After I got the antenna installed on the TV in the living room, it was time to install the antennas in the family room, one of the bedrooms and the master bedroom.
We needed a smart TV to get streaming apps for the cable shows we watch. The TV in the family room was a smart TV, but not as smart as we could not use any updated apps. The TV in our bedroom was dumb, but the TV in the other bedroom was smart. So, I was going to swap out the TVs in those rooms and use the Roku®, Efiwym, my wife, had bought on Black Friday, in our bedroom.
But first, I wanted to install the antennas. I installed one of the antennas in the family room. This room is at the back of the house, but the TV was on an outside wall. This antenna was amplified and used the USB port to provide power to the antenna. No power adapter is needed. Wonderful! However, I was not getting squat for channels. This antenna was about 9” by 9” square and flat. I moved it around the wall and even placed it by the patio door without success. So, I switched it out with the other cheap antenna I bought, I had better luck. Initially, I attached the other antenna with the two-sided tape that was provided. When I removed it from the wall, a piece of paint came with it. Great. Now I have this noticeable blemish on the wall above the TV. The other antenna worked well where that blemish was. So, that is where the antenna went to cover it.
I still was not getting PBS® with this antenna. I was just going to install the app. This room was done. Time to install the antennas upstairs.
First, I needed to swap out the TVs. In the process of disconnecting the cables, I cracked one of the legs on the TV. I would use the cable receiver as a stand for now. I switched out the TVs and made sure the cable and the DVD player were working in the bedroom, and the cable was working in our room. Now it was time to install the antennas. I used the antenna that did not work in the family room for the bedroom. I placed the antenna on the windowsill, and I got all the channels, but not PBS®.
In our room, the TV I switched out was much larger than the other one. This TV blocked most of the two mirrors we had on the dresser. The cable receiver was used to hold up one side of the TV because of the broken leg and I needed to re-arrange Efiwym’s “stuff” on the top of the dresser to get the TV to fit.
I used an old antenna that was not amplified. It had rabbit ears and a rotary dial. I attached the coaxial cable to the TV. This TV was supposedly smart, but I would soon discover it was really pretty dumb. The app I needed to download would not allow any new apps on this TV. I decided that I would switch back the TVs since I could not download any apps.
So, I switched the TVs around and checked all the sources to make sure everything worked. The TV in our room required me to play around with the rabbit ears and the rotary dial. I finally found an ideal spot on the rotary dial and the positioning of the rabbit ears, but again no PBS®.
I decided to try to repair the broken leg. I had a new tube of Super Glue© and used it to put together the leg. I let it sit overnight. The next day I carefully re-installed the leg on the TV. I stood the TV up on its newly fixed leg. And, Voila! It did not take more than a couple seconds for the leg to collapse and down went the TV.
It was like the scene from A Christmas Story as “The Old Man” tries to repair is pride and joy, the leg lamp. One second, I was stepping back to admire my success, and the next second, the TV came crashing down.
I removed the broken leg and shoved the cable receiver back under the TV. A temporary fix until I figure out how to repair the TV leg.
I was now officially done with installing antennas!