Over-The-Air Television Is Still a Thing!
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Scott Wilkinson
In this episode of Home Theater Geeks, I chat with my good friend Mike Heiss about over the air tv. So stay tuned.
Michael Heiss
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is twit.
Scott Wilkinson
Hey there, Scott Wilkinson here, the home theater geek. In this episode I have as my guest my good friend Michael Heiss who is a journalist, consultant and jolly good CDF fellow here today to talk about over the air tv. Hey Mike, welcome back to the show.
Michael Heiss
Oh, thanks for having me back on, Scott. Always great to see you virtually and last week in person.
Scott Wilkinson
Yeah, how about that? I was in la. We had dinner together with your wife and my wife. It was great.
Michael Heiss
So let's go, let's go.
Scott Wilkinson
We're talking about over the air tv which you might, some people might think what that was generation ago, that, that that's not a thing anymore, is it? Well, yes it is, isn't it?
Michael Heiss
Well, yes it is and it should be. And I can give you two very current instances, especially now that people are using not cable as much as they used to, although I'm still a, you know, cable guy if you will. But you know, YouTube TV and similar types of things, all these streaming platforms. Yeah. But a funny thing happened on Father's Day morning. Some clowns said, you know, everybody is cutting power lines and whatnot for the scrap value of the copper. And some people up here in the San Fernando Valley cut some overhead wires thinking it was copper. Well, they clearly don't watch home theater geeks because it's all fiber. But they cut 13 main fiber trunk lines and virtually all of the spectrum Internet service in parts of Los Angeles and Ventura county was out. My Internet was out for up to 18 hours. And if I wanted to. Yeah, and if I wanted to watch tv like no bueno. But fortunately, as you will show later, I have an outdoor antenna. So hahaha to you. So that's one thing, you got to have a backup these days when the Internet goes down. But the other is all the blackouts of YouTube TV. You know, having a little fight with Disney and FUBU. Almost had a fight. They solved it at the last minute. We with NBC Universal and Telemundo. And if you remember, I think it was last year Fox had a to do again I think with YouTube literally up until an hour before the super bowl which meant that people wouldn't have been able or YouTube TV has been able to watch the Super Bowl. They, they solved it at the last minute. Lots of pressure. But for many of the reasons that we'll talk about OTA over The Air TV lives and will continue to live.
Scott Wilkinson
Yes, and rightly so.
Leo Laporte
Hey everybody. Leo laporte here with a a little bit of an ask. Every year at this time, we'd like to survey our audience to find a little bit more about you. As you may know, we respect your privacy. We don't do anything, in fact, we can't do anything to learn about who you are. And that's fine with me. I like that. But it helps us with advertising, it helps us with programming to know a little bit about those of you who are willing to tell us. Your privacy is absolutely respected. We do get your email address, but that's just in case there's an issue. We don't share that with anybody. What we do share is the aggregate information that we get from these surveys. Things like 80% of our audience buy something they heard in an ad on our shows or 75% of our audience are it decision makers. Things like that are very helpful with us when we talk to advertisers. They're also very helpful to us to understand what operating systems you use, what content you're interested in. So, enough. Let me just ask you if you will go to Twitt TV survey 26 and answer a few questions. It should only take you a few minutes of your time. We do this every year. It's very helpful to us. Your privacy is assured, I promise you. And of course, if you're uncomfortable with any question or you don't want to do it at all, that's fine too. But if you want to help us out a little bit. Twit TV survey 26, thank you so much. And now back to the show.
Scott Wilkinson
Now another issue that I think a lot of people these days would be interested in is that OTA over the air TV is free.
Michael Heiss
Free.
Scott Wilkinson
Now you don't get many things that are free these days.
Michael Heiss
No. And, and it's free. And some might say it's not only free, but if you consume a lot of sports, local news, you know, late night talk shows before they're like gone or you still watch, you know, I still watch like real TV or my wife and I, who I only know enough Korean of the five words I've learned listening to the in flight announcements on, on Asiana Airlines. But we watch Korean soap operas, K dramas. And how do we watch that on an over the air digital sub channel. And it's free.
Scott Wilkinson
Yeah, it's all free. Even more important perhaps is it's better quality than most streaming services.
Michael Heiss
Well, because there is depending upon Whether you're ATSC 1.0 or 3.0, there might be some compression, but nowhere is near what the cable and the streaming services provide. And there's no latency. So if you're having a football party game thing, where you got a bunch of people in different rooms in the house, if people are watching on different streams or different devices, you'll hear somebody in one room going, whoa, touchdown. And the other guy's going, like, what, what, what? Because I didn't, you know, I have my Hawaiian shirt on today. I have a T shirt I picked up at a trade show once. Games don't kill people. Latency kills games. Yes, latency, you know, is a factor because as the signal goes from the originating TV station through the different places, that has to go to on a YouTube TV or a Hulu TV or a Swing TV, which I use those. Or even when I watch cable using the Spectrum app, See, and if somebody's got the regular TV on in one room and I'm watching it through an app or through my God rested soul, my tivos, you could get up to a minute's delay between the live transmission and what you're watching on any device.
Scott Wilkinson
Wow, that's a lot.
Michael Heiss
Yeah. And if you're having, again, if you're having, you know, it's playoff season, whether it's, you know, eventually for the, you know, for college football or the pros, you're having a party and people, you just. The latency, latency kills good tv.
Scott Wilkinson
Another thing that, another advantage I think that's important that maybe not a lot of people know about, is the fact that you can get many more channels than you used to be able to.
Michael Heiss
Over the year, many, many more channels.
Scott Wilkinson
Tell us about that.
Michael Heiss
Well, when they went to, from good old fashioned NTSC analog to ATSC 1.0, the original digital transition, the increased bandwidth and making it a digital signal enabled them to squeeze more channels, more virtual channels into one physical channel. So there's one. Now, these are not all HD because you got to squeeze some stuff, but there's one physical channel in the Los Angeles market that I think has about 13 or 14 actual virtual channels. All of them are in languages I don't understand. But that's not the point because there are people, Los Angeles, there are people that speak like 170 different languages. So if you want programming in Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Tagalog, Armenian, more Armenian, more Armenian, more Chinese, or different religious broadcasts, or 14 different home shopping things, or if you just like, I can't stand looking at the news Anymore things like Antenna TV and Me TV and Catchy Comedy. This weekend, Catchy Comedy ran 100 episodes of Dick Van Dyke show in honor of Dick Van Dyke's 100th birthday. And that's really cool. And some of those are carried by the cable and streaming services and a lot of them aren't. The KLX, a KXLA TV 44.1 that I watch my Korean and Japanese shows on, is on the cable, but it looks a lot better when I watch it over the air. And I have an over the air recorder and I don't, I pay for it once. And one of the ones I have Zapper Box, you pay for the subscription service. But Tableau, who I've long been a fan of Ta Ta lbo, Tableau, T, A B L O. Yeah, that too. It's been a long day, Scott. Yeah, tableau, their new 4th gen things have the subscription to the guide is included and they have memory built in. So I've got a tableau hooked up to my outdoor antenna or at some point to an indoor antenna and I can watch all the over the air TV I want and I can record it for free and I don't have to worry other than about the limitations of the storage. Although you can add more. I don't need no stinking cloud. And if you have one antenna, which kind of is the norm, but with the Tableau, the way the tableau works is you connect it to the Internet via WI fi or wired and you connect it to your antenna. So in my particular situation, the antenna drop is actually right down there under my desk. But I can watch Tableau anywhere in the house with I just go to my connected TV and I go to the Tableau app and you know, and that's cool. And I can access the dvr. So that kind of thing is cool if you're only going to have one antenna and if you're in a newer residence that might not have an antenna connection in every room. That's another, you know, benefit of over the Air.
Scott Wilkinson
We have a graphic that you took a screenshot of your TV with all the, what do I want to say? All the physical channels and virtual channels. Yeah, here it is.
Michael Heiss
So there you go. So there are 36 physical channels in the United States pared down from the old days, some UHF, some VHF. So if you go 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, there's nothing there except the physical channels themselves. Right. But there's nobody using them. But physical channel 7 will start with that has KABC, good old KVC 7.1. But then they've also got 7.2, 7.3, 7.4. But thanks to the digital technology, they've also got three streams from what used to be in the analog days, channel 62. But if you go over to the right side of the screen, RF physical channel 30, that's where I watch 44.1, 3, 4 6, 7, 8, 9441 is my KBS America. But then they've also got a gazillion on channel 57. Do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, and more. So that scan, which I did over the weekend, I get 157 finger quotes channels, even though there aren't that many. There aren't 157 TV stations. Right. There are 157 virtual channels off, whatever the number, if we count them up on the physical channels.
Scott Wilkinson
Right. And physical channels are those that are actually getting broadcast over the air physically with electromagnetic radiation and Exactly. At different bandwidths and so on.
Michael Heiss
And that's why you might occasionally want to re scan, because if you look at channel 7 and channel 9, the physical channels, the old channel 9 and channel 7 are still there. But where's, you know, where's channel 4? Well, channel 4 lives on channel 36, down at the bottom of the right column, and that's channel 4.1, 4.2, 4, 3, 4, 4.
Scott Wilkinson
Okay.
Michael Heiss
And then thrown in for good measure, channel 13.3. Because if you go over now, bear with me there, folks. If you go over to Physical Channel 13, good old KCOP or whatever they. They call it now, that has.
Scott Wilkinson
13.1.
Michael Heiss
Right. But 13.3 lives on channel 36. But you don't care because when you do a scan, whether it's the internal tuner on your TV or an external tuner box, it goes. Because for the last, oh, I don't know, 70 or 80 years, I used to do this for a living. Local stations have spent tens of millions of dollars over the decades to create a brand identity. You know, eyewitness Channel seven. Right now they're actually on channel seven, you know, news for you, but they're not on Channel 4. But you don't have to know that.
Scott Wilkinson
Not anymore. But you don't have to know that.
Michael Heiss
Because the TV set still presents it as you're clicking up through the channels for 4.1, 4.2, 4.3. Because it was very important to the broadcasters to maintain their identity again, that they've built up over the years.
Scott Wilkinson
Yeah, yeah. So let's take a look at how you can actually do this, we've sort of been alluding to it, but let's get into it deeply. You need an antenna, right? I mean it's over the air, right? So you need an antenna.
Michael Heiss
You know, coat hangers just don't cut it anymore.
Scott Wilkinson
Coat hangers don't cut it anymore. Rabbit ears with aluminum foil just don't cut it anymore.
Michael Heiss
Well, no, you can go. You know, I had a picture, the resolution wasn't good enough that I was going to send you that. Best Buy still sells something that dagnabbit, looks like your grandma's rabbit ears. And a couple of years ago, I mean this is now maybe six or seven years ago when one of these big blackout reach. It's called retransmission consent. Where the cable companies at that point were arguing with the broadcasters as to how much they to carry their signals. The then Time Warner, help me with that. Gave out rabbit ears like your parents used to have on top of the TV set. You could drive to the Time Warner store and I have it in the closet somewhere.
Scott Wilkinson
Oh, you, you actually got a pair of those.
Michael Heiss
It was free.
Scott Wilkinson
Yeah.
Michael Heiss
And something free from the cable company. But who could think that, who could imagine that? But you know, but you do need an antenna. And it clearly depends on what channels you want and where the, as the broadcasters say, where the stick is. So here in Los Angeles, it's on Mount Wilson. The very famous one is in San Francisco, Mount Sutro, that tower is that three triangle thing. That is a famous landmark or quite frankly. And again, there's a bit of unfortunateness to this. In New York, it used to be on the Empire and then they moved to World Trade center center. You know, unfortunately after 911 and they did scramble. But CBS channel, channel physical to WCBS actually still had their backup transmitter on Empire and. But if you're in an area where the main stick is not in one place, you have to be careful about where you place your antenna. So. And maybe you might need an amp if you're a little bit further out in the boonies. Where are the stations for where you live? Do you get the San Francisco stations or you for south?
Scott Wilkinson
No, I think, I think we're a little farther far away. There are some hills around Monterey.
Michael Heiss
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Scott Wilkinson
Which is probably where they are. I haven't actually done a deep dive into that yet.
Michael Heiss
Well, you got to get some over the air stuff there, Scott.
Scott Wilkinson
I do, I do, I do. I admit I'm, I'm behind the times in that regard.
Michael Heiss
You're Ahead of the times, behind the times, at the same time.
Scott Wilkinson
At the same time.
Michael Heiss
But you need an amplifier and you might need an amp to go with. You need an antenna and maybe an amp. And there are not Titan tv. There are a number of websites that will tell you if you put in your zip code and it knows where you are, it'll tell you, you know, sometimes when I'm out on the road and you look out the hotel window, you can see there's a TV tower here and a TV tower there and a TV tower somewhere else. And in the old days you'd need a rotator and a big antenna. But the new antennas, the one that I have, is not only unobtrusive, it works really well as witness the number of channels you see that I get.
Scott Wilkinson
Yeah, yeah. Well, you can get an indoor antenna. And I gave a couple, I shown a couple examples of that here in some graphics. This is the channel master flat Tenna, which goes on your window. And it can be either passive or powered. It can include an amplifier if you're getting a weak signal. There's also one from a company called mohu.
Michael Heiss
I also have one of those and it works very well. And there's the amplifier there.
Scott Wilkinson
Yes. And it's the. This is a curved one. You don't have to attach it to a window. You can just have it on a tabletop stand and it's kind of curvy and cool.
Michael Heiss
Or I have one in my office similar to that, that suction cup to the east facing window because that points it to Mount Wilson.
Scott Wilkinson
Then there are outdoor antennas of which you have one and we have actually a picture of it. You walked outside and snapped a picture.
Michael Heiss
I lost the file I was going to send you when you were talking earlier this afternoon. And I said, the heck with it. I ran my offices in the front of the house. I ran outside and I took the picture. And it was easy than going into my servers to find the bloody picture.
Scott Wilkinson
And we have that picture. There it is.
Michael Heiss
There you go. And that's not your, you know, not your grandpa's yaggy. Now it looks, you know, it looks like something that George Nori would have, you know, to contact the aliens. Now I have it mounted above the eaves because otherwise it would be. It would be too low and pointing at my neighbor's house. So you could turn that U shaped thing around and mount it under the eaves. But it doesn't make it look like, you know, Ozzie and Harriet live there.
Scott Wilkinson
Right.
Michael Heiss
You know, it's reasonably modern. And it comes with an amplifier, and that's how I get 157 channels. These were actually originally designed or brought to market. This particular one for people that had DirecTV and Dish where they wanted over the air. So you'd run it down the same lead as the DISH signal.
Scott Wilkinson
Ah.
Michael Heiss
But it's a great. You know, it's inobtrusive, and it works really, really well. There's a lot of NASA kind of stuff in this thing.
Scott Wilkinson
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I meant to say that the. Those indoor antennas were in the, you know, 30 to $50 range, which isn't bad at all.
Michael Heiss
That one's a little bit pricier.
Scott Wilkinson
It's more. More in the $100 range, I think.
Michael Heiss
Right, but that would work. If you're familiar with Los Angeles. I'm sort of in the West San Fernando Valley, but if I were to move up to Calabasas or Oxnard or places like that, you'd need one of those. An indoor antenna would probably not have the gain to get me something from Mount Wilson. And again, your mileage may vary wherever you live.
Scott Wilkinson
Exactly. And this is. That one that you have is from a company called Tel Avivs, which I looked up. It's Tel Aviv, not Tel Aviv. Tel Avivs, which I looked up. It's spelled T E L E V.
Michael Heiss
E S. And they do a lot of. They really do a lot of aerospace rado. That is, as you can see from that picture, that sort of radomish kind of technology.
Scott Wilkinson
Right.
Michael Heiss
And, you know, and again, this way, the neighbors don't, you know, give me a funny look, say, you know, what's Mike up to now? Or quite frankly, if you're in a. In a controlled community, that's an easier thing to sort of clamp on to the railing of your balcony if it points in the right direction. Although you are allowed by law, unless they've, you know, discontinued it, you are allowed by law to put up an antenna like that on your balcony, even if you're in a condo or something.
Scott Wilkinson
With homeowners association, something.
Michael Heiss
Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. You know, and. But again, that'll just keep them. That'll keep the, you know, the NIMBYs in the. On the condo board from giving you a hard time.
Scott Wilkinson
Right. Okay, so you got an antenna. You need a tuner.
Michael Heiss
Now, if you have a tv, by definition, you have a tuner.
Scott Wilkinson
Right.
Michael Heiss
You know, give me a tuner on toast, you know, but, you know, I get. You do a Jack Nicholson, you know, just hold the tune, and I just want toast. You need a tuner. And, and by, again, by definition, by law, and this came during the digital transition, you know, 20, 25 years ago. Now, to call something a television, it must have a tuner, otherwise it's a monitor.
Scott Wilkinson
Right.
Michael Heiss
Now the question is, and again, it depends on your building and where you live, your house, whatever. You may not have an antenna drop or, or a decent antenna because the landlords may not be keeping it up in every room. But the advantage of something like a Tableau or a Zapper Box or a Zinwell, which we'll talk about at a future point, that once you have one of those, you're good to go. The Tableau, you access it through an app, you hook it up to the antenna, and you're good to go. So you don't have to worry about having an antenna drop at each tv, but the tuner in your TV is fine.
Scott Wilkinson
Right.
Michael Heiss
And I use that as well. I mean, you know, I do what I do.
Scott Wilkinson
Right, right, right. You, you sort of do both, I'm sure. And, and, and so you, you can get an external tuner such as we've been talking about. Tableau, Zapper box. There's the table.
Michael Heiss
Yeah, there's, there's the Tableau. And I think they have a deal where it actually comes with an antenna. And you can also, if you're on a budget, if you go on, you know, online, I won't mention any people because something in my office will start talking to me if I use the wrong word. If I use the A word. Yes, no, but the little boxes that they brought out in the digital transition, you can still pick Those up for 30 or $40 online if you like. I'm using a 34 inch monitor for my computer. If I want to do have a digital TV, I could just buy one of those for 30 bucks and hook it up to the other one of the HDMI inputs.
Scott Wilkinson
Right. On the other hand, the Tableau or the Zapper Box also give you, as you were mentioning before, DVR capabilities. You can record off the air for.
Michael Heiss
For the most part, for free.
Scott Wilkinson
For free.
Michael Heiss
The Tableau includes, I think 128, 64 or 128, I don't recall offhand. It includes memory and, and it includes the subscription guide which the original tabloids, you had to pay extra. Zapper, you still Pay, I think $39.
Scott Wilkinson
A year, a subscription box. There's the Zapper Box.
Michael Heiss
Right. And I have one of those, no surprise. And it's an amazing product which we'll talk about again. In a future episode. But they have also along with that, a gateway box. So that I put that. The one that I have that you just showed lives in my office and the coax runs, you know, around the desk. But then I've got their mini, much like the late lamented. But they still work tivos as a box in the den so that it can see the other antenna. And by the way, although TiVos are not being made anymore, the over the air capable tivos, if you really want to go, cool, you can pick up a used TiVo on eBay or wherever you buy used stuff. And if you find one with a lifetime subscription, the one that I. One of the ones I have, which I use with cable. But if you had the off air version, it has a two terabyte drive and six tuners. So if you're a sports fan during, hey, it's coming up in February, you know, March or in March, March Madness. You can record six different games at once on the same device over the air. Because NBC Universal, they spent tens of billions with a B. Billions of dollars for sports rights. Half their schedule is. Is the NBA or the NFL. And a rumor has it there's this Olympics thing coming up in February.
Scott Wilkinson
Oh yeah, I heard something about that.
Michael Heiss
Yeah. Somewhere in Europe. And then. And damn it, there's another one that it's I think gonna be like here in 28. And if you want to watch it uncompressed over the air, man.
Scott Wilkinson
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And another, another point you made is that the TiVo has, that you have has up to six tuners. These other newer ones, Tableau, Zapper box. Tableau can come with two tuners or four.
Michael Heiss
And Zapper's got one coming out with four also, right?
Scott Wilkinson
One, two or four. They're a little more expensive. The Zapper box. They're in the 2 to 350 range tables.
Michael Heiss
There's a reason for that. Which is next gen.
Scott Wilkinson
Which is next gen. Which we're going to get into in the next episode.
Michael Heiss
Yes.
Scott Wilkinson
Okay. So the. You had mentioned to me something about cheapo tuners. I guess that's what you meant with, with the, the old converters that are still available right back.
Michael Heiss
Well, and they're still available new. I just don't want people to be confused.
Scott Wilkinson
Understood.
Michael Heiss
Back in the, back in the day, in the late 90s, if you remember, then the government, in order to not disenfranchise all the people that are watching over the air TV, everybody got two $40 coupons that you could take to at the Time, you know, rest in peace, Circuit City or Best Buy or wherever and buy one of these little off air tuners. And those devices are still available and now you can't get them for free. But if you have an old TV or. I know people. One of the really great guys in the consumer electronics PR world, a fellow named Dave Arland is a TV set collector and he has a fully restored RCA CT100 which was the first color TV and he has an external ATS which is from like 1953 and has an external tuner box connected to it so he can watch digital TV or on his 72 year old TV.
Scott Wilkinson
Wow. Wow.
Michael Heiss
I mean, and he does it for fun. I mean that's, he's in business too. But it's, it's cool to see this old big wooden, you know, honking piece.
Scott Wilkinson
Yeah, yeah.
Michael Heiss
Showing next, not next gen but ATSC 1.0 TV.
Scott Wilkinson
That's right. Well, speaking of next gen and ATSC 1.0 and 3.0, that's the subject of our next episode. So stick around while we reset and set up and get ready for another episode of over the Air Madness with Michael Heiss.
Michael Heiss
Thanks Scott.
Scott Wilkinson
Thanks so much for being with us. For now, why don't you tell people where they can find you online?
Michael Heiss
You can find me online@michael heist.com my crazy website. Hey, if you're in the neighborhood, I'm a notary, but you can my short story. My wife is retired now, but she's a licensed California and used to have a New York architectural license as well. And you used to have to stamp the plans. I said damn it, I want to be able to stamp things too. So I became a notary so I could stamp stuff.
Scott Wilkinson
Right.
Michael Heiss
But you can find me at Restech Residential Technology Today, restek today.com or hiddenwires.co.uk and in fact I just did some articles about this that are, are in both of those magazines.
Scott Wilkinson
Well, very good. So we can get even more detail.
Michael Heiss
About more than you want.
Scott Wilkinson
But you know, if you want to save money and you want to be up on the times, that's the way to go, I think. Okay, cool man. Well, listen, stick around. We're going to do another episode and thanks so much for being here.
Michael Heiss
See you around the channels.
Scott Wilkinson
You bet. Now if you have a question for me, I do hope you will send me a note by email to htgwit TV and I will answer as many as I can right here on the show. And if you have a home theater that you would like to share with the world. I'd like to hear from you. Send me an email at again htg twit TV with some pictures, some a few sentences about about your theater and why it's so cool and hopefully we can get you on the show and and feature your theater right here. Until next time, geek out. Sa.
Podcast: All TWiT.tv Shows (Audio)
Show: Home Theater Geeks
Episode: 512 – OTA TV
Date: December 18, 2025
Host: Scott Wilkinson
Guest: Michael Heiss
Main Theme: The state and benefits of Over-The-Air (OTA) TV, including its resilience, quality, extensive channel offerings, required hardware, and next-gen developments.
In this episode, Scott Wilkinson welcomes technology journalist and consultant Michael Heiss to discuss the relevance, resilience, and practical benefits of Over-The-Air (OTA) television in the year 2025. The conversation explores why OTA TV remains a valuable option amidst the dominance of streaming and cable, how to access it, hardware options, and personal anecdotes demonstrating OTA's advantages.
Scott: “You can get many more channels than you used to be able to.” (07:47)
Digital transition (from NTSC to ATSC 1.0) enabled virtual channels:
Diverse programming: Foreign languages, religious broadcasts, home shopping, nostalgia shows (e.g., “Catchy Comedy ran 100 episodes of Dick Van Dyke show in honor of Dick Van Dyke's 100th birthday.”) (08:44)
Cable/Streaming Doesn't Offer Everything:
Recording Capabilities:
Tuner and Channel Mapping:
Built-in TV tuner vs. external tuner:
DVR Options:
Vintage Integration:
| Segment | Time | |---------------------------------------------|------------| | Episode intro, why OTA matters | 00:27–03:18| | Outages & blackouts: why OTA is resilient | 01:17–03:18| | OTA is free and high quality | 04:46–05:55| | Sports + latency issues | 05:55–07:25| | Channel expansion, virtual channels | 07:47–11:31| | Reviewing channel scan screenshot | 11:31–14:22| | Tuner/channel mapping explained | 14:22–15:23| | Antenna types, history, placement | 15:23–21:52| | Indoor/outdoor antenna examples | 18:54–21:12| | Legality and HOA rights | 22:04–22:54| | TV tuners, DVRs, Tableu/Zapper options | 23:09–27:58| | Cheap/legacy tuners and vintage TV story | 28:11–29:55| | Show outro, where to find Michael Heiss | 30:22–31:23|
Over-The-Air TV is far from obsolete—it’s free, offers robust and high-quality service, and provides an essential backup when internet or cable is down. Modern hardware like flat antennas and DVR-equipped tuners (Tableau, Zapper Box) make access easy, and digital multiplexing offers an unparalleled range of content. A little setup delivers significant ongoing value—no subscription required.
Scott’s closing advice:
“But, you know, if you want to save money and you want to be up on the times—that's the way to go, I think.” (31:10)
Stay tuned for the next episode, which will focus on ATSC 3.0 (“next gen” TV), adding even more to the OTA landscape!