Just thought I'd throw my hat in the mix as a new OTA HDTV viewer. I'm in St. Catharines, Ontario, and last weekend I bought the ATI HDTV Wonder across the river at CompUSA in Amherst, NY for $150US. All in all, it's a pretty cost-effective solution to add HD to an existing HTPC setup. The included software and drivers crashed repeately during the Superbowl :( so I replaced my NVidia MX440 with a Radeon 9600 knockoff, which fixed A LOT of problems.
I live in a 2-storey townhouse about 2 or 3 miles south of the lake. Using a RCA ANT711 from Radio Shack with its built-in 10db pre-amp, as well as another 20db preamp and about 40ft of good-quality coax, I can get PBS, CBS, ABC, UPN, and FOX in HD coming out of Buffalo and Grand Island. Also, I get the Toronto CBC-HD test channel not to badly as well, even though my antenna is currently sticking out the window on the south side of my house. City-HD is non-existent, and my local TV shop said that their HD signal drops off about half way across the lake. As for NBC, I really hope that I can pick it up when they sort themselves out, since I regularly watch both West Wing and ER, both of which should look great in HD.
I am not yet satisfied with my signal strength on all channels, so I'm interested in any tricks/tips for people like me who can't put up an antenna? My condo corporation won't let me mount even a Satellite dish outside, so right now I'm hoping no one notices me sticking the antenna out the window during the evening!
Let me know your experiences, and I would be happy to share my input from the ATI HDTV Wonder. Talk to you soon!
