So I have a few cable TV questions that mebbe I should know but don’t…
I could call Shaw but don’t want to…
So I’ll bother all of you with my queries:
I’m on Shaw…
I have a digital box for one TV…
I have another TV that is also connected to Shaw but has no digital box…
It is a newer TV with a digital tuner…
Should I be able to get some (very limited I would expect) local channels on the cable directly without a digital box?
I thought I could previously (well after they went all digital) but it doesn’t seem to work now…
Since I don’t want to get a another digital box (if it’s needed) has anyone had luck user a antenna to receive local digital signals and how well does it work (I’m in East Van with decent line of sight to the mountains)…
Afaik, the digital tv boxen are descramblers, and I recall something about them also acting as terminals, so they might even be restrictive in terms of “network access”. Not completely sure on the latter.
Using an antenna for OTA transmissions is both free and awesome quality… full 1080p and no compression artifacts. Not only will you get Global, City, Chek, CBC, CTV, CTVtwo etc but also several USA channels too.
Next problem is the PVR… but thats a separate discussion.
Yeah, most digital cable is encrypted and the box needs to negotiate keys (and verify your subscription) with the headend. I believe in the USA some basic channels are mandated to be sent in the clear the same way they would be OTA, but that’s not the case in Canada, they’re all encrypted.
I built a very simple fractal antenna and stuck it near my window on the ground floor in East Van. Not great line of sight through the buildings across the street, but I can still get CBC, Global and City with some fiddling with the antenna. If you have a proper LoS it should be easy to at least get the local stations.
For local reception I use a homemade version of one of these mounted on a clear plastic page protector. It is hangingin my living room window and I get excellent HD video quality with all of the local stations.
Played with this a few years ago, my line of site in East Van was/is only so
so, but it seemed to work reasonably well. A couple of attennas I picked up
at XSCargo on Broadway, one powered, one not, gave a few decent channels and
a few that were unwatchable.
Surprisingly using the powered antenna on the other side of the house with
zero line of sight also worked. This was when I still had one of my mythtv
machines around, given how long I’ve had the Shaw Gateway system that’s got
to be around 4 years ago now…
Now that you’d brought it up, might have to play with that again
I made mine with self-adhesive copper foil (with conductive adhesive) mounted on a plastic page protector. I got the balun from the dollar store. If you can’t find copper foil with conductive adhesive, just use regular self-adhesive copper foil and put a drop of solder on the joints. You can get the copper foil from a stained glass supplier such as Kona Glass on Knight Street.
The green tape is just to tape one edge to the window to try and reorient it to a better angle. Ideally, where I am located, the flat face should be oriented North-South but my window points East. Nevertheless I still get stellar reception for the local channels. Not so great for the US channels because of the orientation. When oriented N-S I get KVOS and KCTS pretty good.
Best I remember, shaw uses QAM instead of ATSC over their cable lines. QAM has the ability to encrypt the channels, using strong encryption, not the old cable scrambler stuff. which to my knowledge was beatable by just mixing a known signal back in or something
So IF your TV can decode QAM (check manual) you SHOULD be able to pick up local broadcast channels encrypted. I seem to remember there was a regulation saying that the companies needed to broadcast those free, but that many companies didn’t give a shit and encrypted them anyway.
I can vouch for ATSC OTA though. I used to pick up a good number of channels, including a hilarious spanish channel from the states, with a roof mounted amplified antenna I got off of monoprice.com. It did vary a lot based on direction, so I do wish I had a more complex array being mixed together feeding the TV, which is something I might look into for my current location (got a TV yesterday) (Checking, I see mine supports “ATSC, NTSC-M, 64 & 256 QAM”)
I put two Lee Valley units in series, and from my 3rd story apartment, located down the slope in Marpole, and facing South, I pick up 15 channels. Each of which getting interrupted every time a @#$%?&* airplane approaches from the East, or climb toward the East! Only two TV shows worth watching out of the whole lot’s programming. But HD is neat.
