The B12 (XII) Forum, home of the 'Front Porch, y'all' at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

We live too far out of Beaumont to get OTA channels with a digital antennae.  That was the first thing I tried, because I used that some in San Marcos to get Austin and San Antonio channels.  That's mainly for people who live very near a city with broadcasting stations.  The old rabbit ears had quite a bit more range when I was a kid, but these digital antennaes have less than half of that.  

Erin, I'm not familiar with whatever box you're talking about.  I'll have to look into that.  Does it get you PBS too?

Yes, it gets PBS and strangely there are something like 4 different CBS channels, 4 different ABC channels, etc, so it's more than just the 6 basic ones.  There are the  main NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, CW, and then there are bonus ones under those channel numbers that come in and show old classic TV shows.    When the satellite goes out during terrible storms, the HD box is going strong and we still get all of those channels clearly so it has it's benefits for us.    We didn't want to pay for the HD Box for direcTV so we bought this box thing years ago and it works great for us for anything on those main channels, particularly in testy weather situations.

Yes, we bought it when we had an older TV without the tuner in it, as it was about 4 or 5 yrs ago when we got it.  We do have a Roku TV now but still use the box because of the HD quality and it was easy enough to figure out the setup for us non-techhie people.  
I don't know if this is same brand we have but ours looks like this.

It sounds like Erin has a digital tuning box.  It might also have a nicer user interface than simply tuning from one channel to another on the digital tuner in your HDTV.  But if you have a modern HDTV it most likely has a built-in tuner, and all you'll need beyond that, is an antenna.

As droog said, the picture quality over the air is better than what you're going to get via cable, or satellite, or internet-based options like Hulu or YouTubeTV or Sling, simply because OTA delivery is not compressed, while the cable/satellitei/nternet carriers have to compress the signal due to bandwidth limitations.

But again, to receive OTA local HD, all you need is an antenna, provided your TV is modern enough to have a built-in digital tuner.  The one I bight 13 years ago did not, the one I bought 10 years ago does, and so do all newer ones I've purchased subsequently.

And although manufacturers claim that one antenna might be better "tuned" for digital than an analog antenna, I haven't seen a lot of credible research that says this is true.  There's no difference between a "digital" antenna and an older "analog" one, because there's no difference in the waves they are picking up at your house.  A higher quality powered antenna is going to work better than a passive one, and the large aerials work really well.  It's not uncommon to see people mounting these back on their houses these days, as they attempt to "cut the cord."  Larger antennae can collect more energy and therefore capture weaker signals from further away.  The shape also matters, one shape works better for VHF, another works better for UHF, and still others for the types of waves used to broadcast AM and FM radio.  Most antennae from the 60s and 70s had a couple of different arrays on them, to capture both VHF and UHF signals as well as possible.

The last time I did a quick scan with my oldest digital-tuning HDTV through a small powered antenna only, in Austin, (it's the TV I keep in my RV),  I found something like 40 digital channels.  This is possible because a local ABC affiliate (KVUE channel 24 UHF here in Austin) actually has more bandwidth than their original signal ever used.  So they're able to broadcast multiple channels across the same frequency.  So I get a channel 24.1, 24.2, 24.3, and 24.4.  Often one of them will be broadcast in Spanish.  And maybe another one only plays old TV shows from the 60s.  One of them might be an all-day weather or news channel.  Likely only the main channel will be in HD, but they are all digital.  

If you've never done it, you should hook up an antenna to your modern digital HDTV and see what channels you can get.  If you're in a pretty large urban area, there are likely dozens.  Out in the country, you'll have fewer options, but that was always the case and is nothing new.

Just a side note

Texas does have an income tax for corporate businesses 

Its called a franchise tax but its really an income tax

Just a side note

Texas does have an income tax for corporate businesses

Its called a franchise tax but its really an income tax

Yup.  Paid that the whole time I lived in TX before for my fancy little LLC, and I'm 'bout to pay it again, I hope.
I'm still adjusting to life as a married man, so I'm not even thinking in terms of multiple incomes.  If both spouses work, it seems like living in a state with no income tax such as Texas would then look much more attractive.  Being single, Louisiana was cheaper.  When we're both working, off the top of my head, I don't see how Texas wouldn't be cheaper.

Exactly right MDT.

The "carrier" signal is the one that's 30-300 MHz for VHF and 450 - 952 MHz for UHF, which are the two standard bands for television signals in the USA.

I just googled to see if I could find a simple and straightforward description of the modulation of a carrier wave.  The modulation is how we encode data into the carrier wave, and it's different depending on whether it's digital or analog.  Unfortunately the links I found were all pretty detailed and academic.   I find it to be a fascinating subject, personally, but I also willingly spent 5-6 semesters of my undergraduate electrical engineering coursework studying it in various forms, so there's that...

I'd say the simplest way to think of it, is that the carrier signal is the "envelope" for the data, and the modulation determines the contents of that envelope.  The envelope hasn't changed for the entire history of broadcast television-- indeed it CAN'T change, because it's just a manifestation of the physical laws that define and describe the electromagnetic spectrum.  So the carrier signal is the same, it is broadcast using the same equipment as it ever was, and it can be received using the same antenna as it ever was.

The content inside that envelope is what has changed, and the switch from analog to digital rendered the old analog tuners inside our televisions obsolete.  

Speaking of my relatively new wife, there's been a term here some used to describe their better halves.  Something along the lines of ics&aw (I know that's not right, but something close to Irrepressibly Cute, Sweet & Adorable Wife).  I recently changed my wife's contact in my phone from a nickname I'd given her a while back to simply "My Hot Wife."  Maybe for our purposes, she should be my HSLW, which of course stands for my hot, sweet, Longhorn wife.  I need another adjective, because the acronym needs another letter.  I'll work on it.  

Well the PBS-status in Beaumont is out of my scope of knowledge, much like anything tech-related.   I do like to watch it, too, they have some badass concerts on there including one I saw of the Foo Fighters performing in the Acropolis in Athens, Greece in a wicked-cool venue.  I actually just found a link showing the episode when I was google searching:  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/foo-fighters-landmarks-live/7414/

Anyways, was just trying to help with the box-recommendation thingy, as it solved a problem for us years ago and we are still using that thing today, whether we actually NEED to or not. It's been reliable for us, still working perfectly and we watch pretty much any game on ABC/CBS/FOX using that tool, which only cost $20 flat fee and even if we cut cable and have no other streaming options, it will still be working for us.  



And I guess I must be boring, the husband-type's number in my phone is just 'Mike' but now you got me thinking about changing it to Master Farter, MC-Sexypants, or maybe even 'Yin to my Yang'.