[maniscca]

I am not sure if it was supposed to ship with the TV tuner. The material I read said that it would only be needed in low signal areas. I must live in a low signal area, cause I can't get a single channel to connect when I scan. When I talked to Dell they said they had to work on the problem for a couple of days and that they'd get back to me. The directions in the manual call for you to open a program in the start menu (I think it's Cinema Power), go to Live TV and configure from there. I don't have that program on my computer. I tried to download it from the website ... the driver and application ... but nothing changed. All I can find in my Mini 10 is "Dell TV Tuner" to open and try to configure. Maybe that's the software showing up in the programs/drivers? Hard to say. Starting to get me frustrated.

[maniscca]

Here's what the antenna looks like.

[maniscca]

By the way, my tuner is a Haupauge WINTV MOD7700 ATSC Tuner (Dev 1, Path 0). I went to the Haupauge.com website to try to find more information about it, but I couldn't find it on their list of products. When I google that tuner, I get to one site where some tech guy is able to help one user get a signal and get it working, but it's highly technical and I don't understand it.

[jfitz]

I thought everyone might enjoy my recent dell conversation. Oddly enough the dell rep left the chat before I did. Gee I wonder why.

1:36:03 PM Josh Fitzpatrick Initial Question/Comment: fitzp2jl@jmu.edu
1:36:33 PM System You are now being connected to an agent. Thank you for using Dell Chat
1:36:33 PM System Connected with BE_PR1_Rep_Ronald_C
1:36:38 PM BE_PR1_Rep_Ronald_C Hi, Welcome to Dell's System Sales Chat! I hope you are doing well and thank you for waiting. My name is Ronald and I will be your personal sales agent today. Feel free to email me at us_dhs_chat_reply@dell.com or leave me a message at 1800-379-3355 ext. 2160085, from 8AM CST – 12 CST. Please provide your e-mail address and phone number where I can contact you in case we get disconnected. To better serve you Dell now offers secure payment via chat for our Chat Customers. How may I help you with your purchase today?
1:36:48 PM BE_PR1_Rep_Ronald_C Hi Josh, How may I help you with your purchase today?
1:37:02 PM Josh Fitzpatrick I had a question regarding the mini 10
1:37:26 PM Josh Fitzpatrick one of the options for the mini 10 is a digital internal tv receiver
1:38:08 PM BE_PR1_Rep_Ronald_C how may I help you with that?
1:38:19 PM Josh Fitzpatrick the laptop is small and I doubt this creates a standard coax port, so what kind of port does this tuner put ont he laptop?
1:38:43 PM BE_PR1_Rep_Ronald_C hold on please.
1:41:18 PM BE_PR1_Rep_Ronald_C please bear with me.
1:43:37 PM Josh Fitzpatrick Not a problem, I know this is a specific question. I've seen the side of one of the mini's and it is a very small round port that lloks like an antenna of somesort woudl connect to it, but the user didn't indicate an antenna came with it. I'm not sure if it should have and was not give to him or if there is an accessory that needs ot be purchased
1:49:25 PM BE_PR1_Rep_Ronald_C hold on please. still verifying it.
1:49:30 PM Josh Fitzpatrick ok
1:54:40 PM BE_PR1_Rep_Ronald_C it will have a port that uses a fiber optic cable. a smaller one than with the Coaxial port.
1:56:15 PM Josh Fitzpatrick oh, how would I be able to purchase this cable?
1:57:05 PM BE_PR1_Rep_Ronald_C you can purchase that at your local store or you can request that from your cable subscriber.
1:57:15 PM BE_PR1_Rep_Ronald_C *cable provider
1:57:27 PM Josh Fitzpatrick Dell doesn't sell one for the laptop?
1:57:50 PM BE_PR1_Rep_Ronald_C sad to say but we don't have the cable available.
1:58:34 PM System BE_PR1_Rep_Ronald_C has left this session!
1:58:34 PM System The session has ended!

[Hamiltong]

Curious if anyone went for the internal OTA Digital TV Tuner option on their Mini 10.

I received mine today (including HD screen + internal DTV tuner) - but it did not come with an external MCX Antenna - just the available MCX port on the side. Without the antenna I'm only able to get a single channel here in Ottawa / Canada.

FYI - the single HD feed I get (CBC) looks good.

[techchick]

I also got the tv tuner option - no external antenna, which I thought was to be included. After 3 days of argueing with Dell support in India (my assumption given the names and accents), I gave up and ordered an MCX antenna from ebay for $5 us.

I currently get zero TV signals, so cannot even be sure the tuner is working.

I must say that after the drama with the moving delivery dates (6/23 / 7/14 / 6/26 / 6/21), I am not very happy with Dell, even if the mini itself is nice.

[Salence]

I had the same experience - ship dates moving around and then no antenna. I can get 2 channels if I hold my Mini above my head at a certain angle. Which antenna did you buy? Has anyone found a good portable antenna? It looks like Dell doesn't sell these, so I guess we are on our own to find one.

[priuscat]

Originally Posted by jimhanseng

Update:

Dell Support and Sales know almost nothing about the TV Tuner. After two days of frustration (including being given non-existent part number and a phone number to call that was to a PHONE SEX service (yes that happened), I had had more than enough. So I used my VP of a really large bank (we do 10s of millions of business with Dell each year), staus to get some fricking support. I finally started speaking with some management folks in both sales and service. The last sales support engineer I spoke with was proud to tell me "there is a built in Antenna so you don't need a cable, that is why one was not included in the box". Well, I was not able to get ANY channels when scanned and it doesn't appear there is a any internal antenna on the service manual for the TV Tuner Card. The antenna connection only seems to go to the external connector (see picture above). I see no connection to any internal antenna like there is with the It appears they do not carry any cables that work with this. (or at least they have no clue if they do)

I have a follow up call with them on Monday. They hope to have more information to me by then.

It is unfortunate that I have to use my companies huge purchase power to get even a glimmer of support from Dell on this issue.

I still believe that there was supposed to be a cable included that was just left out when they packed the box. Based on the Service Manual, it looks like you need some sort of extern antenna to get any signal. Considering this is for Digital HighDev TV, I am guessing an internal antenna would probably not work anyway.

I will update when I have more.

You can get an antenna from HP my HDX18t comes with a tv tuner and the antenna fits my mini also. there are two types of antennas, one is the pedistal antenna that plugs into the mcx jack of the mini 10 the other one is an RF connector on one end and the mcx connector on the other end. I'd show you a picture of these two antennas but 'MANAGE ATTACHMENTS" failed to upload my 800 x 600 jpeg image.

[techchick]

Originally Posted by Salence

I had the same experience - ship dates moving around and then no antenna. I can get 2 channels if I hold my Mini above my head at a certain angle. Which antenna did you buy? Has anyone found a good portable antenna? It looks like Dell doesn't sell these, so I guess we are on our own to find one.

I just put in MCX tv antenna on ebay and stuff came up - found a seller with a 99% feedback rating and figured for $5, I'd give it a try. Of course it ships from China so in 2 or 3 weeks, I'll be able to say if it works or not. I've got my fingers crossed, considering that Dell basically hung us out to dry on this one - no support, no information, no help.

[Outspoken1]

I found an external antenna on ebay that will ship with the MCX connector. I will let you know if it works. I was told you can't connect the MCX to a regular coax connector because MCX is 50 ohms and regular RG6 is 75 (I think that was is) ohms.