Yep, another post about antennas! Last night was an awesome night to pull in channels from all over the place. The hotter it gets during the day, the better the chance to pull in distant signals at night. I have two antennas hooked to my TV: one for UHF (ch14 and up) and another for VHF (ch13 and under). The UHF is store-bought and is mounted outside on the roof like most people do. The VHF antenna is a homemade antenna that is mounted in the garage attic, and is similar to the one I wrote about the other day except that it has additional elements (or extra pieces of wire) that help guide the signal toward the main antenna wire. Last night, this little $5 antenna pulled in WIS channel 10, the NBC affiliate in Columbia, SC, that is 120 miles away. Another long distance find last night was from the UHF antenna which was able to pick up WAGT-26, the NBC affiliate in Augusta, GA, which is 185 miles away. At one point last night I was able to watch Conan on five different NBC stations: W-S, Charlotte, Greenville, Columbia, and Augusta. Of course I realize this ability has no practical benefit whatsoever, but it's still pretty neat.

Like WGHP-8, WIS-10 opted to remain on their original VHF frequency making it hard for people with indoor rabbit ears to pick them up digitally. Speaking of WGHP, as of 3:40pm today the FCC granted the station permission to once again broadcast on their ch35 transmitter because the ch8 power allotment just isn't cutting it. On paper, they say both channels should cover the same area, but they just don't. So, anybody who got WGHP before last Friday but lost it as a result of the digital transition, should do a rescan on their TV or converter box and it will find "the other" channel 8. If your TV already has channel 8 in its memory, then you'll start seeing two channel 8's in the list. The station has a six month temporary license to broadcast on both frequencies until the FCC figures out what's going on. For those who have suffered from withdrawal symptoms over the last week, you can sleep well knowing you can once again get your Neill McNeill fix!