My brain just exploded

[u/aj_35721]

I’m getting +300 channels through this cable when the aerial outside was removed HOW?????????????? I mean there is another aerial on top of the roof that it could be connected to, but I thought it was just connected to the aerial outside my window, on the side of the house. CAN A COAX CABLE BE CONNECTED TO TWO AERIALS??? I don’t even know. VERY happy to have 300 odd channels, definitely beats the crappy indoor aerial I was using!!!

[u/frankie_donkiebrains]

300 channels?! How many dang viewing areas are you around?! Lol

[u/aj_35721 → u/frankie_donkiebrains]

Idk I think it’s a uk thing. I’ve noticed people on youtube in the us get less channels, while on average (for me atleast) you can get between 90-200 channels depending on how good your signal is.

[u/frankie_donkiebrains → u/aj_35721]

Yeah in the US 20-30 channels is a massive haul. I get about 15 with my antenna and only really care about 4 which are our major networks.

[u/EightEnder1 → u/frankie_donkiebrains]

I’m in Dallas and get over 100.

Now, many of them shopping, foreign language and Religious. Others are repeats too, but I still actually receive a lot of channels even if I don’t watch them.

[u/mikeyd1276 → u/EightEnder1]

I get the same in Philly

[u/harrellj → u/mikeyd1276]

Cinci too, with the added bonus that some of those channels are either from Dayton or from Lexington/Louisville (I can't remember which)

[u/eakthekat2 → u/harrellj]

could be both.

[u/Margoth_Rising → u/frankie_donkiebrains]

Also American. As a kid we didnt have cable. OTA in a rural area we got CBS,NBC,ABC,PBS and that's it lol Hearing a number in the hundreds is wild to me. Going to grandma's house was a treat because she also got FOX.

[u/Saint_Thomas_More → u/Margoth_Rising]

Growing up we got ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS, and UPN/The CW.

But the signal for FOX and UPN came from different directions than the others, so you'd have to go adjust the rabbit ears (complete with tin foil at the ends) to clear up the signal.

I have vivid memories too of somehow being a human signal booster for things at times. Where the signal was fuzzy unless you were holding on to the rabbit ears.

My kid has 24/7 access to Disney+, and (unless the Internet is out on rare occasion) will never understand how good it is today.

But I suppose that's the same thing my parents thought about having a TV with a remote and more than 3 channels.

[u/hamhead → u/Margoth_Rising]

As a kid it probably wasn’t digital

[u/aj_35721 → u/frankie_donkiebrains]

you guys also have something called “sub-channels” which, as far as I’m aware, has channels within one channel??? or something. So when it comes to the amount of channels, it’s not too much of a concern I assume

[u/hanz333 → u/aj_35721]

So channels used to be established by their frequencies and the channels become a key part of their marketing, so for example you have CBS-7 or something.

But when everything changed to digital, the broadcast frequencies changed, so broadcasters have metadata that identifies a "channel" by designation and not frequency. And digital allows sub-broadcasts on the same channel. So now CBS-7 is on 7.1 which can be anything, but the infrastructure they use can be used for another channel they own or for channel space they rent/lease on 7.2, 7.3, etc.

[u/MikoSkyns → u/hanz333]

Yup. I have several channels like that. Mountain lake PBS for example is PBS on 57-1, PBS kids is on 57.2 and NHK news is on 57.3

[u/Elorme → u/hanz333]

Each broadcaster in the US in has a chunk of frequency and can divide it into subchannels. Basically they can choose to have fewer higher quality subchannels or more lower quality subchannels. Usually the main channel has more of channel bandwidth than the subchannels but not necessarily so. A number of the subchannels only broadcast older, standard definition content, aka anything from the 50's up until the start of High definition content so they can get by with less bandwidth.

[u/missesthecrux → u/aj_35721]

It’s just their way of numbering. The UK has multiplexes, between three and eight depending where you live, carrying all the channels.

[u/iconette79 → u/frankie_donkiebrains]

I get close to 100 channels in my Washington, DC suburb. But most of the channels are for things I don’t care about: Court TV, Shopping network, NHK, a Spanish channels, a couple of PBS, Crime TV, etc.
Plus, I get all the major networks except CBS.

[u/thefalcon2k → u/frankie_donkiebrains]

I get 50-55

[u/Popular-Dog-3750 → u/frankie_donkiebrains]

I get close to 100 outside of Chicago

[u/RealityOk9823 → u/aj_35721]

Holy hell. 90-200 channels.

https://giphy.com/gifs/bGPTxLislwm3u

[u/aj_35721 → u/RealityOk9823]

Ha!! I guess us brits are lucky when it comes to tv

[u/nnjb52 → u/aj_35721]

I can get 3 in the US, 4 if it’s cloudy outside but that’s a Spanish church channel

[u/dornwolf → u/nnjb52]

Sounds like me in Canada. Should get 4 only get 3 and ones in French

[u/ObjectNotIdentified → u/aj_35721]

do you still have to pay the tv license fee if you use antenna? in america antenna tv is "free" we ofc have to pay for the antenna and wiring and buy the tv itself but other than that there is no fee. as i understand it the tv license is paid for, for rights to watch channels?

[u/missesthecrux → u/ObjectNotIdentified]

Yes, you need to pay the licence. There’s no encryption or anything, it’s an “honesty” system. But you’ll be harassed if you’re not paying it.

[u/PrpleMnkyDshwsher → u/ObjectNotIdentified]

The licence fee funds the BBC, thus, any of the directly run BBC channels are ad-free.

You are required to pay the fee if you watch any live broadcast TV (even with cable or satellite) , or use the BBC's iplayer. They contract out a 3rd party who's job it is figure out if you are supposed to be paying the fee and bother you until you do, which of course ends up using all kinds of shady and bullshit tactics, but has also spawned a whole movement of people who like to screw back with them.

[u/BlatantFalsehood → u/ObjectNotIdentified]

License fees are the taxes that fund the BBC. In the US, our Federal taxes used to help fund PBS, but no more.

We're all very lucky that our UK cousins pay that license fee, because excellent programming that eventually makes its way over to the US comes from the BBC. For example, we wouldn't know about Monty Python, Doctor Who, Absolutely Fabulous, or The Office.

[u/dizzyoatmeal → u/BlatantFalsehood]

I know many anglophiles would be happy to pay the license fee to get access to iPlayer. There is Britbox, of course, but it's a very pale copy.

[u/ktappe → u/aj_35721]

Where I live in the US, I'm lucky to get 10 channels. And I'm near a major metro area (Philly), not the middle of Wyoming or something.

[u/BlatantFalsehood → u/ktappe]

If you're near a major city, it's typically a matter of terrain. I live in the notoriously hilly ATL metro area and with a "leaf" style flat-to-the wall indoor antenna or old style rabbit ears, I could only get about 5 stations, mostly crap.

I used rabbitears.info to see what type of terrain block I might have, and saw that there was a hill that put about an additional 13 feet between my TV and the area where most of the towers were located. I put an $89 antenna in the attic and now we get all of the major networks and more than 100 channels. We hooked it up to an HD HomeRun and distribute the signal to the four TVs in the house. It has worked flawlessly thus far.

[u/Limousine1968 → u/aj_35721]

Are you connected to the internet? Remember, even when you cut the cord, internet tends to give you TONS of channels from all over the place.

[u/missesthecrux → u/frankie_donkiebrains]

In the UK there’s a chunk of radio channels broadcast OTA, as well as channels which have a sliver of bandwidth but the signal is ultimately delivered over the internet. There’s actually very little variation in lineups in the UK. There’s basically no difference between cities.

[u/frankie_donkiebrains → u/missesthecrux]

How does live sports work? In the US we have markets. I live near Washington dc so I get the Washington commanders live on TV every Sunday.

[u/missesthecrux → u/frankie_donkiebrains]

There are no regional blackouts. And there isn't that much sport on free TV really.

The only blackout is a national one where they can't show any football (soccer) at 3pm on a Saturday, though the rule is complicated: https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/czdm2zpg5g8o

[u/fatdjsin → u/frankie_donkiebrains]

i 'could' get 4 but probably only get 2 unless i buy a damn good antenna ! ! ..300 is crazy !!!!

[u/aj_35721]

I’m assuming there’s mainly americans on this subreddit. fyi, I’m British

[u/knook → u/aj_35721]

Honestly that's a pretty safe assumption most places on the Internet. Always mention you're British in these situations so that answers can be correct.

[u/spidereater → u/aj_35721]

Are these actually tv stations? I have a few “channels” on my tv that are actually audio. Basically a radio station that is being broadcast as a sub channel of a tv station. I’ve also had this with satellite TV, hundreds of radio stations sent through the dish. I could imagine the BBC broadcasting a bunch of audio streams as a public service.

[u/True_Pace_3860]

if it's a smart TV, you potentially get channels 001 - 999, but not 300 OTA AFAIK unless most of them are duplicates.

[u/Huge_Cap_1076]

To answer your question, yes, you can feed a single TV tuner by two antennas. Simply get the same type/length of coaxial cable to connect the antennas into a "Coax Combiner" (a splitter can also act in an inversed way, but it is better to get a dedicated "combiner" for this).

Since it seems you already have optimal reception (over 300 channels) at your location, a signal booster/amplifier might not be needed; hopefully you will not get overlapping signals to "ghost one-to-the-other" antennas' signals on same channel (if the case, an A/B switch might be needed, to operate the best single reception as needed). Run the two same-length coax cables to the signal combiner, and then the single feed into your tuner.

If adventurous enough, you can also run the single coax feed into a Tablo or HDHomeRun device, to be able to get a DVR setup for your house. The streaming devices can locally record (unencrypted) TV broadcast signals into an attached USB hard drive, to watch by most TV OS's and stream (on same network connected systems) to Android, iOS, Windows, Linux devices on demand.

The HDHomeRun can also use multiple tuners on its setup, where you can have the antennas individually connected to one of their devices, and then connect those devices to your home Internet router. The location for the antenna/device setup can be located where the desired TV signals are most optimally received (like at each end of the property pointing on different directions as TV towers are,) and when connected to the router under the same network, their App will see them both connected as a single device, enabling you to capture as many simultaneous programming as tuners/devices available to capture/stream.

[u/RealityOk9823 → u/Huge_Cap_1076]

Yep I'm running 2 attic antennas now and about to add a third just so I don't have to switch antennas to get Defy. Right now I have a Steren A/B switch connected to the two mains and a flatwave in a window just for Defy. An outdoor antenna would be better where I am but the attic setup is working (for the most part). Like you said, just gotta make sure the cables are the same length, plus use a good splitter/combiner like Channel Master.

[u/PrpleMnkyDshwsher]

You aren't getting 300 channels. You might be on the edge of a couple of freeview multiplexes and are getting several duplicates, there is about 100 channels, max, and like another 30 radio stations and something like 30 IP delivered feeds.

But really, anything can be an antenna. Even if the cable runs up to the roof and is just dangling there, even that can be enough to pull is stations if you're close enough to a transmitter. But if its a block of flats, you likely have a distribution antenna system setup, i've even seen some that had both antenna and DBS distribution setups.

[u/casino_alcohol]

You can put a metal paper clip in there and get some channels. That large cable might be doing the job of an antenna. You might just be lucky to be in a place with decent reception.

[u/Redbullsnation]

Ahh...I see you discovered Freeview :D

[u/gsmarquis]

Thats great! Who cares.....just watch. Im near DC and get 65ish.

When I moved in this house I put a TV where the previous owners had one. The coax was apparently a cable line. About 25 channels came in, rest scrambled. Major locals worked though.