Source of rumor of no antenna needed with converter box?

Question

Can anybody tell me where the rumor came from that no antenna is needed if you use a digital converter box. I'm seeing this all over the technical areas of Y!A. People complaining that they don't get a good picture with their converter box unless they have an antenna hooked up and they were told that you wouldn't need one. One person just said in an answer that he saw it on the news. What news? Any other engineers out there seeing this same issue have any clue where it started?

Answer 1

uqlue42 is a bit off target. All digital conversion boxes will need an antenna. It does not matter if your antenna is "old fashioned" or not. Being a broadcast engineer, I can answer this with some authority. It just needs to cover both the VHF and UHF bands, like most TV antennas already do. There is no need for a "digital antenna". This is marketing hype to sell you a new antenna when you don't need one.  The frequencies used are the same, and your good ol' antenna will pick them up just fine.

It does help greatly to use an outdoor antenna. Your signal to noise ratio will be really improved and the picture will not block up as much.

Answer 2

I don't think it's possible to determine the source of the "no antenna needed for the digital converter box" rumor, but I suspect it is uneducated or misinformed people who do not understand RF transmission/reception principles.  All it takes is one person who appears (or is believed) to be 'an authoritative source' to say something, and as it gets repeated and embellished from one source to the next, it takes on a life of its own.  This is the nexis of the human communication principle "A lie told often enough becomes the truth."

As tomtom and Roland L. have correctly pointed out - it is not true that you do not need an antenna to receive over-the-air digital TV broadcasts.  Anyone with a modicum of technical knowledge knows that some sort of antenna is required to receive any type of broadcast RF signal.  This is especially true for over-the-air digital broadcast signals, which are fed to the digital converter box in order to convert the digital signals to analog signals that can be viewed on older TV sets (those without an ATSC tuner).

The specific type/quality/placement of antenna required (such as outdoor amplified, outdoor, indoor amplified, indoor, 'rabbit ears' or even a length of bare wire) depends on how close the antenna is to the transmission source, the source signal strength, and sources/amounts of interference in the line of sight between the transmitter and receiver (such as large buildings, high voltage electrical transmission lines, topography, etc.).  The overall determining factors are signal strength and quality.

If the signal strength is weak, or if there is a large amount of interference, the amount of signal received will be insufficient to be demodulated into a usable signal.  Thus a good quality antenna (possibly amplified) would be required.  If you're sitting on a hill very close to and in the line of sight of the broadcast antenna, then it's possible that you could use a coat hanger for an antenna.  But you obviously don't need to spend a lot of money for a "specially designed" HDTV amplified antenna.

Answer 3

If you are refering to the Digital Converter needed to get over the air broadcasts (mandatory by Feb 2009) then yes. You need a HD antenna to connect to the box to get the digital signal. You cannot use the old fashion antennas for HD broadcasts.

Answer 4

Yes heard that. But the source of those rumors are undocumented, those TV commercials even advertised outdoor antennas. I suspect those salesmen from electronic stores are the ones giving those incomplete and false informations. One thing that complicates that is, they call it a converter box, when it is actually a TV tuner or an ATSC receiver. If a receiver is included in its name, then there must be a transmitter and between a receiver and a transmitter is an antenna...So those sales clerks should be properly trained in handling sales in those DTV coverter boxes and should stress out that they still need an antenna.