A milestone is made today in broadcast connectivity. A few years back I finally got fed up with the high fees Comcast charges for a cable TV service. Even though I never watch it, others do. So a free alternative was necessary. One option is to stream TV stations from a computer to the television. There are more and more programs broadcasted through the internet so this can be a great option if you have the channel tuning software and a good connection between your computer and TV. Not all software applications are friendly so without an easy connection this approach was tabled (until recently). A second approach to replace cable is to utilize the air waves like everyone did back in the day. Digital antennas are readily available at Fry’s electronics and similar stores. There are many models of digital antenna available to choose from. The best deal on an in-door digital antenna was selected first to give a connection. There is too much interference in a basement however so the downstairs TV needed a long coaxial cable to string through the house to an upstairs window. All worked fine until BART, construction and other interference degraded the signal. We moved the antenna to an adjacent wall where the signal could be better received. The indoor antenna box has an excellent size factor and fit in the window. The reception and signal quality improved. We thought we were set until the evening news came on, at the same time when BART is on the rush hour schedule. Every few minutes when the train rolled by, the signal was distorted! The degradation became so acute that for a half minute at a time no audio came through. A better solution for reliable reception was required.
It was time to graduate from an indoor antenna to a full-size, outdoor mounted antenna. While I coded away at the office one fine summer Monday, my busy bees went to work. The problem was how to get up onto the high roof safely, fasten the antenna on top and then make a connection into the house. In order to have a measure of safety, a guide rope and anchor was needed. Rope was on hand and a wheel barrel full of weights served as an anchor. The trick was how to get the rope over the roof crest without breaking a sweat. Tying an empty soda can to the end of the rope made it easier to throw but got stuck in the eves. Filling the empty soda can with sand may meet the momentum requirement but is a real bad idea. For after the third throw, sure enough, the sand spilled everywhere and the can broke off and went flying. Sand is much worse to clean up than dust! A shoe from the garden shoe pile was the convenient anchor that did the job. So finally the busy bees proceeded up the latter onto the roof, found a rod to secure the digital TV antenna and connected a hundred foot high fidelity outdoor coaxial cable to the antenna. A quick test of the TV proved successful. The last step to complete the installation of a TV antenna was to secure the coaxial cable under the eaves, drill a hole into the house, snake the cable through, patch the hole and then install a new splitter to support viewing upstairs and down. The existing cable splitter was reserved for internet connectivity. With every split in a cable, the signal strength is reduced; so you should leave any inactive cables disconnected until they are needed. I came home to find an uninterrupted broadcast showing well, which happened to be the republican convention nomination acceptance speech. Now it is ready for broadcasting the democrats next week, fulfilling our civic duty. Even more exciting is the upstairs computer broadcast facilitated by the Raspberry PI.