It's Been Fun Anyway

I won't be working on Tuesdays at least until the end of April. It is so nice to have free days. I picked up the HD television antenna from NCIX in Burnaby after class yesterday. It is a Terrestrial Digital DB8. It was a real headache to assemble as the instructions were horrible. My students have a unit on how to write instructions. If any of them wrote what was in the box today, I would fail them.

I had ordered the antenna in December but it had been back-ordered before we left for the New York City trip. I wondered if I could pick up Over-The-Air (OTA) Vancouver HD channels from New Westminster. I am up on the tenth floor with a balcony. Unfortunately, I face south which is good for sun but not so good for a line-of-sight view of Mt. Seymour. Just playing with the equipment has benn worth the $80 I spent simply as recreation.

I easily got KVOS when I placed the antenna on the balcony. That's a station from Bellingham, WA which broadcasts old re-runs as a majority of their programming. It is not on our satellite lineup but hardly a must-have station.


If the 2-1/2 x 3-1/2 foot contraption is placed inside the living room facing through the building, I can get digital signal strengths of between 69% to 82% on CBC, CTV, Global, and OMNI with just an occasional dropped signal. The picture quality is as good as, or better than, that which I get on Bell ExpressVu. KVOS still comes in perfectly too. I don't think having an antenna inside would prove very practical. I doubt whether I will get consistantly good enough reception to cancel my satellite subscription.

Still today's exercise in futility has been enjoyable, at least for me.