"There are thousands of feet of electrical wiring built in your house or apartment building. And what is an antenna? Just a long wire! You already have the greatest antenna ever made built into your house!" RF guy enters the room, punches 'friend', leaves.
And even at the lower end UHF band IV (the bit not yet being vacated for 4/5G) the wavelength is relatively short, now the frequencies used by AM radio (LW/MW/SW) now they use long waves. I will point out that even with TV frequencies being moved from the top end of band V to band IV my grans original antenna (a Telefield?) that looks to be from the 70's at the latest still gets a full signal from a loft installation, she still managed to get a usable signal on the TV with the RF loopthrough on the PVR disabled!
the problem with that is most of that waring is grounded and the ones that artn are going to have 60 or 50 cycle base noise on them at either 120 or 240V which would over whem any radio signal
ThunderClawShocktrix Actually, a simple high pass filter would block the 50/60Hz interference since there is nothing of interest below about 50MHz (VHF low channels in US) or hundreds of MHz (UHF channels). That said, most any long wire antenna is going to have to deal with 50/60Hz interference anyhow given how pervasive modern AC distribution is, but it is usually fairly easy to address since we generally are not terribly interested in most signals less than at least several hundred KHz.
@@ethanpoole3443 haha, I would be surprised if this wasn't just connected directly to the ground lug, no capacitor let alone a pass filter! What's worse is so many homes have outlets that are miss wired. When I rented and moved for work a lot I always checked outlets, and commonly had to rewire them after a painter replaced them or some such. This product would likely destroy more tv's than it ever helped get a better signal in the US!
Basically, don't pay for cable - use OTA broadcast TV. The fact that you can do this with any old antenna - and just about any old antenna will be more optimized for the task - is the bit they're leaving unsaid.
@@EEVblog2 It seems that many americans only are using DVB-C (cable) and don't know that DVB-T (terrestial antenna) channels are available too. Here in Finland you get both free and paid channels over DVB-T.
@@EEVblog2 I think you might need to consider the cultural differences between us here in Australia and what it is like in North America with regard to cable TV. Here in Australia, Foxtel is seen as a premium service which is definitely not one of life's necessities. If you don't need it, you just get an antenna and watch over the air TV. However, In North America, it is very common for people to buy the most basic cable TV package and box rental just to watch the local channels and people tend to THINK it's a necessity. Since the late 80s/early 90s it's been the norm throughout North America to watch TV via cable instead of using an antenna...*and so a whole generation of people have grown up thinking that the only way to receive TV is via cable!* That's the target market for this product. There are heaps of videos on TH-cam which saying the same thing as this Kickstarter ad (never pay for cable again! Use an antenna to watch for free Etc etc), and as an Aussie it seems very weird because our norm is to watch tv over the air, but to Americans it means something completely different because there's a very good chance that they haven't grown up in a household with an antenna connected to the TV, so they may just be unaware that there is another option available.
An antenna actually designed for DV-T will almost certainly be better than your house wiring. The frequencies used want an antenna a few inches long at most.
I knew someone who told me he hooked up a CRT television antenna to the mains earth and got better reception than the antenna that was attached to it but one day they had thunder and lightning, and had some surges and he said his television got fried.
@@hardscorerockkssss It was a conversation I had back in 2001 about one of those really old television sets with the round aerials or something attached to it on the back ontop that he connected to earth about 10 - 15 years before that.
Back in the 80s my parents would confiscate the TV aerial in my bedroom as they didn't want me watching horror films at night.. The Lego train set power cable fitted in the antenna socket perfectly however and you could even fashion it into a pretty decent dipole if you separated the other end.
You wouldn´t receive anything with that cable though. When I tried that with a 5m cable I received 2 channels (1 was home shopping :D). Got me through the first night in a new apartment though.
I bet his wife's *really* pleased that the cable guy isn't coming around anymore. Did he think that maybe his wife is ensuring the cable goes out with regularity?
In the US, OTA (over the air) channels are also broadcast on cable. A lot of people get the OTA broadcasts on cable TV, as well as sports, movie, history, science... Some people don’t know they could just use an antennae to get the local TV channels. In the US, there are no “council” fees to just watch TV. You don’t have to be up on your taxes.
There was a similar scam doing the rounds about a year ago, the ads and site showed pictures of a USB DVB-T dongle plugged into a laptop... with nothing connected to the antenna jack. The text didn't specifically state "free Netflix", but it was worded so vaguely that I'm sure plenty of people bought them assuming they could get free streaming, because laptop.
That reminds me.of the fact that the pay TV provider we use actually has a Netflix "channel", so one could just dial in channel 545 (5xx being the "entertainment" group), wait for the info panel to disappear (or press the back key), and it would automatically launch into Netflix's app for pay TV boxes.
A guy I roomed with who was an engineer at Northrop Grumman no less fell for something similar to this and bought one for each of his family members. I remember when I got home one day, he was so angry he got scammed by it, he took a shotgun and destroyed each one in the backyard.
In the UK, there was a time when classified ads would offer a product called the "de-activator". Purchasing it would stop you having to pay the BBC licence fee. When you got the "device" is was a badly photocopied sheet of paper giving you the telephone number of the BBC and the instruction to say you don't have a tv.
Also - This is nothing more than an adapter that uses the AC mains as an antenna. It capacitivly connects the mains to the antenna input of your TV via a short length of coax. It's a goofy cheap technique that's been around forever in the world of radio/tv reception. And of course, the performance at VHF/UHF is horrible because of the frequency/wavelengths involved.
ive noticed a huge surge in antenna adverts lately..mainly directed to those in the US...theyve had FTA TV all along...but everyone "thinks" they have to pay for cable to get TV...lots of them useless little HD patch antennas going for stupid prices..
i think most don't. We i visited the US, i didn't notice anennas on the roofs of houses if i remember correctly. US houses are built too poorly to support one. Nearly every house in the UK has a roof top TV antenna. I think free to air TV via a roof aerial is just not much of a thing in the US.
@@EEVblog2 from what ive seen, the majority dont...alot of the communities have covenants in place that dont allow them to place antenna on the roof (for HF or TV etc) as they are "too unsightly"
Holy shit, do you know what this means? Not only have they created the most advanced antenna ever created, but they've also developed the ability to STOP TIME!!
@@Carambal81 That could still have been generated server-side, but since it *still* says “51 minutes ago” right now, it's pretty obvious that's just a static webpage indeed.
It would only pick up closeby free OTA (over the air) channels that can be picked up by any rabbit ear type antenna. FTA is usually picked up by Satellite receivers
lasersbee No need for sat band receivers for terrestrial FTA channels like US local stations, US Fox, UK BBC etc. etc. Rabbit or halfwave antennas plugged into a TV can receive in many homes while others need higher placement or better gain. Using the mains wiring really shouldn't work properly for wavelengths shorter than the size of the home. I'm no HAM, but rigging or fixing my own basic antennas was learned long before becoming an EE.
@@johnfrancisdoe1563 It's a terminology thing he was referring to. Terrestrial television is usually referred to as OTA whereas FTA usually means Free To Air satellite.
@@johnfrancisdoe1563 As a ham operator you got it all fairly correct, and a yagi pointed at the transmitter will be even better and is relatively cheap, after all, it is just some metal bars mostly.
There are people in the US who have no idea that free to air even exists. The cable, mobile phone, and satellite companies long ago disabused people of the notion that RF exists in a way that is free to use.
I bet this thing does work. I used a metal stick in the air to get broadcast television for years. It sure won't replace cable or dish because you only get local channels, and some national networks. Or, you know, just pay for the streaming services you want and watch what you want whenever you want.
This has been around since the '50s. Popular science, popular electronics, comic books (probably next to Honor House x-ray glasses etc. Ones I knew of had a capacitor coupled twin lead to ac. Hopefully rated not to short. Related was a hunk of 300 ohm cable terminating in a plastic dingus usually with some twirly things sticking out. Usually just a length of 300 ohm twin lead. Of course a wet string might pick up something in the right circumstances. That's all you need for "proof".
nerdful1 That 300 ohm twin was always the standard dipole length for the indicated band, with convenient holed to hang it from two small nails. ADSL is optimized for 100 ohm phone cable with active measurements to get around noise and crosstalk, which is also why it's always sold as "up to xx/x Mbps. Speed will be the lesser of paid limit, hardware limit and dynamically measured signal conditions. VDSL adds the ability of the central office to order individual modems to back off or change settings when crosstalk affects another subscriber.
Ok over here in the US there are two ways to get TV. One is technically free as it is ad supported. Unlike in the uk where you have to pay a license fee to view tv broadcasts period. 1. Antenna (Free Over the Air) - The antennas we have here pick up local network stations free. The local stations (Nbc, ABC, Fox Cbs and a few others) normally normally broadcast between 50-75 miles from the station. You normally buy the antenna for a one time fee and that's it, the broadcast its self is free because all content is sponsored by advertisers. 2. Cable TV/Satalight - These are the "premium" paid channels like CNN, Specialty spots channels, HBO, Nickelodeon Disney channel. There are generally 100's of them and come in packages that you can sign up for from a provider like Comcast or ATT. These premium channels you always have to pay for and are never offered for free any where in the US. The bills for such services can and most timers do surpass $150 a month. In the beginning (late 70's early 80's) people paid for cable because they didn't have to watch commercials and had more options and didn't have to deal with reception issues cause by using antennas. Now paid cable tv suffers from both the bloat of advertisements and reception issues due to aging equipment. So the scam here is saying that they can get "cable tv channels" for free. Or all "Cable channels" free. I see on this one they are careful not to put the logos of the actual cable channels on the ad. They could get sued for false advertisement. Also if they did find a way to get their device to access paid content for free , that would be illegal. Technically, since you also get the local stations when you sign up for a premium cable you could (if you really stretched the definition) say you were getting cable station for free. Since for a few decades now in the US using antennas as fallen out of popularity (many opted to pay to get more channels with "better" content) many might not know what is available to them. However this device will not give you any thing much different then what you could get with an antenna you picked up at the local walmart.
I'm not sure if I'd call this a scam. It's basically a free-to-air DTV antenna. In many areas you can get a few channels just by jamming a paperclip into the TV antenna socket. It probably works, even if the story is nonsense.
Here's how broadcast TV works in the US and how/why this scam works... In February 2009 we were all mandated to switch our stations from analog to digital. In the case of the station I worked at, that was merely a case of switching the mode of the exciter because we got to keep our broadcast frequency. A lot of stations didn't. Anyway, those stations that they list on the page that you get for free were mostly already broadcasting at least in the case of ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Etc... Once the digital switch happened, under the bandwidth stations were now given on the digital spectrum, stations could opt to split that bandwidth into multiple sub-stations like a lot of those other networks further down on that list. The upshot was that a lot of stations gained new channels that they could license out and get revenue from by including them in their stream. Most stations went with 720P on the main channel and gave an additional 3 SD sub-channels. Areas that previously had 10 stations suddenly have almost 40 channels. The downside was that analog TVs were useless now without a converter box, and people mostly didn't notice here because they were already paying for cable service which conveniently packaged all those local stations into their stream. You only noticed if you didn't have cable or you lived where it wasn't available. Anyway, a lot of people were just totally unaware that all the old broadcast stations now broadcast digitally. And in fact there are many stations available for free so long as you have an antenna with decent gain, and perhaps one that is optimized for the ATSC signal that is the new standard. These things are just antennas, although how well your household wiring could serve in that capacity is pretty dubious to say the least. But there are lots of these, and what they're doing to avoid being prosecuted for fraud is telling more or less the truth. There is free digital broadcast TV in the US. All you need is an antenna. Why they feel the need so sell a sucky antenna when a good one would actually work is a bit of a mystery.
It's all fun and games until a lightning strikes ground and your TV dies lol. I'm also waiting for someone to send you one of these scam devices for the mailbag.
OMG... I can't believe you are that confused about _"never pay for cable again"._ Would you be this confused about _"never pay for gas again"_ on a electric car advertisement? LOL.
This is too funny. In urban areas in the US, there are digital broadcasters, but the whole point of cable was to provide a wide array of content beyond just broadcast stations. (I happen to work for one of the first cable companies in the US)
That is not accurate. The original use of cable television was in rural areas that were too far away from cities to receive signals over the air, or in areas of poor reception due to terrain/buildings blocking signals or causing severe multipath reception. It wasn't until deregulation of cable by the FCC in the 70's/80's that the potential profit level of cable was raised high enough to be attractive to the major players. From the consumer standpoint, several things made cable attractive. First and foremost was the lack of commercials. Originally, cable TV didn't have commercials on cable specific programming because you were paying for the service. Next was probably the number of available channels. OTH TV typically had the 3 major networks (add Fox in the late 80's), a few local channels, and PBS. Growing up in the Chicago area in the 70's we had 7 channels to choose from (2,5,7,9,11,32,44). Cable back then was offering maybe 20 channels or so, but that number grew every year. Also, cable wasn't subject to censorship so swearing, nudity, and sex were all OK to show.
Ok - I mis-phrased my comment, and meant to say that. In any case, I do work for the one of the first (if not the first) cable company in the US - it was created because the town is in a valley and broadcast signal was not easily received. (far distance from actual broadcasters + topology)
Sadly there are many people nowadays that don't understand the difference between on air broadcast and cable. This product is for them. That is why its shaped like a Death Star radar dish, designed for childlike minds. I use a Leaf Antenna for broadcast in US. It requires a bit of fiddling to get the right position, but it probably works a lot better than random shaped wire in the house that has AC running in it. My understanding is that the shape and location of the antenna is more important than the size for picking up a clear signal. ( correct me if I'm wrong)
Sounds just like Japan. You must pay (about $125 per year) for NHK public broadcasts if you own equipment that can receive them. Just recently the courts ruled that cell phones qualify as receivers because NHK can be streamed over the internet. Even if you don't have an antenna you have to pay. There is actually a political party called "The Party To Protect People From NHK" that wants to make payment voluntary.
@@RB9522 The cellphone thing is true only if the phone has an integrated tuner. www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/03/13/national/crime-legal/owners-tv-capable-cellphones-must-pay-public-channel-fees-top-court-rules/ Also, the law is such that you will only be fined for not paying after you made a payment contract with NHK, as you are in breach of that contract. Refusing to start the contract has no penalty even if you have a TV, it's a toothless law that has never been enforced, as long as you don't start that contract otherwise you dive into contract law.. Source, I live here and don't watch TV.
How many have actually been tried and sent to prison for not paying? I don't know what the fee is but prisons are expensive, between $100K-150K or more a year, per inmate, in Canada. So they fund the CBC out of general tax revenue, because if they didn't nobody would pay, just like they didn't back in the days of radio licenses. If they threatened to send people to jail more then a few would say, "Great, free room and board", and still would not pay.
It actually might work somehow. I used to listen to short wave radio in the past and I only had very good reciption when putting the magnetic loop antenna near the inhouse cabling. But I'm sceptical this will work in the hunderts Mhz range. Somewhen my neightbour decided to use powerlan and the short wave time was over for me.
If you live in a wooden house and the local laws don't require a AC wiring to be in metal tubes maybe you have a chance to have some resonance in the VHF spectrum . In some places you can use PBC coated wiring . If you live in a masonry or concrete home this is useless since all the electrical wiring has to be inside metal tubing mostly .Also you have the risk of lightning strikes and high voltage and current spikes. Good thing you denounce this scams ! :)
I hooked my stereo antenna port to my chain linked fence once. I was barely picking up (lots of static) stations from a couple of states away. I didn’t do it for long as I was concerned about lightning.
I fix tvs in the US and it's funny how many people think there's no free to air anymore. They all complain about cable prices. I pull out a UHF antenna, or a piece of wire, and show them usually 20 free channels. It is about a car payment because we all get internet from the cable company. They try to bundle tv and wired phones, sometimes cell phones too.
I remember my younger self bodging together lots of wires to make a long antenna and I was wondering why I didn't get any channels. My brain was unable to understand how a short length of wire worked better. I don't even know why I wanted TV? My TV was mostly used as a monitor, connected to an XP machine (that actually handled 1080p output with it's integrated GPU) and I was already watching TH-cam videos and getting inspirations on making TV antennas.
In the US you get a set top box for your Internet, TV and phone. Pretty much every household has one, as you would need at least one of those 3. Of course cable companies hook you up with more services for more $. That's why so many don't know there is such thing as OTA. Also, all mains wiring in the US run in conduit, which is a grounded metal pipe. No wires are ever exposed by code, therefore if they have a capacitor-to-ground in this device, the conduit will be the antenna, not the ground wires.
If the device is using the wiring of the house as the antenna it doesn't matter where the device is installed as it doesn't have to point at anything. That "Other HD antennas" picture is bogus as you wouldn't have that effect on a digital channel. In Canada there are still many (digital only) channels available over the air. How many you can get depends on where you live. If you are in or near a big city there could be a half dozen or more. Probably fewer if you live out in the sticks somewhere. Always fun watching your debunk videos for these types of junk devices.
Since this plug only makes your house to an "gigantic super antenna" you would still need an DVB-T / DVB-T2 Receiver (if the TV doesn't have it build-in) 🤔
we use ATSC here in North America, and soon to be ATSC 3.0 for 4K OTA broadcast that will add more interactive guides, more channels, better sound, more local weather alerts that won't interrupt someone's show the next town/city over if they are not being effected by said weather alert, and even free on demand content like movies, and TV shows. Also modern TV's on the ATSC standard have the tuner/receiver built in, so no external box needed unless you want an OTA DVR, or have an older Analog CRT TV(although some of the very last ones made around 08 have ATSC built in). Having said all of that for the upcoming 2020 roll out of ATSC 3.0 people will need to either buy a new TV, or get a converter dongle/box, but normal ATSC broadcast will still happen for several years to come while the change takes place. The reason I bring all this up, is this "plug antenna" is targeted at the N. American market to baby boomers in which many still don't know jack all about Technology.
The Cable deal is, that many people don't know about that there's free to air broadcast. There was even some new article, even in hungary, that young american people just discovered this newfangled method to receive TV. They always used cable tv, never ever head of this kind of thing, and now here comes the thing, they whole life is a lie, etc :D No wonder some tought it was illegal, imagine that you pay some good $$ for cable tv every month as long as you lived, or you can't watch it, and now some guy just show you a weird thing that does it for free. Like free electricity, free gas, etc, and you wanna make sure that it's not coming from wires before the meter, or magnetizing old meters :D Heck, even at hungary sometimes I had trouble explaining free-to-air broadcast before there was a more than a year long advertisement campagin before we switched to DVB-T2 from analog. Cable TV people have been grown up with it, and never head about anything else.
That depends on where you live. If you are actually in a high signal strength area, you can easily saturate an amplifier (clipping on the outputs, which distorts the signal). So in town, an amp will actually hurt you. However, if you live out in the middle of nowhere, an amp may actually help.
Sadly, in about 3-4 years, finely tuned negative index of reflection materials will have made it too industry instead of just the lab bench and we can expect to see massive gains on antenna performance for any microwave communications tech. Too bad these yip yips have just rediscovered transmatches which give you good "signal" but increase the noise something insane.
We get bombarded with ads for a device here in the UK headlined 'hundreds of Brits are cancelling their cable contracts..." It is an antenna allegedly designed by a NASA engineer (yeah right!!) with some of the same claims. It says that what the authorities don't want you to know is that there is some law or other that says that broadcasters have to transmit expensive pay-for cable TV channels over the air for free as well. But normal antennas can't receive these, presumably because of some big conspiracy. It is certainly not the case; we have Freeview UHF which is the regular Free To Air stuff, Sky satellite which is mostly subscription and Virgin cable in some areas. But no subscription channels are legally available for free!
Hi Dave. Those are called broadcast channels in the USA...sounds the same as your free to air. They are all the stations you could get with the old analog antenna system too.
That list of stations are all free over the air HD. Where I am, I can get like 200ish stations, though only around 30 are in English. The standard scam with these TV antennas is to confuse the buyer to think free to air is some type of magic cable service. The idea is to target people who only ever had paid cable TV and either don't know or forgot able free over the air TV.
Scammers sold these devices when I was a kid in the '60s and '70s. Just a couple of capacitors to allow RF through connected to the house wiring. I also remember "color TV antennas", had a replay when everyone started selling "digital TV antennas". Hilarious.
Dave I have one real question about antennas did you ever made a video which explains the different antenna types (plain wire, dish, fractal) and when to use them? Form an engineer point of view?
...imo thats a bit silly...you would be there for years going through them all and when to use them..antennas seem like voodoo...but really you just have to match the length to the frequency (which is a simple calculation)..if the signal is not strong enough you can add elements to improve the gain (think multiple antennas connected together)... in the case of satelite dishes, they are usually very high frequency, or the signal is very weak..higher frequencies need more power to transmit the same distance as a lower frequency (propagation).. so the dish collects a bunch of signal and directs it to the central feed point to increase the gain... fractal antennas are nothing special..they are just wideband (instead of being tuned for one frequency, they cover a larger range)
I'd like to see Dave to an antenna video. Apart from simple dipole explanations, I've never learned how directors and reflectors work on a yagi, as regards to their length. It'd be nice to get a refresher on free space impedance coupling and whatnot. Antennas are neat.
schitlipz But, it is somewhat of a specialty to get it right, even for a basic 600MHz UHF antenna. Satellite antennas don't need the focused parabolic reflector because of frequency as much as due to distance. Signal is weakened at the square of the distance, and sat TV is broadcast from a small solar cell powered transmitter at least 22000 miles away). Also the satellites a few degrees left or right may broadcast a different station on the same frequency, because only some frequencies can pass through our ionospheric shield.
Dave, the stations listed are not 'cable' stations, but rather generic over-the-air stations that the FCC required to be available. Looks like this is just a 'good-looking' generic digital antenna.
We got a similar scam over here in Germany... the only difference is that there is a DVB-T receiver that is advertised. The texts in the ads are nearly the same
My guess is that the "*Free Cable Included" is more instrumental at picking up OTA broadcast TV than the device itself. I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't even any capacitive coupling to ground/earth and if dissected it's just a fancy molded piece of plastic! Of particular note, I was visiting friends down in Seattle and their elderly neighbour was very surprised to learn she could get her favourite channels without subscribing to cable. Since the digital OTA transition in the US, cable companies have opportunistically misinformed consumers that they need "digital TV boxes" and that [CableCoName] has the best, totally skipping over the fact that there are DTV converter boxes that don't require a monthly subscription, and that many people don't even need those as most TV sets since about 2007 have built in ATSC tuners. We disconnected her cable box which was SD only and set the TV to learn channels. She immediately picked up about 15 watchable channels without an antenna connected. At least 10 were in HD. After buying her a $9.99 "rabbit ears" antenna and making sure all of the channels she liked to watch were coming in strong, she had over 30 channels and canceled her $60 monthly cable TV bill.
The idea of using you houses electrical wiring as an antenna is not a new idea. They make these devices clear back in the 60's. Back when I was a little kid. My grand parents use a similar device on their 1960 RCA color TV and it work quite well. I will say that these devices are better then rabbit ears, but not as good as an outdoor roof antenna. Oh! and if you gotta ask? Yes, all it is, is just a matching transformer connected to the mains by a couple of 500pf Caps.
What maybe the funniest tidbit is that only the ground pin on the "Yankee Doodle 'Merican" plug is actually metal. However, many homes built before the 70s (like the one I live in) only have two-wire outlets, without a ground pin. I have to purchase 3-to-2 pin adapters to plug 3 pin plugs into my home's sockets. I wonder how many of the dupes who buy this thing do the same thing?
Back in he Eighties we got suckered by one of these things sold in the back of magazines like Popular Science. They called it Power Antenna. It was a slim box that plugged into your outlet and was about the size of the outlet cover plate. There was a slide switch bisecting the middle that moved up and down with numbered positions along the way. The bottom side had a standard coax jack. Needless to say, it didn’t work. I saw one at a thrift store very recently and had a flood of memories about that thing.
And sometimes the house wiring can work for longer wave AM, but I doubt its that great for higher frequencies, and you have to isolate the receiver from all the garbage that's on mains wiring.
Every channel listed on the page is available OTA here in the Denver Metro area. I get 76 channels this way using a $10 HD antenna. I also have cable, and all of the same channels are available via cable. The other 300 channels I get over cable couldn't be picked up by this thing since the cable TV stations are 1) broadcast over a shielded cable and fiber optic, and 2) they are decoded by the set top box.
From the images Dave showed near the end of the video, it appears the mains plugs are coated and only the ground is exposed when you insert it into the wall. So, this device simply ties the TV Annt. to the home ground. No power is used as these look to be coated in some black covering. Seems like one could just use a RG-62 Coax and tie one end to ground for much cheaper, but it would not look as nice or the wife may not be happy. Not sure how the circuit is completed if only the ground is used with no loop. Junk.
Yes it's only a jumper to the ground in the home, no capacitor.. so the warranty would only cover if you got a hard Spike and a 30awg size jumper melted inside.. or maybe even cover you hitting it while vacuuming and it snaps the plastic prongs off inside the outlet.. brilliant...
Table top radios, clock radios, etc., have used the power cord as antenna for ages. It does work, but it's a compromise on reception performance to make the appliance more sleek and attractive. While this is a deceptive ad made to look like some sort of testimonial news bulletin/article, the product is likely to work, but it can't possibly work as well as a properly functioning purpose built external antenna, or properly functioning cable service.
I have used cable TV a total of two years out of the last fifty. Currently use an antenna made from four coat hangers and pick up about 100 channels with Internet for movies. I do have a proper fringe antenna in the attic on a rotor.
Dave: Broadcast TV Channels, on sub-channels, broadcast some "cable" channels here in the US, like "Me", on some sub-digital channels to use up their bandwidth allowance. You won't get channels like National Geographic or History. I have little experience with digital OTA TV as we are about 60 miles from the closest TV transmistter with a mountain, or two, in the way. Devices like this probably work okay in the big cities, as a piece of wire would hanging out of the back of TV.
Well, in my town, a sort-of super antennas did exist back in early and mid 2000s. If you installed a special antenna (it was some kind of outdoor antenna with an amplifier) on your roof, you could watch some cable TV channels. This was most likely a courtesy of some pirate broadcaster. I've watched these broadcasts for many years, right until IIRC 2008 when I've switched to IPTV.
To be fair some of these devices "kinda" work. They are just essentially a capacitive link to the mains wiring and a balun for the 75 ohm coax. I used to have something like these available for customers when I owned a TVRO satellite dish company in the late 80's. This allowed some users who wanted a dish to also get the local channels without having to put up an additional antenna. The ones I sold had a dip switch to change the capacitance load so you could tune the response for better reception. Like I said they worked...sort-of. Most of the time you could set the dip switches to get a good signal on a couple of the stations but the others would have terrible ghosts and multipath reflection images. The bottom line is that house wiring going every which way isn't the same as a long wire antenna, not to mention it's random length isn't tuned to the station frequencies. Most of the signals just cancel out or get reflected from other metal objects like ductwork etc. In the US our stations are all converted to digital broadcast now and usually have multiple stations per network channel. The ones this website describe like Cozi and H&I are just the common ride-along stations that are broadcast from our over-the-air networks. No purely "cable" stations just regular ad-supported broadcasts. So while I know these devices can work and can be better than a rabbit ear antenna especially in an apartment where you can't put up a real TV antenna, just know that YMMV!
Those "antennas" are nothing new. I can remember them being advertised to "improve your TV reception" in American comic books and a few magazines since at least the sixties. Same old scam for a different generation of "clientele".
I just stick breadboard pin cables into coax socket holes for all my TV's and get all the same digitial channels in HD without quality artifacts. You cannot get paid channels because they are encoded, you will need some kind of decoder to watch those.
people in the US often refer to basically any paid TV channels as "cable". you dont hear the term free-to-air much, and i think its true that not everyone knows you can get free channels with an antenna, since everyone is so used to paying an arm and a leg for their TV.
Those things have been around for years. Technically speaking it is what Yanks would call a "Line Cord Antenna". I just connects to the house's wiring through capacitors. Back in the day small FM radios would use the power line for an antenna (maybe they still do). Years ago I saw an magazine ad for one of them. It said: "Turn your house into a giant TV antenna!". Then, believe it or not there was a picture of a 70 meter parabolic antenna (one that you would find in Canberra--or here in the U.S. at Goldstone). The price is what is ridiculous. There would be about 50 cents worth of circuitry in the device (or less).
known fact that some plugs are wired backwards sometimes so if you plug it into a outlet that has switched wires by accident will the tv explode when you send 110 volts into the cable plug of the tv ?
The tech for free TV over the air is DVB-T or DVB-T2 is most of the world, ATSC in the North America, ISDB-T in South America and DTMB in China. Many countries air the same free cable channels over those. DVB-T2 antennas can actually be pretty tiny, probably fits in that thing and just gives you a shitty signal.
This product is working: some grundig kitchen radios used a AC coupled antenna; it was a nice feature before they install ferrit coil antenna into the radios They should install this in every TV as it takes only some cents for parts. (y-caps, directional coupler, ...) ; ok they should spare SSTV and D-ATV-TV's as they allways use a propper antenna. With a big matchbox you may connect every wire for reception and transmitting. ATT's are the automatic version.
If the TV has an earth connector on its mains plug then what you have is a loop antenna, TV cable and mains, with a long wire attached to it, earth lead in building. The long wire is attached to every noisy bit of electrical equipment in the area. If your TV doesn't have an earth pin then what you have is a random long wire antenna which is connected to all the same electrically noisy things around you, perhaps for miles. The phase of all the signals is unknown so don't expect good performance on any particular channel but you might be lucky and get a few good ones. There are situations that can occur with faulty wiring etc. that could result in a risk of electrocution if their capacitor fails. So I hope they didn't get cheap with the cap. What's the chances? Then again there may not even be a cap in there, it's not actually required and is only there to improve user safety. Just hang a coat hanger of the antenna socket, a lot safer. ;)
First class joy of skepticism Dave, your enthusiasm exposing this steaming pile of dung is top notch. You know the BS patterns well my son, and holy hell, they stuffed nearly every cliched crapstory into it. It's incredible that there are babes in wood that still fall for this sort of shite. Education is supposed to be the answer but for that you need people that value it in the first place, sadly. Where there are sheep you always get wolves.
it only works if your home is wired properly . it runs of the ground running through the house.. most houses are not properly grounded . the electric prongs do not connect to anything. just the ground.
What explains how it receives "cable"-TV-signals are explained from a similar scam product page: "Developed by a NASA engineer using military technology, the Octa Air Antenna uses a discrete mud flap modern design which makes it the most reliable and technologically advanced antenna to hit the market today. But there is a main differnce - it allows you to watch almost every channel, movie or show for free. With no subscriptions and completely legal. […] But how can you watch for free? The secret to that is a law that no cable company in the world wants you to know about. It states that every cable company has to provide additionally to the normal signal a over-the-air signal. So in order to not break the law the cable companies distrubute this signal but in a low frequency- so almost no antennas were able to pick it up reliably. Until now - Octa Air changes that."
For most city dwellers (hopping apartments, condos and whatnot) an indoor yagi is best. My tiny one is about a square foot and picks up 36 channels. Some young people think that cable is the only way to get HD, but I don't think they think antennas are illegal. I have run into one who thought you needed a journeyman to paint your apartment, or it's illegal - LOL!
This thing in the form of a "light socket radio antenna" has been around since the 1920s. It's fun to find those adverts in old magazines. At least then we didn't have to deal with all those buzzey cell-phone chargers!
Yup. My elderly mother got scammed by this package of fairy dust and unicorn farts! Luckily we were able to get the charges revered on the credit card.
Dave, there is a way you can get cable but never pay for it again. All you do is setup a VPN using your gigabit network to your parents HDHomeRun with a cable card in it and use that and their plex server. All you have to do is give them your Netflix and Spotify logins in return. I see no problems doing any of those things in Australia since I know you have fair competition forcing cable cards to be issued and great, high speed, cheap internet....
When TV in USA went fully digital about 10 years ago, a bunch of "in between" stations were added. On analog tv you'd get ch 2, ch 4, ch 5, ch 30.... ect... Now you can get 2, 2.1, 2.2. 4, 4.1, 4.2. And so on. These You can literally get about 100 channels OTA. They are all free. A lot of the older generation doesnt' know that these are free OTA channels and think that it is some sort hack.
"There are thousands of feet of electrical wiring built in your house or apartment building. And what is an antenna? Just a long wire! You already have the greatest antenna ever made built into your house!"
RF guy enters the room, punches 'friend', leaves.
And even at the lower end UHF band IV (the bit not yet being vacated for 4/5G) the wavelength is relatively short, now the frequencies used by AM radio (LW/MW/SW) now they use long waves.
I will point out that even with TV frequencies being moved from the top end of band V to band IV my grans original antenna (a Telefield?) that looks to be from the 70's at the latest still gets a full signal from a loft installation, she still managed to get a usable signal on the TV with the RF loopthrough on the PVR disabled!
Comment reported to the Industry Association. You'd better watch out pal, or you'll never RF in this town again.
the problem with that is most of that waring is grounded and the ones that artn are going to have 60 or 50 cycle base noise on them at either 120 or 240V which would over whem any radio signal
ThunderClawShocktrix Actually, a simple high pass filter would block the 50/60Hz interference since there is nothing of interest below about 50MHz (VHF low channels in US) or hundreds of MHz (UHF channels). That said, most any long wire antenna is going to have to deal with 50/60Hz interference anyhow given how pervasive modern AC distribution is, but it is usually fairly easy to address since we generally are not terribly interested in most signals less than at least several hundred KHz.
@@ethanpoole3443 haha, I would be surprised if this wasn't just connected directly to the ground lug, no capacitor let alone a pass filter! What's worse is so many homes have outlets that are miss wired. When I rented and moved for work a lot I always checked outlets, and commonly had to rewire them after a painter replaced them or some such. This product would likely destroy more tv's than it ever helped get a better signal in the US!
This product IS NO SCAM! it does exactly what its supposed to do! It milks the stupid and makes the providers rich quick. Its amazing! ;)
Just like the ADE651, "McCormick was said to have answered that the device did "exactly what it's meant to ... it makes money."
That's why I've just bought 10!!
Oh.. wait..
That's what a scam is.
@@robertgaines-tulsa I'm sure they were being sarcastic.
Just waiting for someone to send Dave one of these on mailbag
Yah wonder what is in it
It would make these kind of debunking of scam videos much more interesting. To see what they actually send you and just how good or awful it is.
@@GadgetAddict th-cam.com/video/swSU5GbWjgM/w-d-xo.html
I get vibes of this one
Wgg Wfg it’s a wire to the earth pin on the socket.
@@AaronHuslage no amplifier or at least a fuse Or resistor for when earh is connected to mains?
USA also has free to air as well, that is what they keep referencing.
@@DigitalArchmage "Never Pay For Cable Aagain!" is the title. Very easy to think you are getting cable TV channels surely?
Basically, don't pay for cable - use OTA broadcast TV. The fact that you can do this with any old antenna - and just about any old antenna will be more optimized for the task - is the bit they're leaving unsaid.
@@EEVblog2 It seems that many americans only are using DVB-C (cable) and don't know that DVB-T (terrestial antenna) channels are available too. Here in Finland you get both free and paid channels over DVB-T.
@@EEVblog2 I think you might need to consider the cultural differences between us here in Australia and what it is like in North America with regard to cable TV. Here in Australia, Foxtel is seen as a premium service which is definitely not one of life's necessities. If you don't need it, you just get an antenna and watch over the air TV. However, In North America, it is very common for people to buy the most basic cable TV package and box rental just to watch the local channels and people tend to THINK it's a necessity. Since the late 80s/early 90s it's been the norm throughout North America to watch TV via cable instead of using an antenna...*and so a whole generation of people have grown up thinking that the only way to receive TV is via cable!* That's the target market for this product.
There are heaps of videos on TH-cam which saying the same thing as this Kickstarter ad (never pay for cable again! Use an antenna to watch for free Etc etc), and as an Aussie it seems very weird because our norm is to watch tv over the air, but to Americans it means something completely different because there's a very good chance that they haven't grown up in a household with an antenna connected to the TV, so they may just be unaware that there is another option available.
An antenna actually designed for DV-T will almost certainly be better than your house wiring. The frequencies used want an antenna a few inches long at most.
Those listed channels ARE our free OTA channels ;)
Wow! You mean to tell me we can watch Judge Judy for free!!??
@@paulgascoigne5343 Not only Judge Judy, but Jerry Springer as well! That's why we voted for Trump.
I knew someone who told me he hooked up a CRT television antenna to the mains earth and got better reception than the antenna that was attached to it but one day they had thunder and lightning, and had some surges and he said his television got fried.
who hell still uses crt tv?i smashed mine like 15 years with hammer then upgraded lcd
There were some Full HD CRTs, maybe he had one of those and said to himself „As Long as it works I‘m gonna keep it!“
@@hardscorerockkssss It was a conversation I had back in 2001 about one of those really old television sets with the round aerials or something attached to it on the back ontop that he connected to earth about 10 - 15 years before that.
Back in the 80s my parents would confiscate the TV aerial in my bedroom as they didn't want me watching horror films at night.. The Lego train set power cable fitted in the antenna socket perfectly however and you could even fashion it into a pretty decent dipole if you separated the other end.
It's sometimes handy to have an old CRT lying around - if only to play lightgun games :)
It works *great*! You just have to lift your houses ground connections. It even means you get healing tingles from all your electronics.
Robert Szasz Id rather tape a bunch of quartz crystals onto my tv and use reiki to get a signal than use this shit lol
You don't want to lose those valuable electrons into the earth, you've paid for them afterall!
Now let's talk about the ultimate scam for your brain ever: TV itself.
Their whole "never pay for cable again" assumes that the only cable channels you watch are also broadcast over-the-air
I guess the conveniently supplied *FREE* CABLE has no shielding and is the entire antenna
You wouldn´t receive anything with that cable though. When I tried that with a 5m cable I received 2 channels (1 was home shopping :D). Got me through the first night in a new apartment though.
I bet his wife's *really* pleased that the cable guy isn't coming around anymore. Did he think that maybe his wife is ensuring the cable goes out with regularity?
In the US, OTA (over the air) channels are also broadcast on cable. A lot of people get the OTA broadcasts on cable TV, as well as sports, movie, history, science... Some people don’t know they could just use an antennae to get the local TV channels.
In the US, there are no “council” fees to just watch TV. You don’t have to be up on your taxes.
There are no council fees but there is Entertainment Tax, $0.5 per month in IL when you have a TV.
Considering this mind-boggling # of things connected to earth in a house this is like attaching your antenna to a junkyard.
If I was the scammer, I would have included Netflix in the channel list, just for shitz and gigglz.
There was a similar scam doing the rounds about a year ago, the ads and site showed pictures of a USB DVB-T dongle plugged into a laptop... with nothing connected to the antenna jack. The text didn't specifically state "free Netflix", but it was worded so vaguely that I'm sure plenty of people bought them assuming they could get free streaming, because laptop.
I pickup Netflix on my DAB radio for free.
That reminds me.of the fact that the pay TV provider we use actually has a Netflix "channel", so one could just dial in channel 545 (5xx being the "entertainment" group), wait for the info panel to disappear (or press the back key), and it would automatically launch into Netflix's app for pay TV boxes.
A guy I roomed with who was an engineer at Northrop Grumman no less fell for something similar to this and bought one for each of his family members. I remember when I got home one day, he was so angry he got scammed by it, he took a shotgun and destroyed each one in the backyard.
I liked the DMCA protected logo at the bottom. I sent them a tweet :-p
Seems reasonable that it's copyrighted and needs protecting - given the whole thing is little more than an artistic expression.
In the UK, there was a time when classified ads would offer a product called the "de-activator". Purchasing it would stop you having to pay the BBC licence fee. When you got the "device" is was a badly photocopied sheet of paper giving you the telephone number of the BBC and the instruction to say you don't have a tv.
Also - This is nothing more than an adapter that uses the AC mains as an antenna. It capacitivly connects the mains to the antenna input of your TV via a short length of coax. It's a goofy cheap technique that's been around forever in the world of radio/tv reception. And of course, the performance at VHF/UHF is horrible because of the frequency/wavelengths involved.
This shady antenna idea has been pushed since the 1920s.... first for radio, then analog television in the 1950s. These guys are late to the game!
ive noticed a huge surge in antenna adverts lately..mainly directed to those in the US...theyve had FTA TV all along...but everyone "thinks" they have to pay for cable to get TV...lots of them useless little HD patch antennas going for stupid prices..
Don't people have antenna's on their roof?
i think most don't. We i visited the US, i didn't notice anennas on the roofs of houses if i remember correctly. US houses are built too poorly to support one. Nearly every house in the UK has a roof top TV antenna. I think free to air TV via a roof aerial is just not much of a thing in the US.
@@EEVblog2 from what ive seen, the majority dont...alot of the communities have covenants in place that dont allow them to place antenna on the roof (for HF or TV etc) as they are "too unsightly"
It still shows 51 minutes ago XD
I'm SHOCKED!
Holy shit, do you know what this means? Not only have they created the most advanced antenna ever created, but they've also developed the ability to STOP TIME!!
Below is a part of the HTML from this webpage:
John Haderson
51 minutes ago sponsored content
@@Carambal81 came here to post this lol, the audacity. Unbelievable.
@@Carambal81 That could still have been generated server-side, but since it *still* says “51 minutes ago” right now, it's pretty obvious that's just a static webpage indeed.
It would only pick up closeby free OTA (over the air) channels that can be picked up by any rabbit ear type antenna.
FTA is usually picked up by Satellite receivers
lasersbee No need for sat band receivers for terrestrial FTA channels like US local stations, US Fox, UK BBC etc. etc. Rabbit or halfwave antennas plugged into a TV can receive in many homes while others need higher placement or better gain. Using the mains wiring really shouldn't work properly for wavelengths shorter than the size of the home. I'm no HAM, but rigging or fixing my own basic antennas was learned long before becoming an EE.
@@johnfrancisdoe1563 It's a terminology thing he was referring to. Terrestrial television is usually referred to as OTA whereas FTA usually means Free To Air satellite.
@@johnfrancisdoe1563 As a ham operator you got it all fairly correct, and a yagi pointed at the transmitter will be even better and is relatively cheap, after all, it is just some metal bars mostly.
There are people in the US who have no idea that free to air even exists. The cable, mobile phone, and satellite companies long ago disabused people of the notion that RF exists in a way that is free to use.
I bet this thing does work. I used a metal stick in the air to get broadcast television for years. It sure won't replace cable or dish because you only get local channels, and some national networks. Or, you know, just pay for the streaming services you want and watch what you want whenever you want.
This has been around since the '50s. Popular science, popular electronics, comic books (probably next to Honor House x-ray glasses etc.
Ones I knew of had a capacitor coupled twin lead to ac. Hopefully rated not to short.
Related was a hunk of 300 ohm cable terminating in a plastic dingus usually with some twirly things sticking out. Usually just a length of 300 ohm twin lead.
Of course a wet string might pick up something in the right circumstances. That's all you need for "proof".
That same wet string can run ADSL surprisingly.
nerdful1 That 300 ohm twin was always the standard dipole length for the indicated band, with convenient holed to hang it from two small nails. ADSL is optimized for 100 ohm phone cable with active measurements to get around noise and crosstalk, which is also why it's always sold as "up to xx/x Mbps. Speed will be the lesser of paid limit, hardware limit and dynamically measured signal conditions. VDSL adds the ability of the central office to order individual modems to back off or change settings when crosstalk affects another subscriber.
Ok over here in the US there are two ways to get TV. One is technically free as it is ad supported. Unlike in the uk where you have to pay a license fee to view tv broadcasts period.
1. Antenna (Free Over the Air) - The antennas we have here pick up local network stations free. The local stations (Nbc, ABC, Fox Cbs and a few others) normally normally broadcast between 50-75 miles from the station. You normally buy the antenna for a one time fee and that's it, the broadcast its self is free because all content is sponsored by advertisers.
2. Cable TV/Satalight - These are the "premium" paid channels like CNN, Specialty spots channels, HBO, Nickelodeon Disney channel. There are generally 100's of them and come in packages that you can sign up for from a provider like Comcast or ATT. These premium channels you always have to pay for and are never offered for free any where in the US. The bills for such services can and most timers do surpass $150 a month. In the beginning (late 70's early 80's) people paid for cable because they didn't have to watch commercials and had more options and didn't have to deal with reception issues cause by using antennas. Now paid cable tv suffers from both the bloat of advertisements and reception issues due to aging equipment.
So the scam here is saying that they can get "cable tv channels" for free. Or all "Cable channels" free. I see on this one they are careful not to put the logos of the actual cable channels on the ad. They could get sued for false advertisement. Also if they did find a way to get their device to access paid content for free , that would be illegal. Technically, since you also get the local stations when you sign up for a premium cable you could (if you really stretched the definition) say you were getting cable station for free.
Since for a few decades now in the US using antennas as fallen out of popularity (many opted to pay to get more channels with "better" content) many might not know what is available to them. However this device will not give you any thing much different then what you could get with an antenna you picked up at the local walmart.
yup 51 minutes ago still
I'm not sure if I'd call this a scam. It's basically a free-to-air DTV antenna. In many areas you can get a few channels just by jamming a paperclip into the TV antenna socket.
It probably works, even if the story is nonsense.
Here's how broadcast TV works in the US and how/why this scam works... In February 2009 we were all mandated to switch our stations from analog to digital. In the case of the station I worked at, that was merely a case of switching the mode of the exciter because we got to keep our broadcast frequency. A lot of stations didn't. Anyway, those stations that they list on the page that you get for free were mostly already broadcasting at least in the case of ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Etc... Once the digital switch happened, under the bandwidth stations were now given on the digital spectrum, stations could opt to split that bandwidth into multiple sub-stations like a lot of those other networks further down on that list. The upshot was that a lot of stations gained new channels that they could license out and get revenue from by including them in their stream. Most stations went with 720P on the main channel and gave an additional 3 SD sub-channels. Areas that previously had 10 stations suddenly have almost 40 channels. The downside was that analog TVs were useless now without a converter box, and people mostly didn't notice here because they were already paying for cable service which conveniently packaged all those local stations into their stream. You only noticed if you didn't have cable or you lived where it wasn't available.
Anyway, a lot of people were just totally unaware that all the old broadcast stations now broadcast digitally. And in fact there are many stations available for free so long as you have an antenna with decent gain, and perhaps one that is optimized for the ATSC signal that is the new standard. These things are just antennas, although how well your household wiring could serve in that capacity is pretty dubious to say the least. But there are lots of these, and what they're doing to avoid being prosecuted for fraud is telling more or less the truth. There is free digital broadcast TV in the US. All you need is an antenna. Why they feel the need so sell a sucky antenna when a good one would actually work is a bit of a mystery.
I assume that Americans thinks that they *have to* pay of cable TV, even there are these FTA channels.
It's all fun and games until a lightning strikes ground and your TV dies lol.
I'm also waiting for someone to send you one of these scam devices for the mailbag.
OMG... I can't believe you are that confused about _"never pay for cable again"._ Would you be this confused about _"never pay for gas again"_ on a electric car advertisement? LOL.
I can't believe that you are so fucking stupid!
This is too funny. In urban areas in the US, there are digital broadcasters, but the whole point of cable was to provide a wide array of content beyond just broadcast stations. (I happen to work for one of the first cable companies in the US)
That is not accurate. The original use of cable television was in rural areas that were too far away from cities to receive signals over the air, or in areas of poor reception due to terrain/buildings blocking signals or causing severe multipath reception. It wasn't until deregulation of cable by the FCC in the 70's/80's that the potential profit level of cable was raised high enough to be attractive to the major players. From the consumer standpoint, several things made cable attractive. First and foremost was the lack of commercials. Originally, cable TV didn't have commercials on cable specific programming because you were paying for the service. Next was probably the number of available channels. OTH TV typically had the 3 major networks (add Fox in the late 80's), a few local channels, and PBS. Growing up in the Chicago area in the 70's we had 7 channels to choose from (2,5,7,9,11,32,44). Cable back then was offering maybe 20 channels or so, but that number grew every year. Also, cable wasn't subject to censorship so swearing, nudity, and sex were all OK to show.
Ok - I mis-phrased my comment, and meant to say that. In any case, I do work for the one of the first (if not the first) cable company in the US - it was created because the town is in a valley and broadcast signal was not easily received. (far distance from actual broadcasters + topology)
Sadly there are many people nowadays that don't understand the difference between on air broadcast and cable. This product is for them.
That is why its shaped like a Death Star radar dish, designed for childlike minds.
I use a Leaf Antenna for broadcast in US. It requires a bit of fiddling to get the right position, but it probably works a lot better than random shaped wire in the house that has AC running in it. My understanding is that the shape and location of the antenna is more important than the size for picking up a clear signal. ( correct me if I'm wrong)
Just come to Germany pay for tv or go to jail.
Got no TV? Doesn't matter pay or go in prison
Sounds just like Japan. You must pay (about $125 per year) for NHK public broadcasts if you own equipment that can receive them. Just recently the courts ruled that cell phones qualify as receivers because NHK can be streamed over the internet. Even if you don't have an antenna you have to pay. There is actually a political party called "The Party To Protect People From NHK" that wants to make payment voluntary.
@@RB9522 yeah but here we have to pay no matter of you have a appliance or not
@@RB9522 wow
@@RB9522 The cellphone thing is true only if the phone has an integrated tuner.
www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/03/13/national/crime-legal/owners-tv-capable-cellphones-must-pay-public-channel-fees-top-court-rules/
Also, the law is such that you will only be fined for not paying after you made a payment contract with NHK, as you are in breach of that contract.
Refusing to start the contract has no penalty even if you have a TV, it's a toothless law that has never been enforced, as long as you don't start that contract otherwise you dive into contract law..
Source, I live here and don't watch TV.
How many have actually been tried and sent to prison for not paying? I don't know what the fee is but prisons are expensive, between $100K-150K or more a year, per inmate, in Canada. So they fund the CBC out of general tax revenue, because if they didn't nobody would pay, just like they didn't back in the days of radio licenses. If they threatened to send people to jail more then a few would say, "Great, free room and board", and still would not pay.
It actually might work somehow. I used to listen to short wave radio in the past and I only had very good reciption when putting the magnetic loop antenna near the inhouse cabling. But I'm sceptical this will work in the hunderts Mhz range. Somewhen my neightbour decided to use powerlan and the short wave time was over for me.
Old analog Uhf antennas will pull in ota digital signals, but the layout of house hold wiring is a bit dubious
If you live in a wooden house and the local laws don't require a AC wiring to be in metal tubes maybe you have a chance to have some resonance in the VHF spectrum . In some places you can use PBC coated wiring . If you live in a masonry or concrete home this is useless since all the electrical wiring has to be inside metal tubing mostly .Also you have the risk of lightning strikes and high voltage and current spikes. Good thing you denounce this scams ! :)
I hooked my stereo antenna port to my chain linked fence once. I was barely picking up (lots of static) stations from a couple of states away. I didn’t do it for long as I was concerned about lightning.
I fix tvs in the US and it's funny how many people think there's no free to air anymore. They all complain about cable prices.
I pull out a UHF antenna, or a piece of wire, and show them usually 20 free channels.
It is about a car payment because we all get internet from the cable company. They try to bundle tv and wired phones, sometimes cell phones too.
I remember my younger self bodging together lots of wires to make a long antenna and I was wondering why I didn't get any channels. My brain was unable to understand how a short length of wire worked better. I don't even know why I wanted TV? My TV was mostly used as a monitor, connected to an XP machine (that actually handled 1080p output with it's integrated GPU) and I was already watching TH-cam videos and getting inspirations on making TV antennas.
In the US you get a set top box for your Internet, TV and phone. Pretty much every household has one, as you would need at least one of those 3. Of course cable companies hook you up with more services for more $. That's why so many don't know there is such thing as OTA.
Also, all mains wiring in the US run in conduit, which is a grounded metal pipe. No wires are ever exposed by code, therefore if they have a capacitor-to-ground in this device, the conduit will be the antenna, not the ground wires.
If the device is using the wiring of the house as the antenna it doesn't matter where the device is installed as it doesn't have to point at anything. That "Other HD antennas" picture is bogus as you wouldn't have that effect on a digital channel. In Canada there are still many (digital only) channels available over the air. How many you can get depends on where you live. If you are in or near a big city there could be a half dozen or more. Probably fewer if you live out in the sticks somewhere. Always fun watching your debunk videos for these types of junk devices.
Thank you for sharing such details. I hate dealing with so many scam deals on internet offers.
Since this plug only makes your house to an "gigantic super antenna" you would still need an DVB-T / DVB-T2 Receiver (if the TV doesn't have it build-in) 🤔
we use ATSC here in North America, and soon to be ATSC 3.0 for 4K OTA broadcast that will add more interactive guides, more channels, better sound, more local weather alerts that won't interrupt someone's show the next town/city over if they are not being effected by said weather alert, and even free on demand content like movies, and TV shows. Also modern TV's on the ATSC standard have the tuner/receiver built in, so no external box needed unless you want an OTA DVR, or have an older Analog CRT TV(although some of the very last ones made around 08 have ATSC built in). Having said all of that for the upcoming 2020 roll out of ATSC 3.0 people will need to either buy a new TV, or get a converter dongle/box, but normal ATSC broadcast will still happen for several years to come while the change takes place. The reason I bring all this up, is this "plug antenna" is targeted at the N. American market to baby boomers in which many still don't know jack all about Technology.
The Cable deal is, that many people don't know about that there's free to air broadcast. There was even some new article, even in hungary, that young american people just discovered this newfangled method to receive TV. They always used cable tv, never ever head of this kind of thing, and now here comes the thing, they whole life is a lie, etc :D No wonder some tought it was illegal, imagine that you pay some good $$ for cable tv every month as long as you lived, or you can't watch it, and now some guy just show you a weird thing that does it for free. Like free electricity, free gas, etc, and you wanna make sure that it's not coming from wires before the meter, or magnetizing old meters :D
Heck, even at hungary sometimes I had trouble explaining free-to-air broadcast before there was a more than a year long advertisement campagin before we switched to DVB-T2 from analog. Cable TV people have been grown up with it, and never head about anything else.
I think by law, cable tv stations need to broadcast free to air as well in the USA.. but most USA people use cable instead of free to air.
Plug it into an extension cord for a few extra feet of FREE CABLE!
Based on the picture the live and neutral pins are plastic, so it most definitely has to be a cap to the ground pin
They have been out since the '60s. Yes, there were capacitors involved.
Actually, I've seen them advertised in 1920's magazines, for radio. Not much new!
I bought a dollar store rabbit ear Antenna that worked better than two other 30$+ Antennas that had "amplification". Complete joke.
That depends on where you live. If you are actually in a high signal strength area, you can easily saturate an amplifier (clipping on the outputs, which distorts the signal). So in town, an amp will actually hurt you. However, if you live out in the middle of nowhere, an amp may actually help.
Sadly, in about 3-4 years, finely tuned negative index of reflection materials will have made it too industry instead of just the lab bench and we can expect to see massive gains on antenna performance for any microwave communications tech. Too bad these yip yips have just rediscovered transmatches which give you good "signal" but increase the noise something insane.
We get bombarded with ads for a device here in the UK headlined 'hundreds of Brits are cancelling their cable contracts..." It is an antenna allegedly designed by a NASA engineer (yeah right!!) with some of the same claims. It says that what the authorities don't want you to know is that there is some law or other that says that broadcasters have to transmit expensive pay-for cable TV channels over the air for free as well. But normal antennas can't receive these, presumably because of some big conspiracy. It is certainly not the case; we have Freeview UHF which is the regular Free To Air stuff, Sky satellite which is mostly subscription and Virgin cable in some areas. But no subscription channels are legally available for free!
Hi Dave. Those are called broadcast channels in the USA...sounds the same as your free to air. They are all the stations you could get with the old analog antenna system too.
That list of stations are all free over the air HD. Where I am, I can get like 200ish stations, though only around 30 are in English.
The standard scam with these TV antennas is to confuse the buyer to think free to air is some type of magic cable service. The idea is to target people who only ever had paid cable TV and either don't know or forgot able free over the air TV.
Scammers sold these devices when I was a kid in the '60s and '70s. Just a couple of capacitors to allow RF through connected to the house wiring.
I also remember "color TV antennas", had a replay when everyone started selling "digital TV antennas". Hilarious.
Dave I have one real question about antennas did you ever made a video which explains the different antenna types (plain wire, dish, fractal) and when to use them? Form an engineer point of view?
...imo thats a bit silly...you would be there for years going through them all and when to use them..antennas seem like voodoo...but really you just have to match the length to the frequency (which is a simple calculation)..if the signal is not strong enough you can add elements to improve the gain (think multiple antennas connected together)...
in the case of satelite dishes, they are usually very high frequency, or the signal is very weak..higher frequencies need more power to transmit the same distance as a lower frequency (propagation).. so the dish collects a bunch of signal and directs it to the central feed point to increase the gain...
fractal antennas are nothing special..they are just wideband (instead of being tuned for one frequency, they cover a larger range)
I don't think that Dave has extensive knowledge in this area.
I'd like to see Dave to an antenna video. Apart from simple dipole explanations, I've never learned how directors and reflectors work on a yagi, as regards to their length. It'd be nice to get a refresher on free space impedance coupling and whatnot. Antennas are neat.
schitlipz But, it is somewhat of a specialty to get it right, even for a basic 600MHz UHF antenna. Satellite antennas don't need the focused parabolic reflector because of frequency as much as due to distance. Signal is weakened at the square of the distance, and sat TV is broadcast from a small solar cell powered transmitter at least 22000 miles away). Also the satellites a few degrees left or right may broadcast a different station on the same frequency, because only some frequencies can pass through our ionospheric shield.
As Tom Waits said, "the large print giveth, the small print taketh away"
As an antenna professional, these things are just painful. And unchanged for decades. Sigh.
CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS and a few other channel are free channels in the US.
I'd love to know what's inside, if it actually has something in there or basically just a few connections to the electrical grid.
Dave, the stations listed are not 'cable' stations, but rather generic over-the-air stations that the FCC required to be available. Looks like this is just a 'good-looking' generic digital antenna.
We got a similar scam over here in Germany... the only difference is that there is a DVB-T receiver that is advertised. The texts in the ads are nearly the same
My guess is that the "*Free Cable Included" is more instrumental at picking up OTA broadcast TV than the device itself. I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't even any capacitive coupling to ground/earth and if dissected it's just a fancy molded piece of plastic!
Of particular note, I was visiting friends down in Seattle and their elderly neighbour was very surprised to learn she could get her favourite channels without subscribing to cable. Since the digital OTA transition in the US, cable companies have opportunistically misinformed consumers that they need "digital TV boxes" and that [CableCoName] has the best, totally skipping over the fact that there are DTV converter boxes that don't require a monthly subscription, and that many people don't even need those as most TV sets since about 2007 have built in ATSC tuners. We disconnected her cable box which was SD only and set the TV to learn channels. She immediately picked up about 15 watchable channels without an antenna connected. At least 10 were in HD. After buying her a $9.99 "rabbit ears" antenna and making sure all of the channels she liked to watch were coming in strong, she had over 30 channels and canceled her $60 monthly cable TV bill.
The idea of using you houses electrical wiring as an antenna is not a new idea. They make these devices clear back in the 60's. Back when I was a little kid. My grand parents use a similar device on their 1960 RCA color TV and it work quite well. I will say that these devices are better then rabbit ears, but not as good as an outdoor roof antenna. Oh! and if you gotta ask? Yes, all it is, is just a matching transformer connected to the mains by a couple of 500pf Caps.
What maybe the funniest tidbit is that only the ground pin on the "Yankee Doodle 'Merican" plug is actually metal. However, many homes built before the 70s (like the one I live in) only have two-wire outlets, without a ground pin. I have to purchase 3-to-2 pin adapters to plug 3 pin plugs into my home's sockets. I wonder how many of the dupes who buy this thing do the same thing?
Back in he Eighties we got suckered by one of these things sold in the back of magazines like Popular Science. They called it Power Antenna. It was a slim box that plugged into your outlet and was about the size of the outlet cover plate. There was a slide switch bisecting the middle that moved up and down with numbered positions along the way. The bottom side had a standard coax jack. Needless to say, it didn’t work. I saw one at a thrift store very recently and had a flood of memories about that thing.
And sometimes the house wiring can work for longer wave AM, but I doubt its that great for higher frequencies, and you have to isolate the receiver from all the garbage that's on mains wiring.
Every channel listed on the page is available OTA here in the Denver Metro area. I get 76 channels this way using a $10 HD antenna. I also have cable, and all of the same channels are available via cable. The other 300 channels I get over cable couldn't be picked up by this thing since the cable TV stations are 1) broadcast over a shielded cable and fiber optic, and 2) they are decoded by the set top box.
From the images Dave showed near the end of the video, it appears the mains plugs are coated and only the ground is exposed when you insert it into the wall. So, this device simply ties the TV Annt. to the home ground. No power is used as these look to be coated in some black covering. Seems like one could just use a RG-62 Coax and tie one end to ground for much cheaper, but it would not look as nice or the wife may not be happy. Not sure how the circuit is completed if only the ground is used with no loop. Junk.
Yes it's only a jumper to the ground in the home, no capacitor.. so the warranty would only cover if you got a hard Spike and a 30awg size jumper melted inside.. or maybe even cover you hitting it while vacuuming and it snaps the plastic prongs off inside the outlet.. brilliant...
Why are you still using the old Microsoft Edge? I'm curious if you don't like the new version, or Windows didn't do it's job of updating properly.
Table top radios, clock radios, etc., have used the power cord as antenna for ages. It does work, but it's a compromise on reception performance to make the appliance more sleek and attractive.
While this is a deceptive ad made to look like some sort of testimonial news bulletin/article, the product is likely to work, but it can't possibly work as well as a properly functioning purpose built external antenna, or properly functioning cable service.
But there'll be soooo much QRM on the house wiring😂
I have used cable TV a total of two years out of the last fifty. Currently use an antenna made from four coat hangers and pick up about 100 channels with Internet for movies. I do have a proper fringe antenna in the attic on a rotor.
Dave: Broadcast TV Channels, on sub-channels, broadcast some "cable" channels here in the US, like "Me", on some sub-digital channels to use up their bandwidth allowance. You won't get channels like National Geographic or History. I have little experience with digital OTA TV as we are about 60 miles from the closest TV transmistter with a mountain, or two, in the way. Devices like this probably work okay in the big cities, as a piece of wire would hanging out of the back of TV.
"Our testical clamp really works, just look at all these testimonials."
Well, in my town, a sort-of super antennas did exist back in early and mid 2000s. If you installed a special antenna (it was some kind of outdoor antenna with an amplifier) on your roof, you could watch some cable TV channels. This was most likely a courtesy of some pirate broadcaster. I've watched these broadcasts for many years, right until IIRC 2008 when I've switched to IPTV.
The ad still shows "51 minutes ago" as of 8 July 19, 14:15 UTC.
"There's a sucker born every minute"
To be fair some of these devices "kinda" work. They are just essentially a capacitive link to the mains wiring and a balun for the 75 ohm coax. I used to have something like these available for customers when I owned a TVRO satellite dish company in the late 80's. This allowed some users who wanted a dish to also get the local channels without having to put up an additional antenna. The ones I sold had a dip switch to change the capacitance load so you could tune the response for better reception. Like I said they worked...sort-of. Most of the time you could set the dip switches to get a good signal on a couple of the stations but the others would have terrible ghosts and multipath reflection images. The bottom line is that house wiring going every which way isn't the same as a long wire antenna, not to mention it's random length isn't tuned to the station frequencies. Most of the signals just cancel out or get reflected from other metal objects like ductwork etc. In the US our stations are all converted to digital broadcast now and usually have multiple stations per network channel. The ones this website describe like Cozi and H&I are just the common ride-along stations that are broadcast from our over-the-air networks. No purely "cable" stations just regular ad-supported broadcasts. So while I know these devices can work and can be better than a rabbit ear antenna especially in an apartment where you can't put up a real TV antenna, just know that YMMV!
Those "antennas" are nothing new. I can remember them being advertised to "improve your TV reception" in American comic books and a few magazines since at least the sixties. Same old scam for a different generation of "clientele".
“Sounds like some kind of scam, or possibly scamola” - Homer Simpson
I once used copper tape and made a big antenna on my bedroom wall, my dad wasn't happy that tape is expensive.
I just stick breadboard pin cables into coax socket holes for all my TV's and get all the same digitial channels in HD without quality artifacts. You cannot get paid channels because they are encoded, you will need some kind of decoder to watch those.
Hi, good videos btw. Do you have any update on the µsupply or the custom LCD ? Thanks
people in the US often refer to basically any paid TV channels as "cable". you dont hear the term free-to-air much, and i think its true that not everyone knows you can get free channels with an antenna, since everyone is so used to paying an arm and a leg for their TV.
That's crazy. In Australia EVERY house and apartment has a proper TV antenna.
Those things have been around for years. Technically speaking it is what Yanks would call a "Line Cord Antenna". I just connects to the house's wiring through capacitors. Back in the day small FM radios would use the power line for an antenna (maybe they still do).
Years ago I saw an magazine ad for one of them. It said: "Turn your house into a giant TV antenna!". Then, believe it or not there was a picture of a 70 meter parabolic antenna (one that you would find in Canberra--or here in the U.S. at Goldstone).
The price is what is ridiculous. There would be about 50 cents worth of circuitry in the device (or less).
known fact that some plugs are wired backwards sometimes so if you plug it into a outlet that has switched wires by accident will the tv explode when you send 110 volts into the cable plug of the tv ?
The tech for free TV over the air is DVB-T or DVB-T2 is most of the world, ATSC in the North America, ISDB-T in South America and DTMB in China.
Many countries air the same free cable channels over those.
DVB-T2 antennas can actually be pretty tiny, probably fits in that thing and just gives you a shitty signal.
I found the longest wires in my building. Brb, hooking up my super-antenna to the submains in the electrical riser.
This product is working: some grundig kitchen radios used a AC coupled antenna; it was a nice feature before they install ferrit coil antenna into the radios
They should install this in every TV as it takes only some cents for parts. (y-caps, directional coupler, ...) ; ok they should spare SSTV and D-ATV-TV's as they allways use a propper antenna.
With a big matchbox you may connect every wire for reception and transmitting. ATT's are the automatic version.
If the TV has an earth connector on its mains plug then what you have is a loop antenna, TV cable and mains, with a long wire attached to it, earth lead in building. The long wire is attached to every noisy bit of electrical equipment in the area. If your TV doesn't have an earth pin then what you have is a random long wire antenna which is connected to all the same electrically noisy things around you, perhaps for miles.
The phase of all the signals is unknown so don't expect good performance on any particular channel but you might be lucky and get a few good ones. There are situations that can occur with faulty wiring etc. that could result in a risk of electrocution if their capacitor fails. So I hope they didn't get cheap with the cap. What's the chances? Then again there may not even be a cap in there, it's not actually required and is only there to improve user safety. Just hang a coat hanger of the antenna socket, a lot safer. ;)
First class joy of skepticism Dave, your enthusiasm exposing this steaming pile of dung is top notch. You know the BS patterns well my son, and holy hell, they stuffed nearly every cliched crapstory into it. It's incredible that there are babes in wood that still fall for this sort of shite. Education is supposed to be the answer but for that you need people that value it in the first place, sadly. Where there are sheep you always get wolves.
it only works if your home is wired properly . it runs of the ground running through the house.. most houses are not properly grounded . the electric prongs do not connect to anything. just the ground.
What explains how it receives "cable"-TV-signals are explained from a similar scam product page: "Developed by a NASA engineer using military technology, the Octa Air Antenna uses a discrete mud flap modern design which makes it the most reliable and technologically advanced antenna to hit the market today. But there is a main differnce - it allows you to watch almost every channel, movie or show for free. With no subscriptions and completely legal.
[…]
But how can you watch for free? The secret to that is a law that no cable company in the world wants you to know about. It states that every cable company has to provide additionally to the normal signal a over-the-air signal. So in order to not break the law the cable companies distrubute this signal but in a low frequency- so almost no antennas were able to pick it up reliably. Until now - Octa Air changes that."
Yeah, that photo is from shutterstock, "Portrait of happy man standing outdoors during sunny winter day"
For most city dwellers (hopping apartments, condos and whatnot) an indoor yagi is best. My tiny one is about a square foot and picks up 36 channels. Some young people think that cable is the only way to get HD, but I don't think they think antennas are illegal. I have run into one who thought you needed a journeyman to paint your apartment, or it's illegal - LOL!
This thing in the form of a "light socket radio antenna" has been around since the 1920s. It's fun to find those adverts in old magazines. At least then we didn't have to deal with all those buzzey cell-phone chargers!
Yup. My elderly mother got scammed by this package of fairy dust and unicorn farts! Luckily we were able to get the charges revered on the credit card.
Dave, there is a way you can get cable but never pay for it again. All you do is setup a VPN using your gigabit network to your parents HDHomeRun with a cable card in it and use that and their plex server. All you have to do is give them your Netflix and Spotify logins in return.
I see no problems doing any of those things in Australia since I know you have fair competition forcing cable cards to be issued and great, high speed, cheap internet....
When TV in USA went fully digital about 10 years ago, a bunch of "in between" stations were added. On analog tv you'd get ch 2, ch 4, ch 5, ch 30.... ect... Now you can get 2, 2.1, 2.2. 4, 4.1, 4.2. And so on. These You can literally get about 100 channels OTA. They are all free. A lot of the older generation doesnt' know that these are free OTA channels and think that it is some sort hack.
Go on Dave, buy it, you know you want to. It would be interesting to see what is inside it though