Free TV Channels - Nanaimo BC
There is some TV content you can get for Free in Nanaimo!
A lot of people think getting TV content over an antenna is a thing of the past, something to do if you are not able to afford paying Shaw or Telus. Most people just cannot be bothered or have more money than time.
OTA ( Over the Air ) set ups do take some time to set up and adjust. There is a bit of knowledge needed as well, but its pretty straightforward and info / help is available
In this post, I'll explain what equipment I have used to set up my Antenna in order to pick up channels from the OTA TV towers I have within Antenna distance!
All you need is an antenna, a ATSC receiver / converter, TV, some coax cable. Possibly a Pre-Amp.
The total for the equipment is about $150-$200 CDN. ( depending on your needs )
Antenna: RCA Compact Outdoor Yagi HDTV Antenna. Mine looks like this, it seems to be an older model, possibly discontinued as the ones I can find now have the mounting pole right at the back. I got this one because it was cheaper than the other one, I think it's ANT751R is the version number of the new one. These RCA antennas are great, Winegaurd makes a similar style antenna that looks like it'll work fine as well.
 |
| RCA Compact Yagi Antenna |
These antennas are meant to be installed in the attic or outside. I choose the attic because of various reasons such as: Don't have to drill into the exterior of my house / ground the thing, was easier to get approved from domestic FCC ( my wife ), it won't get hit with the weather. We get some pretty big windstorms in the fall around here, so the antenna will last longer in the attic.
If you don't want a attic antenna, you can get indoor antennas, but you'll have some trouble getting all the stations.
Converter Box: Mediasonic ATSC Digital Converter
You don't need this if you have a TV with built in tuner.
This mediasonic box actually kinda isn't super awesome...but, it's cheap and it works great for set up due to its manual channel add feature. I'm on my second one. The first one lasted about 3 years and then seems to have burned some contacts on the circuit board. So that made it not work. No worries though as I felt I got my 40 bucks worth! Best feature of this unit is that manually add channels if the scan doesn't pick them up. ( I need this for my 2 fringe channels ).
Pre-Amp: RCA Premap
I need a preamp because I am about 50 miles away from the towers on Mt Seymour, which is about 80km's so my signal strength is limited and need to keep any losses to a minimum.
I get about 40-50% signal on a some channels the pre-amp is able to take that weaker signal and send it to the TV. This set up gives me just enough power to pick up a signal on some stations.
I also have a fairly long run ( 10-15 meters or 30-40 feet ) or RG6 Coax cable from the attic to the TV. I could put it closer, but it doesn't make a huge difference and I wanted my antenna in an accessible spot in the attic in case I want to switch it out, or adjust it. So far I haven't needed to adjust it though, so not sure about that decision just yet. lol Anyway, with the Pre-Amp, it's best to test the antenna without it first to see if you actually need it and make sure it's as close to the antenna as possible.
Coaxial Cable: Nothing much here except make sure you have some good quality RG6 Coaxial cable that you're using and the ends are terminated correctly. There's RJ59 cable you can get for cheap which will still work, but just get some decent RG6 cable and you'll be fine here. If you're going to split the signal and are using a preamp, make sure do it after the pre-map so that both splits will get the power. I wonder if I used a solid copper core RG6 cable that it would conduct the preamp power better and how that would effect the sign.
