My friends Sean and Stacy are one of those couples who are able to save money without seeming like they are suffering. They grow their own food in a ginormous garden. They find the best stuff on Freecycle and in Uncle Henry’s. And up until two months ago, they got 10-12 channels with rabbit ears on their 20 year old television.

When stations started to go digital, Sean and Stacy figured out their old television probably wouldn’t handle it well. This was fine, because they had planned on getting a new one anyway. What they hadn’t planned on was going from 10ish decent channels to two channels with crappy reception.

Oh but not for long my friends…

Thanks to NPR All Tech Considered for having the perfect photo to accompany this post. Stacy loves cats, and Sean loves screwball humor. Can't think of a better tribute to the inspirations of this blog than this photo!



As Sean points out, these are public airways and as taxpayers, we shouldn’t have to pay cable and satellite companies to access these. And in addition to making people more aware of the issue via a letter to teh editor, Sean found a way to get their old channels (and then some) back with a solution that cost him a grand total of $15 in miscellaneous hardware supplies.

Stacy said they based the design off an ‘elephant ear antenna’. See this link for how to build it.

To further improve the elephant ear model, Sean put the ‘ear’ portions on hinges so he could angle them to get the best signal.

So if you have roof access and are slightly handy, you too can get digital television indefinitely for $20!

Image from: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2009/06/



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