After talking to Mr. Shane the other weekend I decided to try and get some free HD with our new TV (sorry Dean). At first I half-heartedly looked to see if London Drugs had any antennas on their website, but they didn't, which was good because I probably would have bought one there and then. But, in the searching I came across http://www.hdtv4free.info which was some guy in Vancouver's simple webpage showing how he built his own antenna and where the antennas are in Vancouver. When I looked to see what was needed, I realized that it was REALLY simple to do. And, it turned out I was able to build it with items I already had (improvising from what he detailed). Below is my build. I used wire cap/twists (or whatever they are called) to join the wires in the coax cable with the copper wire (which I had previously used part of to create a homopolar motor:
As you can see below, it is very simple. I think I am fortunate that we are very close to the transmitters and don't need a reflector behind the dipoles.
The good thing about the the digital TV is that it is a perfect signal or not. So once you get the signal, it's as good as cable. Then, it's better than cable if you have an HDTV and the show is in HD... Below is a poor resolution shot from my camera of CBC - good enough though to see that it doesn't have the fuzzies of regular air TV...
It's pretty neat too because it will tell you what the TV show you are watching is, what is coming up next and potentially details of the show you are watching (I don't think that our channels are doing that yet...
Just thought I would share my success!
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