Tenth Anniversary Party! 

July 29th 2021 was the tenth anniversary date of Aaron's Awesome Area! Lets take a moment to celebrate with some animated gifs that I found in a couple minutes of searching, tenor.com comes up and provides these beauty ones: 

When the domain was set to expire this year, I was questioning on if I should spend the $20 bucks on the domain aaronbrunt.com for another year. I'm glad I did! I hope you've enjoyed reading this! You can now continue to the website you meant to go to before you somehow ended up here on my website, Aaron's Awesome Area.  Thanks! 

Free TV In Nanaimo BC - OTA TV ( Over the Air ) HDTV

Free TV Channels - Nanaimo BC

There is some TV content you can get for Free in Nanaimo!

A lot of people think getting TV content over an antenna is a thing of the past, something to do if you are not able to afford paying Shaw or Telus.  Most people just cannot be bothered or have more money than time.

OTA ( Over the Air )  set ups do take some time to set up and adjust. There is a bit of knowledge needed as well, but its pretty straightforward and info / help  is available  

In this post, I'll explain what equipment I have used to set up my Antenna in order to pick up channels from the OTA TV towers I have within Antenna distance! 

All you need is an antenna, a ATSC receiver / converter, TV, some coax cable. Possibly a Pre-Amp. 
The total for the equipment is about $150-$200 CDN. ( depending on your needs ) 

Antenna: RCA Compact Outdoor Yagi HDTV Antenna. Mine looks like this, it seems to be an older model, possibly discontinued as the ones I can find now have the mounting pole right at the back. I got this one because it was cheaper than the other one, I think it's ANT751R is the version number of the new one. These RCA antennas are great, Winegaurd makes a similar style antenna that looks like it'll work fine as well. 

RCA Compact Yagi Antenna

As far as antennas go - Since I only have UHF stations in my area - I want to try out a long range UHF antenna like this narly looking one: I still have trouble picking up channel 17-1(17) and 10-1(33) when it's windy or just randomly. 

[image]

These antennas are meant to be installed in the attic or outside. I choose the attic because of various reasons such as: Don't have to drill into the exterior of my house / ground the thing, was easier to get approved from domestic FCC ( my wife ), it won't get hit with the weather. We get some pretty big windstorms in the fall around here, so the antenna will last longer in the attic. 

If you don't want a attic antenna, you can get indoor antennas, but you'll have some trouble getting all the stations. 

For fun, have a look at my first Antenna - photos at bottom of page. I lived closer to the water then, so I could pick up most of the channels just with this thing behind the TV and it cost me maybe 5 bucks to make it. 

Converter Box:  Mediasonic ATSC Digital Converter  

You don't need this if you have a TV with built in tuner. 

This mediasonic box  actually kinda isn't super awesome...but, it's cheap and it works great for set up due to its manual channel add feature. I'm on my second one. The first one lasted about 3 years and then seems to have burned some contacts on the circuit board. So that made it not work. No worries though as I felt I got my 40 bucks worth! Best feature of this unit is that manually add channels if the scan doesn't pick them up. ( I need this for my 2 fringe channels ). 

I also have a Haupauge PCIE Card for my computer which I run MythTV in order to watch / record OTA TV on my computer ( Watch for more info about this card in a future post ) 

Pre-Amp: RCA Premap   

I need a preamp because I am about 50 miles away from the towers on Mt Seymour, which is about 80km's so my signal strength is limited and need to keep any losses to a minimum. 

 I get about 40-50% signal on a some channels the pre-amp is able to take that weaker signal and send it to the TV.  This  set up gives me just enough power to pick up a signal on some stations. 

I also have a fairly long run ( 10-15 meters or 30-40 feet ) or RG6 Coax cable from the attic to the TV. I could put it closer, but it doesn't make a huge difference and I wanted my antenna in an accessible spot in the attic in case I want to switch it out, or adjust it. So far I haven't needed to adjust it though, so not sure about that decision just yet. lol Anyway, with the Pre-Amp, it's best to test the antenna without it first to see if you actually need it and make sure it's as close to the antenna as possible. 

Coaxial Cable:  Nothing much here except make sure you have some good quality RG6 Coaxial cable that you're using and the ends are terminated correctly. There's RJ59 cable you can get for cheap which will still work, but just get some decent RG6 cable and you'll be fine here. If you're going to split the signal and are using a preamp, make sure do it after the pre-map so that both splits will get the power. I wonder if I used a solid copper core RG6 cable that it would conduct the preamp power better and how that would effect the sign. 

Attic Antenna Install 2020 - Nanaimo OTA ( Over the Air ) TV

 Aaron's Attic TV Antenna Install 2020 Nanaimo BC

I've been interested in OTA ( Over the Air ) TV in Nanaimo Since 2013. Earlier, I think sometime in 2011 I had heard about how you'd no longer be able to pick up TV with an antenna and decided to finally look into it. 

Turns out they were shutting down the analogue transmitters and switching to digital. So... There was still going to be OTA TV just that you'd likely need a different antenna to pick up the new digital VHF/UHF signals. From Nanaimo there is no VHF stations available. I am still learning about how it all works, but that's my sort of good enough understanding of it for now.  

I started out with a custom set up at my old house which you can read about in this old post: http://www.aaronbrunt.com/2016/02/over-air-hdtv.html

Then, we moved to a new place and I had that antenna with the coat hangers in the living room of the new place. We had a baby coming a few years later and that antenna was too scary for a baby, but it worked well. I decided to get something safer. I got the RCA Flat Antenna with the amplifier and put it up on the window. It worked sometimes... Which lead to the motivation for the attic antenna.  

Here's the antenna in the attic! 

I chose this antenna because it's a directional antenna that performs well for a longer range for it's size. I needed something inexpensive, small yet effective. So this antenna has UHF features as well it has a long VHF thing if you have VHF stations in your area, which I don't. Knowing this now I might have got just the UHF featured antenna like this thing:

Xtreme Signal Long Range Yagi Style

We only have UHF Stations in my area. You can tell from the rabbit ears info report and all the numbers are above 12 which is the VHF stations. I remember as a kid on our bunny ears we only had the VHF stations I suppose, because I remember only going the first 12 stations. Anyway... So this antenna also seems to have a bunch of VHF stuff but that's fine because they might have some sometime. 

Rabbit Ears Website Results are important to look up. Here is my link. 

https://www.rabbitears.info/searchmap.php?request=result&study_id=178438

I've taken a sample of the first 3 channels I get to talk about the results. 

For the Channel column you'll notice there is a couple of numbers there. For the KVOS channel 12-1, it's UHF station is actually 14 which is in the brackets 

In order to point the antenna towards Mt. Seymour towers I used this website which will draw lines from your location to the towers!  https://www.overtheairdigitaltv.com/tv-station-locator-tool/

But after I did that I found that rabbitears.info site and they have an option that looks even better where you can see the results and it puts lines on the map towards the towers. 

See tower paths

So I mark a path and remember a location to aim at for the next step. For me I choose a landmark close to the towers which I could located on the Signal Finder app. 

Look for this below the map! 

Then, I placed my phone on the antenna and using the "TERK Signal Finder" App which will cast a beam on the map based on where your phones pointing and then I can position the antenna that way!

If you found this post - please comment to let me know your OTA TV set up! I'd love to chat with anyone who uses TV Antennas! 

Wired House for Ethernet - Cat5e Cabling

Wired House for Ethernet

*Note: I found this post in my drafts since 2016. Completed and Posted! 

I always wanted to wire in our xbox and TV with Ethernet ( Cat5) cable. I finally got that chance. Here's how I did it: 

First I decided what I needed to buy. I needed: 

- 100 Foot of Cat 5e Cable
- RJ45 Wall Plate with Keystone Jack
- RJ45 Connectors
- Crimpers for RJ45 Cable. These were expensive, but a one time investment. 
- 4 port switch. 
- Cable Ties and Clips ( to fasten to walls ) 

Things I needed but already had:

- Drywall Knife ( any sharp knife will work ) 
- Drill with Various Drill bits. 
- Permission for the project from my Wife. ( Note this process starts many months before the project begins. I will outline the process in a future blog post, but as a hint, it ends with her saying "If I approve this project, you promise I never have to hear about it again?" hahaha )  

Second thing I did was - make a plan on where the cable would go. I decided to go down the wall in the office to the basement then through the basement to the furnace room and use the existing hole in the floor to bring the cable up to the living room. I could do another run up and make a wall plate behind the TV but that's not necessary but it would be much cleaner. For now we will use the hole in the floor.  

I found a spot in the basement just below office where the modem is that I could put the cable. Lucky for me we has an old oil input pipe coming in from the outside that I could use to measure from to the edge of the window of the room with the modem . Then inside the room I measured the same distance from the window and drilled a small hole down in the floor as close to the wall as I could. Back in the basement I measured the distance to the wall from the hole I made. In my case the drill bit broke off in the floor so it was still in the floor. So there goes that drill bit, it's part of the house now. 

I was then confident to drill the main hole I cut out a piece of the drywall using a small sharp knife and using this drill bit tried to drill down. It didn't work because my bit was not long enough to get to the floor - so I went down to the basement and drilled up. Then I tested if the wire could make it up though and into the hole. 

 RJ45 Wall Plate

Wire Up Through Floor

*UPDATE* November 1 2020

Over The Air TV in Nanaimo, BC

A few years ago I cancelled my cable and just watched Netflix and other streaming services. 

I missed watching the news and watching whatever was on. I wanted some TV. We used to use the "bunny ears" back in the day and I heard something about making an antenna to pick up the digital hdtv signals. So I did some Internet searching and found this guy's website

https://johnbollwitt.com/2009/01/20/getting-over-the-air-ota-digital-television-dtv-in-vancouver/

I went to the hardware store and bought package metal coat hangers, a dozen metal washers, and a converter thing like we used to use to hook up cable to a TV. I found an old piece of wood in my shed and I created the masterpiece you can see in my post. That website I linked to has a video that explains how to make one.

Then I bought this https://www.amazon.ca/Mediasonic-HW-150PVR-HomeWorx-Converter-Recording/dp/B00I2ZBD1U

And hooked it up! I was amazed that It worked! Perfect quality HDTV! 

I live in nanaimo bc. I get

CBC (2)
Chek (6)
Global  (8)
City (10)
CTV Two (17)
CTV (32)

Plus some old tv show channel and an old movie channel.

I use this website to find the schedule

https://mtvl.zap2it.com/tvl?md=chooseProviders&aid=tvschedule

Also there is an app called Peel smart remote that has an ok schedule.

And finally I used this website to find the best way to point the antenna. https://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29

For now the antenna just sits in my living room.Eventually I'd like to put an antenna on my roof.

Hope someone finds this info helpful

Garden in Nanaimo 2015

Garden 2015

Here's some photos of some of the garden this year. First year of garden. It turned out pretty good except the peppers didn't really grow. Going to try them in a different location next year. One of our best crops was our pumpkins. We carved 3 of them at Halloween. Next best was the potatoes. There was lots of tomatoes as well.
I think next year i will grow less tomatoes. This year I had to many tomatoes. The morning glory and the English ivy are a constant battle! There is some blackberries invading as well. I'm hoping out compost works out. I have a couple photos.

Jalapeños 

Potatoes - Onions at Harvest time.

Tomatillos

Tomatoes

Pepper Garden!

Peas, Tomatoes and Hot Pokers!

Kale!

Pumpkin

Seasons Greetings!

Seasons Greetings Everyone! I found this animated gif on a website about how to create snowfall animations using Mathematica. Thanks for the gif - it's fantastic work.