Digital TV

We finally have digital TV again. The landlord is too cheap to install a proper aerial, so I have been shopping around for an aerial that I can use indoors to pick up digital TV.

I bought one at an aerial shop for $30. No dice. It seemed to get about 90% of the required signal, but that was not enough. Digital reception is "all or nothing". If you have enough signal, you get a picture. If you are 1% short, you get a blank screen. It's called the 'digital cliff' for a good reason.

So I went to Dick Smith and bought a fancier aerial for $70. No dice with that either. I was starting to think that I had wasted $100 on two no good aerials.

Then we plugged both of them into the set top box, and voila! We got reception. Both aerials working together got enough reception between the two of them to give us a picture and sound.

Hooray. We can start recording ABC Kids again in the morning. Nothing like having 20 hours of Play School taped and stored for those rainy days.

I never would have thought that using two aerials would do the trick. I guess having been brought up with TV sets that only had one aerial input in the back, I just never thought that a set top box with two inputs could use two aerials.