Novawave TV antenna

65Camino · Uber Guru

Novawave TV antenna

Canadian Poncho · A Poncho Legend!

Being in the GTA a standard digital antenna would pick up a number of stations in your area. Amazon has them for about 24 bucks and up.

65Camino · Uber Guru

Ive tried them. Got the local channels only. Lasted a week until I returned it.

seventy2plus2 · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

65Camino wrote:
Ive tried them. Got the local channels only. Lasted a week until I returned it.

How many off-air channels do you get in the GTA?

We get 6 here in Calgary. I have an antenna in the attic to use if our cable TV goes out.

-- Edited by seventy2plus2 on Tuesday 25th of January 2022 02:05:02 PM

65Camino · Uber Guru

CBC, CTV, CITY are the ones I remember. Never had anything worthwhile to watch. Got an antenna just as this pandemic started.

seventy2plus2 · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

In Calgary we get:
CTV,
CBC,
Global,
City,
Omni,
Yes-TV.
All of their transmitters are very close to each other, so I just pointed my antenna that direction.

Greaser · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

Junk.

Also there is no such thing as an HD or Digital antenna.

Best antenna?

Finding Over the Air stations in your area and setting the direction for your antenna.

https://longrangesignal.com/how-to-use-rabbitears-to-get-the-best-reception/

-- Edited by Greaser on Tuesday 25th of January 2022 03:54:01 PM

seventy2plus2 · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

Greaser wrote:
Junk.
Also there is no such thing as an HD or Digital antenna.

-- Edited by Greaser on Tuesday 25th of January 2022 03:54:01 PM

That's not entirely true. HD signals (which are digital) are in a specific frequency band, and antennas designed to work in that band are referred to as HD or Digital antennas.

Greaser · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

seventy2plus2 wrote:
That's not entirely true. HD signals (which are digital) are in a specific frequency band, and antennas designed to work in that band are referred to as HD or Digital antennas.

Clint,

They can be referred to as HD or Digital or Spock spotters, call it whatever they want to call them (antenna selling companies like these terms in order to sell antennas)

but the fact is,there is no difference between the old antennas or the new so called Digital or HD antennas.

My 30 year old antenna from my old analog tv works just fine on my HD TV.

-G

https://www.techwalla.com/articles/difference-between-a-regular-hdtv-antenna

"There is no difference between a regular and a HDTV antenna.

It's all marketing spin and hype. Any antenna can pick up HDTV signals.

They are broadcast on the same frequencies that even the classic rabbit ears can pick up."

https://www.quora.com/Can-an-old-TV-antenna-receive-digital-signals

"Yes there is no basic difference between an antenna used for analogue TV or digital TV

It is the TV that is analogue or digital NOT the antenna

Analogue TV was transmitted on VHF and UHF frequencies

Digital TV still uses VHF and UHF frequencies.

Selling an antenna as DIGITAL just shows the absolute ignorance of the seller and is a marketing con. to fleece the unwary"

seventy2plus2 · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

The local Calgary channels migrated from VHF to UHF when they went digital. True, your old VHF antenna may work, but you'd get better reception (less chance of degraded signal) during non ideal weather with an antenna tuned to the proper frequency range. Kind of like when you broke the antenna on your car back in the old days. A coat hanger worked, but not ideal.

Either way, it looks like this Norawave antenna is junk. No way it'd work for non off-air signals.

-- Edited by seventy2plus2 on Wednesday 26th of January 2022 12:12:14 AM

Pontiacanada · A Poncho Legend!

My older brother has a Princess Auto HD antenna that picks up a couple local channels. He got it for about $30.00. He gets most of his other "channels" via high-speed internet. He's happy.

beaucarlo · Guru

down here in Windsor i use antennae tv ,haven't used cable for over 20 yrs.after using several differnt antennaes i found the 1 from Princess Auto the best.it has a remote control and can do a 360 degree sweep.it picks up an amazing 50 channels[alot are shopping channels]i set it up in my my house on an old pole lamp and placed it in a corner of my living room.sure it is junky [i hot glued all the loose parts]...no tv bill here biggrin

Greaser · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

seventy2plus2 wrote:
The local Calgary channels migrated from VHF to UHF when they went digital. True, your old VHF antenna may work, but you'd get better reception (less chance of degraded signal) during non ideal weather with an antenna tuned to the proper frequency range. Kind of like when you broke the antenna on your car back in the old days. A coat hanger worked, but not ideal.

Either way, it looks like this Norawave antenna is junk. No way it'd work for non off-air signals.

-- Edited by seventy2plus2 on Wednesday 26th of January 2022 12:12:14 AM

Geez Clint,you're talking about a VHF only antenna......I haven't seen one of those since 1970.

All the antennas I have seen for sale since then have all been dual VHF/UHF antennas, and that's what I have.

Of course the VHF portion is redundant and doesn't do anything,but the UHF portion works just fine.

-G

ABC123 · Uber Guru

When I bought my first Analog/Digital TV 16 years ago, I did a lot of research.

A digital signal only goes about 60 miles and drops off like a rock, where as analog as we know, could bounce and on some nights you could get stations from 100 miles away.

No antenna can bring back a signal from the dead.

However some TVs are better then other in processing weak signals.

A lot of people don't realize that different TVs different powered receivers.

Newer TVs possibly, don't use high powered receivers as most are hooked up to cable, dish or internet.

The Hitachi that I bought had great reviews for reception.

I even confused the salesman in 2005 by telling him that we could even get the new digital signal by air.

Remember how those little black and white portable TVs got amazing reception.

Currently I have two digital TVs hooked up to the same antenna and sure enough, the older one constantly gets better reception.

The USA broadcasts considerable more content than Canada.

So our friends near the border do well with free TV.

I live on the edge of that 60 mile US digital limit from Erie Pennsylvania.

My brother only lives 10 miles south of me and his US content is nearly double of mine.

In the US, you don't just get Channels like 35.1 but 35.2, 35.3 and so on.

The best TV Antenna ever (In my opinion) was the Radio Shack on that looked like a flying saucer.

Mine got struck by lightning and the one I have now is not as good.

Trust me, I am always searching for another used Radio Shack antenna.

With microwave internet and satellite, we still find ourselves, during a storm, find ourselves to switching to the antenna to continue the show we were watching when the clouds are too thick for a satellite signal.

From Wikipedia,

Digital television - Wikipedia

Prefectca · Poncho Master!

I have a cheap Princess Auto digital antenna, $25 on sale. I get one snowy analog Global channel 2 and four PBS, one Fox, channel 7 from Watertown and four channel 50 which include LAFF and Mystery. I cant get my local channel 11 with the transmitter 40 km away. I did some research and the CRTC charges by the strength of the broadcast signal. The stronger the signal the more expensive the license. Because of the advent of cable Canadian stations cut the over air signal strength down to service the immediate area to save money.

Paul

Greaser · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

beaucarlo wrote:
down here in Windsor i use antennae tv ,haven't used cable for over 20 yrs.after using several differnt antennaes i found the 1 from Princess Auto the best.it has a remote control and can do a 360 degree sweep.it picks up an amazing 50 channels[alot are shopping channels]i set it up in my my house on an old pole lamp and placed it in a corner of my living room.sure it is junky [i hot glued all the loose parts]...no tv bill here

Having lived in Windsor I remember going to the Devonshire Mall in the early 70's and listening to a cable company

guy trying to sell Windsorites cable TV. He was going on about how great it was to be able to watch Jeopardy from station from Toronto.

I said why do I need to pay to watch Jeopardy from Toronto when I can watch it from Detroit for free. I'm sure he got that from a lot of people.

Back then we had a Channel Master rotary antenna for our colour floor model 21 inch Zenith TV and with only one channel in Windsor we were able to get Channels 2,4,7,50 and 62 from Detroit.

Everyone did the same.I have no idea how cable ever made it's way in Windsor. When we left in 1990, I knew no one who ever got cable.

-G

Pontiacanada · A Poncho Legend!

Greaser wrote:
Back then we had a Channel Master rotary antenna for our colour floor model 21 inch Zenith TV and with only one channel in Windsor we were able to get Channels 2,4,7,50 and 62 from Detroit.

We had a UHF/VHF colour-head/Channelmaster and a Eaton's Electrohome colour console TV ... state of the art back then.

In Cobourg, Ontario, and high on a hill (glacial moraine) we could pick up all Buffalo, Rochester, etc. stations from across Lake Ontario (south) as well as CFTO etc. from Toronto (west) and CHEK Peterborough (north). It worked really good.

Canadian Poncho · A Poncho Legend!

London (Ontario) was the first city in Canada to have cable so as kids we took it for granted to have at least 12 channels available. Then in the late 70's the "Little Brown Box" came out that tripled the amount of channels available. My friends parents got it first and I remember going over on Saturdays to watch the great Godzilla movies that Channel 43 in Cleveland had on (You needed the box to get 43). Finally my parents got the box after they were offered some sort of deal from the cable company. Ah the good old days!

Pontiacanada · A Poncho Legend!

Canadian Poncho wrote:
My friends parents got it first and I remember going over on Saturdays to watch the great Godzilla movies that Channel 43 in Cleveland had on (You needed the box to get 43). Ah the good old days!

Saturday monster movies!!! The 3 Stooges!

Commander Tom and Rocket-ship Seven weekday mornings before school!

Frightning Flickers with Gregory The Grave-walker late Saturday nights! biggrin

MC · Canadian Poncho Superstar!

Way out here on the east coast, I remember the days when we had just 3 TV stations, CTV, CBC, and CBC french... so only 2 stations, really. We got cable TV in the early 1970s and a whole world was opened up that I hadn't seen before... Saturday morning cartoons, among other things. Became a fan of the Boston Red Sox because that's the team the Maine TV stations covered. I've often noticed that there still seems to be a lot of Boston fans around here (not as many as there used to be) and I wonder if that's the reason (I'm a Blue Jays fan now, though).

Even though I don't tend to watch that much TV, I don't want to go back to the days of having only 2 stations to watch. I suppose there is always Netflix, etc., but it doesn't cover the same content that the cable channels do.

Pontiacanada · A Poncho Legend!

MC wrote:
Way out here on the east coast, I remember the days when we had just 3 TV stations, CTV, CBC, and CBC french... so only 2 stations, really.
Became a fan of the Boston Red Sox because that's the team the Maine TV stations covered. I've often noticed that there still seems to be a lot of Boston fans around here (not as many as there used to be) and I wonder if that's the reason (I'm a Blue Jays fan now, though).

My Wife (an Islander) said that they had "CBC & me" as channels. When I talk about shows I watched as a kid, she looks at me like I'm from another planet! biggrin

Lots of Boston fans on PEI (hockey and baseball). The other two teams with followings are Toronto and Montreal. I think younger people have branched out to other (maybe newer) teams.