There was an interesting development in the “cord cutting” TV world last week. Aereo, a company which re-transmits broadcast TV from areas receiving rich sets of OTA signals, has passed a court test in the New York 2nd Circuit of Appeals. This has the broadcast networks in an uproar, and several are now threatening to […]
In mid-July, we decided that we’d had enough of paying $116/mo (nearly $1400 per year!) for TV that we hardly ever watched. We had ATT U-verse, and it was much better than Time Warner, IMHO for value for cost. However, we were paying for 3 U-verse boxes, HD tier, some movie channels, and watching very […]
Its been a week since I put up a TV antennae at the beach house and dropped the Time Warner Cable subscription back to Internet only. Faithful readers of this blog know that it’s now been 4 years (July 2011) since I put up an antennae on the Chapel Hill house and dropped Uverse. I […]
It’s been a year since we dropped our Uverse tv subscription of $116/mo (3 tv’s, HD, Showtime) and put up an antennae for over the air (OTA) reception. Since I last wrote about this we’ve added an additional $70 pre-amp (to help with the picture when trees are fully leafed out and wet!). I’m very […]
As we continue our quest to be happy with entertainment solutions without a monthly cable bill, I decided to add a Roku to the mix. We’ll use this at Emerald Isle, where we’ve got an Apple TV box hooked up to the set, but didn’t have a way to stream Amazon Prime (at home, I’ve […]
Santa brought me an Apple TV (ATV) in his bag this Christmas, and now that I’ve finished my holiday travels, I thought I’d hook it up and try it out. First, I’m truly amazed at how small it is! It comes with Apple’s elegant and minimalistic packaging, with the box, including its power cord, remote, […]
I’d noticed that as the summer had come on and the trees had leafed out, my ability to reach some local 2M repeaters was impacted, using my 5W HT and a roof mounted magnetic antenna. For example I was having significant issues accessing the Durham “TV Hill” repeater (fine in the winter), though the newly […]
I wanted to be able to reliably reach the local VHF/UHF repeaters, so I bought a 2 meter 1/2 wave antenna to mount outside the house and hook up to my handheld radio. It came over the weekend, and I installed it this afternoon. The antenna itself is a set of wires of specific lengths […]
I bought myself a Raspberry Pi, a small single board computer, about the size of a credit card. You can order one for $35, put it together with some parts you probably already have, and you’ve got a fully functional Linux computer. I haven’t really decided what to do with it yet, but it’s a […]
The FCC issued a new ruling today, affirming network neutrality. It was was not as complete a decision as preferred by proponents of neutrality, but it seems that it will be a very important ruling. It allows differentiation in wireless networks, stating that these are different entities that require different rules. Some on the panel […]