DIY Better Digital TV Reception

Much like the Keatons, and to the shock of about everyone but 'Della, I don't have cable. Actually, to further clarify, I don't have cable, digital cable, satellite, or any other form of pay television. Until a few months ago, I only had my TV, a pair of rabbit ears, and I was content. Then along came this whole 2009 Doomsday scenario, and I got what is now known colloquially around here as a "ghetto cable box." Maybe not PC, but I went from about 10 channels to sometimes 33.

Why sometimes 33? Because believe it or not, I get worse reception now, then I did before I got the converter box. Whereas the signal used to just be weak and blurry on certain channels, now those channels distort into little boxes of unwatchable pain and lack any audio, that is, if they come in at all. Heck, if it's raining I may as well just read a book, because all I'm left with is the 24hour wedding infomercial and maybe something in Cantonese.

Ok yea, I should probably read a book anyway, but this weekend was particularly frustrating. With Shawn going out of town, rainy weather, my mom taking back certain precious pieces of her sewing machine, and my want to do nothing more than basically read old Uncannies and watch TV, it was just not the right time to loose all my channels.





I did everything I could to get those precious channels back, including placing tinfoil on random pieces of the antennae (I have no idea if it would help, but I think I saw it in a trailer park once.) The foil was no help, but I did notice, the further I pushed down on the long pieces, the better the reception got. Then, in the midst of pondering if me touching the antenna was fixing the reception or was the further extension really helping, I happened to snap one of the pieces off.





Now, I was pretty angry. HULK SMASH angry in fact, and figuring the piece of junk antennae was now an even bigger piece of junk, I decided to snap off the other long antenna piece. Not exactly rational, but my gut was telling me I would feel better if I made them match.

Well guess what? No sooner were those two pieces snapped, than I got great reception. Now, I'm no scientist, but I think I'll offer a little tutorial for those of you out there that want to do some DIY on your own indoor antenna:

Step One: buy a crappy indoor antenna, preferably like this
Step Two: expose yourself to gamma rays or find some other way to attain inhuman strength
Step Three: snap off one of the long pieces
Step Four: repeat step three with the remaining long piece
Step Five: Sit back and enjoy your 15 new weather channels!





In other creative endeavors, I also tried my hand at making a reusable "wimp sleeve," aka "coffee cozies" or "coffee sleeves," this weekend. There are a few tutorials for these, floating around on the internet, but I just took a cardboard sleeve I had on hand, opened it up, and used it as a pattern. This particular one was made from two (for insulation) pieces of felt. I appliquéd and ironed on the little doggy patch on one piece, before I sewed the two together. It took about 20 minutes all together, and I was pretty pleased for a first try. I hope the birthday recipient gets some use out of it.