What I have found out about HDTV and QAM

One day while bored, I made a great discovery about my television. I did not buy this television new, I received it for free over craigslist as it was broken. It just needed a new fuse and I was ready to go. It is a Samsung CRT at 32 inches. Well, as I said, I was bored and going through the diagnostic menus on the television. I saw one that said "1080i" for something or other and reasoned that my TV could get HDTV signals! All I needed was an appropriate tuner and an antenna.

So I purchased a used Sony HDTV tuner with and ATSC/NTSC tuner. I also bought a TERK amplified HDTV antenna for $30 on Amazon.com.

So, some definitions here.. ATSC tuners are able to pull in HDTV signals broadcast by local TV stations. NTSC is the old analog standard. Therefore, this tuner is able to pull in signals from the antenna and from the Comcast basic cable package I have. Very nice, except where I live I only get 2 HDTV stations this way.

I have read much about QAM modulation and most of the info out ther is very confusing. QAM is how cable companies such as Comcast send their HDTV signals. Local stations are sent out unscrambled, such that ANYONE WITH AN HDTV, A BASIC CABLE PACKAGE AND A QAM TUNER CAN GET HDTV! If you have these, there is no need to get the "HDTV" package that the cable companies push if you do not want anything more than local channels in HD. Most tuners now built into TVs have QAM but some don't, so you will have to check your specific TV set for this. If your's does not have QAM, you can get a set top box such as the Samsung DTB-H260F which is one of the only ones to have QAM at a reasonable price.

Basically, to sum up, if you only want local channels in HD (NBC, ABC, Fox, etc..) you might already have them if you have a basic cable set up. Check your TV instruction manual and see if you have a QAM tuner as well as ATSC/NTSC.

Hope this helps someone...