Find your local TV station Towers with AntennaWeb

Posted under A Geek Dad's Life, Blog Posts, Quitting Cable

The cable companies would like you to believe that the only way to get moving pictures on your wall-mounted glass lamp is to connect to their media faucet.  Thankfully, the folks that sell those old wire contraptions called “antennas” have joined forces to provide tools to break free.  One such tool is AntennaWeb.  I recently used it to line up my new Hoverman antenna.  It is a marvel of “web 2.0” meets “free as in beer.”

While the tool is ridiculously-awesome, I do have an important tip for using it –

Lie about obstructions and height to see ALL stations.

If you tell the truth, the system will faithfully only show you the stations that you might get with rabbit ears.  You really want to see ALL of the stations that you could get if you bought/built an Frankentenna.  So, you should say “no” obstructions, and that your antenna height is absurdly high, like 200 feet.

Doing so will cause the website to show you vectors and distances to all stations in the area.  You can then dial the exaggerations back a bit to see more-realistic estimates of reception.

The AntennaWeb website will give you a detailed listing of stations, channel numbers, distance, compass direction, and the recommended antenna type for each station.  You can even click “View Street Level Map” to see a Google map with directional markers and a legend for each station.  It is truly a smile-making tool.

If you’re on the fringe, you will likely see that most/all of your local TV stations’ transmitters are grouped together in one area so that one directional antenna will cover them all.

Good luck with your OTA TV endeavors, and let me know how you’re doing in the comments!