Your Antenna On The Roof May Need Replacing

Filed in archive HDTV on May 9, 2008

© barcoder96

If you're one of those people that lives in an apartment building, use the in-building coax, but are using the building's master antenna instead of getting signals from a cable or satellite provider, you may be in for a shock when analog TV service is shut down!

It turns out that some roof antennas are not UHF-compatible, but only do VHF. Why does this matter? Over-the-air HDTV signals will be transmitted over the UHF frequencies. The UHF frequencies have been there for a while, but most of the popular channels are on the VHF frequencies (Channels 2 thru 13).

In addition to getting a new digital-ready TV, or a least one of them new-fangled converted boxes the government is subsidizing, you'll have to bug your building super to find out if that antenna on the roof receives UHF signals. Chances are, if you're getting channels above 13, it does, but it never hurts to double-check.

Via Crunchgear, New York Times