Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…
What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!
I’m always astonished by the number of people who don’t even know OTA television exists. Still the best way to watch local sports.
I didn’t know. I’m setting up TV and Internet for a friend in the US, back out there after Christmas and she was saying she wanted more local and news TV channels. I’ll speak to the condo management people about putting up an antenna.
The box that sends the OTA channels to all your TVs in the house using your WiFi is cool.
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For the first time in my life, I live somewhere, where I can’t get OTA (I’ve lived in the UK and Germany). I used to have a satellite dish or an antenna, but now we have to use a streaming service (I use Waipu.tv, which provides all the free to air services in HD, plus another 200 channels for 9€ a month), as the landlord doesn’t have an antenna and we can’t put up a dish, we only have the option of cable, and I don’t want to sigh up for cable, so I have a 500mbps fibre connection for 20€ a month and pay for Waipu on the side.
I don’t really need it, I watch maybe a couple of hours a month and could easily switch to the free media libraries of the channels, but my wife likes to have live TV… 
I find it kind of strange that free OTA isn’t the first choice for everyone.
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You’ll probably be able to get away with a cheap indoor antenna. I don’t think Scott brought it up during the episode, but the FCC put some good money into a coverage map back during the analogue-to-digital transition. Check their address and it’ll give you an idea of what’s available. https://www.fcc.gov/media/engineering/dtvmaps
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Waipu looks really cool. Someone tried to start a similar service in the US years ago and were promptly sued into oblivion 
glad to see the concept survive in less litigious waters.
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Unfortunately, where I live even with an antenna I wouldn’t get much.
Thanks. So according to that, I’d get 9 channels (which as the show said are multiples). Worth a try.
So different to the UK, then? Here we have one large transmitter that serves an area, so my antenna is pointed at Oxford that gives me over a hundred channels plus FM and digital radio.
That FCC site gives me 9 transmitters with a channel on each, all in different places?
Edit…9 channels on 5 transmitters
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It will vary by area, but yes, in the US we have several different private broadcasters as opposed to a single publicly funded broadcaster. Typically there are several transmitters owned by different broadcasters sharing the same site. But it’s also not uncommon to be within range of multiple sites. I can pick up signals from my local Phila area but also from the middle of the state and north up near Mr. Paul Thurrott.
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