Over the past 10 years or so, I was subscribing to cable TV that was not the greatest as far as the picture quality goes. The lower channels from 6 -- 2 would always be grainy and the rest would get worse over time. Every 6 to 8 months, I would have to bleed the cable line to eliminate the static build up. The first time I ran into poor quality, I called the cable company and that was all the repair person did. Attach a fancy device to the incoming cable line and remove the static built up in the cabling. Over the years, I would resort to bleeding the cable line myself by attaching a self made cable adapter that would connect to the radiator piping. after about 5 minutes, I would reconnect the cable to the TV and the picture quality would be better.

Recently, my cable TV signal was disconnected for good. I was getting frustrated with the poor picture quality and the high cable fees. I am located in Toronto, which means I was subscribing to Rogers Cable. I own an older TV that is still analog and I have never subscribed to digital TV. I never felt the added cost justified getting digital picture quality only since most of the digital channels where not really of interest to me. When the paid cable was discontinued, I figured I would have to invest in an antenna in the $30.00 -- $50.00 price range since only 1 channel (CTV -- channel 9) came through. I was surprised without any antenna that CTV looked as good as it did with paid cable. Another channel CBC barely came through. Very grainy with no color with sound or color with no sound. 

I looked around town for a good indoor antenna. I was not really able to find any real selection. Philips and RCA were the common manufacturers. Price ranging from $20.00 -- $50.00. The higher priced antenna seemed to be the better choice by reading the package specifications but I was not willing to spend $50.00 if I had to adjust the antenna depending on which channel I was watching since the antenna has an adjustment dial on the front. I decided to do some research on the Internet  and came across some interesting articles and postings. Most posting stated that I should stay away from commercial indoor antenna and just build one myself. I discovered a video on YOUTUBE which showed how to make an antenna using coat hangers and this seemed to capture a great number of channels. The problem I thought initially was my TV is analog and this DIY antenna setup was connected to a newer digital TV. Since I knew that an antenna for a TV are not all that different between analog and digital so I thought I would give this one a try. Before I gathered all the necessary parts to build this antenna, I gave this idea a little more thought and realized it works only on UHF channels which are channels above 13 on the old rotary dial. I would still need a VHF rabbit ear antenna to get channels 2 -- 13 which in Toronto means CBC and CTV. At least I wanted CTV which airs many great US shows like FRINGE and CSI New York.

antenna

I went to my local dollar store and found a rabbit ear antenna for $2.99. This came with two telescoping antenna wires attached to a plastic base with a ribbon cable of about 6 feet in length plus a 75- 300 ohm transformer to connect to the cable connection on the TV. I had to use a 2 way adapter between the transformer and cable since the connections did not match. The small piece in the image is the two way adapter. The white cable is what I already had to connect the antenna to the TV. When I connected this antenna to my TV, I was blown away at how great CTV now comes in. Far better than it ever did even with paid cable. Instead of being able to watch CTV and CBC only, I now get 9 channels since this antenna does support VHF and UHF signals.

• 5 CBC
• 9 CTV
• 19 TVO
• 25 CBC French
• 41 Global
• 47 OMNI1
• 52 SUN TV
• 57 CITY TV
• 69 OMNI 2

These are all the local channels and only SUN TV and OMNI 2 are slightly grainy. The rest are crystal clear and far superior to my paid cable channels I used to get. Eventually I will have to invest in a digital TV so that I can get some of the buffalo channels like WKBW, WGRZ, WIVB, WUTV  and PBS. For now, this $2.99 investment on my 28 inch TV is a shear joy. When connecting the rabbit ear antenna, there is no need to extend the telescopic wires out. Also, just orient the wires straight out to the side and place horizontally near the closest window. This will insure you get the best possible reception. Later, I will add the DIY wire hanger antenna that is described in the YOUTUBE video to improve SUN TV and OMNI 2.