I got a TV antenna in 2023

[NovaSquirrel]

I've been feeling nostalgic about TV lately for some reason (probably related to thinking about Defunctland's Disney Channel episode? I like seeing bumpers and stuff!) so I got an antenna which was just some cheap weird flat thing which seems to work much better hidden under a drawer than taped up high on a wall.

I was excited to be able to get PBS Kids again and I watched some Word Girl and Hero Elementary and it turns out that being an adult doesn't make me enjoy that kind of stuff any less somehow. I guess it depends on the show; stuff made for literal babies probably won't be good, but stuff for people a bit older may hold up even though it's still trying to be educational. And stuff targeted at a young audience can still have a premise I'm into; I think I remember being really into Dragon Tales as a kid and I think it still fits into my still-current interest in characters crossing over into very different worlds and finding more about them. And Cyberchase is pretty directly that "go into a digital world" fantasy I'm really into (which Deltarune also indulged me in) and a YouTube Poop I saw drew a lot of parallels between the antagonists in that show and the antagonists in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and makes it more intriguing.

I did have fun pretending Hero Elementary was My Hero Academia (which I watched some amount of but dropped since it was too intense) and imagining those characters talking about, "oh I left (plot device) back in my cubby hole". But there's gonna be some base appeal for me anyway in any sort of media that has a group of characters with per-character powers; aside from MHA, that's present in stuff like Bionicle, or Care Bears: Unlock the Magic to some degree, and I set that sort of stuff up among my own characters.

Aside from PBS Kids I saw some sort of shopping channel where someone was showing off some jewelry and you could call in to buy it, I guess? And sports, and news, and some home-improvement stuff. And I saw sitcoms and stuff that looked like it was trying to be spooky. PBS Kids is probably the standout here, but even if I'm not extremely interested in actually watching the stuff that's being broadcast, it's fun to fulfill that curiosity and see what TV shows are being invisibly beamed through my house at a given moment, and I got a radio for similar curiosity.

Anyone else looked at their local over-the-air TV channels lately?

[Jess]

I have an antenna but I don't use it much, and where I am I don't get a lot of channels anyways, so yea I'm not in a big rush to be watching that TV haha

Yea I've noticed with watching shows like Justice League and other shows in the past like Teen Titans is that a lot of them treat the audience like young adults, instead of like shaking keys at them to distract them? And there's also quite a bit of stuff in there you only notice as an adult that goes over kid's heads, so it overall becomes enjoyable. I was surprised especially with Justice League (and Unlimited) how mature some of the plots were

[scout]

i have a similar looking antenna that i use to put the jazz station on the tv for my dog when she's home alone hehe. i used to use it to watch jeopardy! but i haven't been watching lately (i mean they haven't had any episodes lately, but i stopped watching before that)

[NovaSquirrel]

the jazz station

I wish there was a jazz station here, that sounds rad. Maybe there's one on the radio?

I went looking through all of the channels I can get locally today and I could go on about all the stuff I found that I wasn't into but I did find some cool things. I saw a game show channel (Buzzr) and some cool documentaries, and https://createtv.com/ seems like fun. It had some Bob Ross painting stuff when I looked at it earlier.

[scout]

you can listen to the one we have here online: https://kcsm.org/

it's a radio station but for some reason they also broadcast on TV too, with the picture just being a slideshow that only has three or four images of different instruments that get panned over slowly

[Foxxhoria]

My parents still watch TV all the time so I get glimpses of what's on.

I can't say I find myself that interested in anything I've seen (though my parents don't have much taste beyond soap operas and daytime TV, and the occasional documentary or movie that's not too "silly") but there is something nice in the idea of sitting down to properly watch something. I remember watching a few drama things when I was younger, and the new Doctor Who run when it was brand new, hehe.

[ARKYmouse]

I recently rescued a 20" CRT off the side of the road in front of some old ass McMansion kind of place not far from my house. Got it all hooked up with an NES and SNES. Recently got an antenna, and I'm now just waiting for a digital video converter box to show up. I'm kind of excited about the idea of just... having TV again. Nothing fancy since it's local stations, mind you, but I haven't had my own TV or traditional TV service since like... 2009. I feel pretty foreign to TV today, and it's kind of a neat experience to come back to 14 years later.

[SnepperStepper]

What's the connectivity on these? Hoping its RF aka coaxial to get the ole tubes getting some fresh phosphors..... And the VCR's record a workout. I know my local-local station has been keeping the faith, at least.

[ARKYmouse]

What's the connectivity on these? Hoping its RF aka coaxial to get the ole tubes getting some fresh phosphors..... And the VCR's record a workout. I know my local-local station has been keeping the faith, at least.

The thing I got takes AV Composite and RF, yeah. Runs great on the whole, everything looks to be in decent shape for the age of the TV itself. It's a 20" Polaroid TTM-2004R.

The TV's only two big issues is that the yoke needs twisting a little bit and there's something funky going with how it handles tinting balance. That and a small side issue is a PCB ribbon isn't seating quite right, so the power button alone doesn't work. But my workaround for now is fiddling with the tint as needed. I can turn the TV on by hitting one of the channel buttons and I can shut it down by toggling the power switch on my power belt. I need to get a universal remote for it, that or hopefully the remote that'll come with the converter box.

[SnepperStepper]

What's the connectivity on these? Hoping its RF aka coaxial to get the ole tubes getting some fresh phosphors..... And the VCR's record a workout. I know my local-local station has been keeping the faith, at least.

The thing I got takes AV Composite and RF, yeah. Runs great on the whole, everything looks to be in decent shape for the age of the TV itself. It's a 20" Polaroid TTM-2004R.

The TV's only two big issues is that the yoke needs twisting a little bit and there's something funky going with how it handles tinting balance. That and a small side issue is a PCB ribbon isn't seating quite right, so the power button alone doesn't work. But my workaround for now is fiddling with the tint as needed. I can turn the TV on by hitting one of the channel buttons and I can shut it down by toggling the power switch on my power belt. I need to get a universal remote for it, that or hopefully the remote that'll come with the converter box.

I meant the antennae the thread's about, not a TV ^^;