind of lay it
there so the average person would try
the antenna when I was in their house
and say well it didn't work and it was
you know even if they got one channel
sometimes it would pixelate and it was
an indoor antenna and they thought
antenna was garbage but your results may
vary depending on the building structure
of your house where the antenna is
located from you if you can put that
indoor antenna by a window up higher it
would do a lot better than stuffing it
behind the TV here on a block home folks
why am i showing you the antennas Direct
website why did I choose antennas direct
because this is not your everyday eBay
buy an antenna and be stuck with no
support kind of site in my video is
probably not going to answer every
single one of your questions so I refer
you here for any information primarily
the main question I'm going to get how
many channels will I get if I live here
well check this out antenna selector you
can go right to this site and type in
your zip code and search and it's going
to tell you based on your location and
where the broadcasting stations are what
kind of antenna you would need or you
can get and what you'd expect to get for
range for instance
Clearstream for max I can get 84
channels probably up to 84 channels with
the appropriate installation with a 70
mile range that's probably all of
Orlando and all the west palm market
in sebastian right in the middle and
I've done that before with another
antenna or if I live in an apartment I
can expect in Sebastian with an indoor
antenna like this to get three channels
so that's just on my zip code let's just
type in Hollywood California
902 or whatever that is there so you can
see here with the clear stream for max
you can expect up to 164 channels even
with an indoor $40.00 antenna you can
get a hundred and sixty channels and you
can look at the channel list and see
exactly what channels you'll get here
look at this these are all free guys you
don't have to pay for these buy it
install it you're done the Learning
Center is somewhere I went in here
because I always like to brush up on my
knowledge and I wanted to see not for
what I need in my area because I know
what I need for my antenna situation but
I wanted to see you know some frequently
asked questions and technology and how
it works and stuff like that but if that
doesn't do it for you and you can't find
what you need here by yourself call this
one 877 number here this is the
connection crew the connection crew is
bar none there this is not an outsourced
thing these people know how to answer
the phone help you out in your situation
your location and tell you exactly what
you'd need based on your price and what
you're looking to get so a live chat
here fill out the live chat talk with
somebody hey I live here I don't know if
I should get this antenna this one
what's the difference boom they'll tell
you I really am comfortable with the
people I talk to at this site acting
like a customer that didn't know them or
wasn't making a video and was totally
impressed with their customer service
and believe me believe me I worked for
an install company for cable TV for
years I hated our customer service and I
worked for the company our customer
service was horrible and everybody said
that wasn't really it wasn't the
person's fault it was the company's
fault but beyond that if you go to a
place like this you have somebody here
that's going to help
and make sure you're satisfied so I
truly recommend in tennis direct comm
and if there's anything that you've
bought from here or you're familiar with
the site leave a comment below tell me
what you think about in tennis direct
comm another site I want to show you
that is not related to antennas direct
comm but it's very popular amongst the
over-the-air recipients and I've used it
myself years ago TV fool comm the link
is below this video in the description
and basically TV fool gives you another
idea of what stations are available
based on your address if you click here
on check your address you just simply
need to type in if you really want to
get precise you can type in your whole
address we'll just type in my zip code
here and it'll show you based on my zip
code which stations the direction they
are from me and which stations I would
get and there you know heading right
here
so I could use a compass and I can see
based here this way would be Melbourne
in Orlando market and this way down here
would be port st. Lucie Fort Pierce in
west palm market there are way out
stations over here that I probably
couldn't get maybe Tampa area but I can
see here that I'm in between both
stations or both you know markets so
that's why it's a little tricky for me
to get the station's I have now it'll
show you here if you can see the green
behind it the green and the legend here
is really good for signal the yellow
would be a little harder to get the red
would be in your fringe area and then
your gray would be pretty much
impossible unless you had extended means
of getting those kind of signals with a
perfect antenna now there's another way
of doing this if you go back to home and
you click on see which TV stations you
can get on a map and you start Maps and
it's like an interactive map here based
on again your zip code and it will show
you if you zoom out it'll show you the
station's here's the Orlando market
here's the west palm market and you have
some in between simply clicking on a
station like this will show me the
compass heading and all that ok or I
look down here it shows me all the
digital channels here if
has this little icon for instance at
wPBF is 25 it will show me on a detailed
color map of the coverage of that and in
ham radio we have something similar for
certain repeaters if you're familiar
with that where it'll show you how far
the repeater will cover so you can see
here in Port Saint Lucie
I'm actually in the almost a green here
so it tells you right here medium medium
kind of antenna I would need you can see
typical range rooftop antennas I can go
all the way down here if it was a really
good installation typical Ranger indoor
antenna would be the green here so I
could theoretically pick this up with a
good indoor antenna so this site here
tells you a lot of information also for
transmitter callsign list lookup if
you're looking for a specific station
and other means of locating what
channels are in your area so definitely
not the longest video I did on my
channel along this video beat a
hurricane video if you haven't checked
that out already hurricane season is
coming up but definitely packed full
information it's so long though that I
don't have time for the thing I teased
before the clear stream TV now I really
want to show you guys this thing to be
able to connect your antenna to your TVs
and your smartphones and tablets and
stream pause rewind fast-forward live
antenna TV with something like this
that'll be a part two so we'll get to
that I don't want to put it in here and
bore you anymore but hopefully I need
couple things I need you to leave a like
for the effort of my video and I also
need you to leave a comment below if
you'd like and tell me what you think
about your decision for switching to
over-the-air free or what you thought
about the effort I put into this video
and the material that I brought to you
everybody learns from your comments as
well as me I can't reply to them all
sometimes I open up my email in the
morning and there's 50 comments in there
I can't go through them all but I love
reading them and people learn from your
comments also when someone asks a
question if you have an answer for an
answer
hijack my thread whatever you know we're
all in here and by the way shout out
shoutout to ham-radio 2.0 for the shirt
Jason Johnson kc5 h WB he's got a
youtube channel as well if you checked
that out thanks for the shirt Jason and
so anyways more videos on the way
part 2 again with the clear stream TV
and in the future I also want to make as
a telecommunications expert I want to
make a video on Wi-Fi in the home
because you know something like this
revolves around Wi-Fi you watching this
video revolves around Wi-Fi and you know
what a lot of the complaints I had when
I went to these repairs were my Wi-Fi
slow I'm paying for this and getting
this but a lot of it was education yeah
you're paying for this and you're
getting that but your computer only
supports this or the way this is
positioned of the way this is setup or
your device is using this much and you
only have this much left so a lot of
education that'll help you understand
your Wi-Fi experience better if you're
having trouble in the home with Wi-Fi so
that'll be up in the future on a video
like that but thanks for watching again
more videos on the way this one took me
a little bit of time and effort to make
I've had this in the pipe for several
months back in November I wanted to do
this and fell out of it but all the
links are in the description below and
more will be added as I can get them and
let me know what you think about cutting
the cord and I hope you tune in again
for something else in the future 7:3
from KJ for why is the eye