OTA live TV and Chiefs games via Plex DVR (antenna placement problem) #36

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opened 2026-08-19 02:40:01 +00:00 by itguyeric · 1 comment

itguyeric commented

2026-08-19 02:40:01 +00:00

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Goal: watch live OTA TV, Chiefs games especially, through Plex with DVR. Most regular-season Chiefs games air on the local KC FOX/CBS affiliate plus NBC Sunday Night, all free over the air. Amazon (Thursday Night), ESPN/ABC, and streaming-exclusive games are out of scope and need their own subscriptions.

The wrinkle: the tuner card lives in itg in the colo, which is the wrong place for a KC-market antenna, and apartment living makes it hard to place an antenna where it gets clean signal. The hardware I already own is stranded from the signal I need.

Options to weigh:

Networked tuner at the apartment. An HDHomeRun plus the best antenna I can manage at home, exposed to the colo Plex over Tailscale. Cleanest self-host path, but hinges on getting usable OTA reception in the apartment (the hard part). Live viewing at home would hairpin apartment -> colo -> apartment, so upstream bandwidth matters (roughly up to ~20 Mbps per HD stream).
Antenna at the colo, reusing the existing tuner card. Only works if the colo is in/near the KC market and I can actually mount an antenna there, which datacenters usually do not allow. Probably a non-starter, but worth confirming since the hardware is already there.
Paid live-TV streaming (YouTube TV, Fubo, etc.) as fallback. Gets locals without an antenna, but does not feed Plex DVR and is a monthly cost, so it is the fallback, not the plan.

Next step (no spend): test actual OTA reception at the apartment with a cheap amplified antenna aimed at the KC towers before buying anything. If the apartment can pull a clean FOX/CBS/NBC signal, the networked-tuner-over-Tailscale build is the path. If it cannot, this is likely a paid-streaming problem, not a self-host one.

**Goal:** watch live OTA TV, Chiefs games especially, through Plex with DVR. Most regular-season Chiefs games air on the local KC FOX/CBS affiliate plus NBC Sunday Night, all free over the air. Amazon (Thursday Night), ESPN/ABC, and streaming-exclusive games are out of scope and need their own subscriptions. **The wrinkle:** the tuner card lives in `itg` in the colo, which is the wrong place for a KC-market antenna, and apartment living makes it hard to place an antenna where it gets clean signal. The hardware I already own is stranded from the signal I need. **Options to weigh:** - **Networked tuner at the apartment.** An HDHomeRun plus the best antenna I can manage at home, exposed to the colo Plex over Tailscale. Cleanest self-host path, but hinges on getting usable OTA reception in the apartment (the hard part). Live viewing at home would hairpin apartment -> colo -> apartment, so upstream bandwidth matters (roughly up to ~20 Mbps per HD stream). - **Antenna at the colo, reusing the existing tuner card.** Only works if the colo is in/near the KC market and I can actually mount an antenna there, which datacenters usually do not allow. Probably a non-starter, but worth confirming since the hardware is already there. - **Paid live-TV streaming (YouTube TV, Fubo, etc.) as fallback.** Gets locals without an antenna, but does not feed Plex DVR and is a monthly cost, so it is the fallback, not the plan. **Next step (no spend):** test actual OTA reception at the apartment with a cheap amplified antenna aimed at the KC towers before buying anything. If the apartment can pull a clean FOX/CBS/NBC signal, the networked-tuner-over-Tailscale build is the path. If it cannot, this is likely a paid-streaming problem, not a self-host one.

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itguyeric commented

2026-08-19 02:53:08 +00:00

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