Mediacom

[ThunderHawk]

Channel 5 is hard to get even if you lived next door to the antenna...any type of brick or stone on the outside of your domicile causes channel 5 to not come in thorugh an antenna...

Yeah, I have a brick house and my reception is bad with any HD antenna...even though I live a few blocks from WHO and KCCI.

 

[BrickHouseHawk]

What I am wondering is why Mediacom won't just say screw these guys and pick up the Omaha or KC Fox affiliate. Seriously, no one watches "local" programming on Fox. Fox in DSM doesn't even do their own news casts...its done by channel 13 (NBC). I admit its definitely not a long term solution, but would get the Orange Bowl and NFL games in the short term. Unless Sinclair owns those affiliates also, which I admit I have no idea if they do or not.

I believe FCC regs don't allow this; exclusivity for certain areas.

 

[Hanz78]

I get a solid signal from FOX using rabbit ears that I picked up in the 80's. You may not have to buy anything fancy to see the game.

 

[Ozhawk]

my friend lives in an apt(bottom apt) on the far SW side of Cedar Rapids by West Post Road. He said he went out to Kmart and picked up a $20 HD antenna and came back and plugged it into his plasma and got perfect pictures for all the locals....he even said he thought the HD picture was better than what he got in HD from Mediacom

HD antennas as a FARCE. There is no such thing as a HD tv antenna. I pick up HD channels with my 35 year old Yagi antenna into my DISH player The yagi was invented over 100 years ago. The HD signal does not require a special antenna. You can pick up HD signals with 50 year old rabbit ears. HD signals are more directional but a simple Yagi (shaped like this >) will suffice I live 60 miles from DM and about 75 Miles from CR. With my 35 year old Yagi antenna I get Both citys HD channels. People want you to think you need to buy an HD antenna.

 

[Ozhawk]

my friend lives in an apt(bottom apt) on the far SW side of Cedar Rapids by West Post Road. He said he went out to Kmart and picked up a $20 HD antenna and came back and plugged it into his plasma and got perfect pictures for all the locals....he even said he thought the HD picture was better than what he got in HD from Mediacom

Over the air pictures ARE better than cable OR dish/direct. The reason why is the signal is not compressed at all. TRU HD in all its glory comes over the air. Mediacom particularly compresses their data packets to pipe them out. Its an industry wide common knowledge fact that OTA HD is superior due to NO compression. I am a regular of DBS forums its amazing what one can learn. Oh BTW Dish network has a considerable more bandwidth than Direct..thus they don't compress their signal as much which explains why their HD picture is so much better than direct.

 

[Ozhawk]

I've had DirecTV for ten years. They aren't saints but they sure beat the hell out of the cable companies...unless you're stuck in a blizzard or have to climb a freaking ladder to remove snow and ice like I did on Christmas day. And for those of you hoping otherwise, no, I did not fall off.

I had both and I have to say Dish has a far superior picture. Especially in HD. And their equiptment (including satellites) are much more up to date. Their satellites pipe out much more bandwidth and have a stronger signal. Snow doesn't affect DIsh form me like it did when I was a direct TV customer.