Let's home they don't release a new standard for TV anytime soon so you can be set for a few years.
That's the plan, anyway.
I wanted to post a brief update for others in my situation....
I've removed the Radio Shack preamp/amp. I was having some signal problems last night. The 76-mile away NBC feed was jumping around a lot. Nothing, then 80%, then 60%, then 70%, then nothing, etc. Not watchable, as it would lose the picture & sound every 30-60 seconds for 2-3 seconds. I removed the amp/preamp and just hooked up the DB4 directly to the Dish 722. So now the signal was just traveling over about 50' of RG6 cable. The signal peak levels dropped by about 5%, but it's
much more stable. NBC immediately became completely watchable, with only extremely brief pixelations (maybe once every 5 minutes) with no loss in sound. I have read over on AVS that the R/S thing is pretty crummy, and this seems to be proof. It's being returned today. I have a ChannelMaster 7777 on order that should be a much higher quality preamp/amp. I'm hoping anyway...
I also managed to capture the nearest CBS-HD feed this morning! I flipped on the NBC morning news and noticed the signal was a good 10% higher than I have ever seen it. I'm guessing because it is a very calm, clear, cool, and beautiful morning. So for fun I re-ran the auto-scan on the 722. Lo-and-behold, it found the CBS station. Holy cow. According to TVFool.com, the tower I'm picking up is **96** miles away. 96 miles! Granted, it's flat central Illinois but I thought that was pretty freaking amazing. I was only getting it at about 60%, and the HDTV signals start to break up at about 58% and is gone by 56%, so it's right on the edge of reception. I fully expect that the heat and disturbances of the day will kill the signal. But still, there is hope that I can find a way to pull that signal.
In a nutshell, this DB4 antenna does seem to be pretty amazing. And it's not even roof mounted, just in an tower-facing attic window. It even has a big tulip tree (huge leaves) 30 feet in front of it. I wish I had the space for the DB8. Anyone looking for a decent UHF antenna, definitely check out the AntennasDirect DB4.
