I think the cable tech gave you bad info. Are you getting channel X in analog and channel X-1 in HD? If yes, the cable company is delivering the local channel in HD through the clear QAM tuner in your tv. There is no "antenna"...my Time Warner cable works in exactly this way.

i can run cable into tv without cable co tuner and i get x and x.1 how does that prove i am getting hd from the cable co? is the ota feed the same as the cable co feed? commercials and all?

this whole issue started with my kids new tv at school. she cannot get local hd channels thru cable feed. they have shared cable in dorm. so that may complicate whole issue. turns out her tv has atsc tuner but not qam which means ota hd stuff is ok but a hd feed from cable co will not work. my tv has qam tuner. so it will show hd local with basic cable.

tech said they do not feed hd thru cable. says house has poor shielded run while school for kid has much more robust wiring. said kids setup will not act as antenna for broadcast signals. only way is to hook up antenna.

I've been reading this thread with some interest because we have the super-cheapo "mandated-by-license" cable that Comcast must offer in St. Paul. We're feeding directly from the wall to the TV (NTSC/QAM/ATSC tuner) and we're getting HD. Well, if we're not getting HD, it's an incredible simulation, as the aspect ratio is correct and the picture is way better than the SD and local-access channels.

Weird.

I can't speak much on the HD front, because I don't have it, but I can say that what the tech said is true.

Years ago, when people had mostly RG-59 (cheapo cable) running into their homes, I used to tell my customers that they can get a 75/300 ohm adapter (cable jack on one end, two wires on the other) and hook their cable up to their stereo systems to get better reception, and it worked. The downside to this is, the cable also picked up signals that you DIDN'T want, which would interfere with a good cable signal.

Nowadays the cable is much more heavily shielded, so I would tend to agree with the tech: It's absolutely possible that you're getting an OTA signal, but that also means you have older, low-quality cable.

steve-o, are you in house, apartment or tent? i lived in st.paul yrs ago and had the same budget feed. my bill was $2.12 each month. i used to pay 4.24 so every other bill was $0 due. i had a nice sony vcr and the tuner would pickup about 25 stations. espn, tbs, and so on which were supposed to be scrambled.

joe, I'm in a house. The bill has gone up to around $5 a month, but the cable modem is more than $5 a month cheaper with the cable, so cable it is. :-)

Now that Comcast has gone full-digital, I can't get the extra channels I used to -- now I get only what the plan calls for. But that's fine -- I really only want the cable modem. But the picture definitely is HD on the right channels.

the good old days. no internet, cell phone, HD tv. certainly cheaper but rather disconnected. my kid streams HD with netflix/xbox options. i cannot deny it is a nice option if you choose to pay for it.