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Hi Cosmic,
I do not have an antenna on my cell phone. Before we moved to our condo we had dish network. Now we have comcast cable. All I can say is it is OK. I remember when life was simple and you just turned on the TV.

yankee

when we were in our campground in Webster (Burnett co)...I had a garage sale multi element antenna on a 25' post...we got most of twin cities stations ok + duluth/Superior

being a comfort creature I bought a 2d dish antenna and mounted it on a tree, then brought my receiver up with us each weekend

I will have DISH at my new place...in Webb Lake (near Danbury)

mobile phone...Verizon works well up there

steve
(I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous)

Dish! But It was a lot more simpler in the earlier days, now there are so many channels you dont even watch half of them. In the Northwoods the antenna never really worked very good.

Here at our cottage near Crivitz we have an antenna... I have been noticing the reception is bad quite often lately... have been blaming it on the stormy season we've been having... but sometimes it's bad on a really nice day...

When we first put it up about 10 yrs ago we got CBS & ABC from Green Bay really well... now we get a lot of snow and static on ABC much of the time... CBS comes in the best and if we want NBC we have to rotate the antenna...

The problem with the dish is that you have to pay all year long and we're only up here about 1/3 of the year...

NEWS FLASH: AMPLIFIED RABBIT EARS ($30) AND DIGITAL CONVERTOR BOX (FREE) = FANTASTIC BROADCAST RECEPTION.

I bought a used Sony TV for our dacha near Shawano. BAD TV reception. It improved with an "amplified" TV antenna (rabit ears) I bought for $30 at Walmart.

Then I got the government coupon for the digital convertor box and got that hooked up. I get Green Bay, Appleton, and Wausau Stations and the picture is FANTASTC.

I then went to my sisters house nearbye and did that for them and they are amazed at the picture qualtiy. It's fantastic (actually you get HD on many if your TV can accomodate).

Not to be a wonk, but you may see antenna's again on roof tops.

On February 19th 2009, analog TV signals will be stopped(this is not altogether technically correct, but I digress) and all over-the-air boardcasts will be digital, which means all TV sets that use an analog tuner will be only have static.

Except, those sets connected to cable or satellite will continue to receive a picture regardless if they are analog or digital, or if the TV has already a digital converter attached. A convert can be purchased with a government $40 coupon(two coupons per household, but I digress again) at most electronic stores and is easy, in most instances, to connect. One of the bad things about digital signals is that they are on different frequencies on the UHF band and not the VHF band which have signals that carrier farther. So an antenna becomes more important to receive an over-the-air signal that the digital receiver can process. With digital, if the signal strength is not great enough you get nothing, nada as a picture.

As to the issue with cell phones and TV reception, I not so sure that's the problem. First the cell phone frequencies are different and the silhouettes of most cell towers are very thin and not very reflective, so something else is going on here that might be blocking the signal.

One of the more interesting results of the placement of wind farms in rural America is that they can really screw up reception of such things as TVs if your set and the transmitter have a wind mill between them and it might have an effect on cell phones also.

How do you get the government coupon for the digital converter box... I haven't gotten any in my mail...

No problem carci here's the link to your government's get it now program ...

view link

BUT, the coupon has an expiration date of 90 days from issue, so, use it or lose it.

And look around at the boxes beyond price, there are differences in the convert boxes available. And no, you don't have to wait until February 2009, you can use them now, sorta, read the fine print on as to the technical details, like pass through capabilities of using both analog and digital signals with the same set.

thx exedir.... I'll check it out... :-)