Ditch Cable Experiment #1: Over-The-Air (OTA) HDTV Antenna

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I’ve decided to go without cable TV for at least 6 months from January 1st, 2010. I actually don’t mind paying for cable that much, it is simply an entertainment expense and given the overall convenience, not that expensive in my mind (especially if you haggle every so often). Primarily, I want to cancel it as a passive barrier against my future kids don’t watch too much TV. Also, I want to experiment with ways of re-allocating that $50-$70 per month into other entertainment methods.

Potential Experiments. This gives me a little over a month head-start to find some solutions to fill the gap. I’ll probably start up Netflix again, and considering getting a PS3/Wii with PlayON or a WD Media Player-like device for viewing downloaded content on my TV. I’ll need to figure out a smooth way to stream internet TV like Hulu to the living room with remote control (Roku?). For live sports, I wanted to see if I could grab some network channels (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, PBS) off the air using an HDTV antenna for those that have an HDTV.

I’m not really A/V-savvy, but after some reading all I got was that getting HD channels from an antenna is not necessarily like using the old rabbit ears, but also still similar. I mean, it’s digital, so with a good signal you’ll be getting HD-quality images that is just as good as cable TV. However, it’s still over-the-air, so reception quality matters; It’s not like you either get nothing or 100% clarity.

Finding what’s available. To see what broadcast channels are generally available in your area, visit Yahoo TV and input your zip code > Antenna > Broadcast TV. Next, visit AntennaWeb to get a better idea of what you’ll actually get, and tips on where to point your antenna if needed.

Buying an antenna. If you actually have “rabbit ears”, break them out and try them first. There is actually no such thing as an “HDTV-specific” antenna. I don’t have any, and to try this it out I wanted to buy an antenna from a local retailer so that I could return it easily if I didn’t get adequate reception. I stopped by Radio Shack and picked up their Amplified HDTV Antenna for $35. The online reviews were mixed, but there were some positive ones, so I gave it a shot.

Result. In a word, disappointing. I was only supposed to get ABC and FOX in my neck of the woods, but the reception wasn’t that great for either one. The image was widescreen and HD but was “blocky”. If I stood near the antenna or held it just right for a minute, it would get acceptable but wouldn’t stay that way. It may be just my antenna, review site HDTVAntennaLabs and Amazon users seem to like the indoor Antennas Direct DB2 at a reasonable $38 and the outdoor Winegard HD8200U at $140, not including installation poles and such.

I don’t know if it’s worth the bother for a few channels, but if you’re in a nice flat metro area you may be able to do much, much better.

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Comments

  1. The real solution is to ditch tv altogether. “panem et circenses” to keep the masses ignorant and numbed. Lest anyone wakes up and refuses to continue “life” as a soulless consumer sheep.

  2. Don’t be so quick to dismiss OTA HD reception. You tried an experiment and it didn’t work that great. You used radio shack equipment…not the best. “Most” homes can get great HD reception with the proper equipment setup (one time cost). I have an antenna inside my attic and a rg6 run to the basement. From there I have a splitter/amplifier to distribute the signal. I get great reception, 20+ channels and I’m running my HD TIVO off of it…best of all no cable bill…

  3. Actually, HD-over-the-air, reception does matter to ensure you get optimal signal and the number of channels you get, but you either get it 100% or not. It’s a digital signal.

    And a cheap way to get entertainment in the living room is to pick up a cheap PC and hook it up to the TV. You’ll be able to use Netflix, Amazon streaming, Hulu, and any other new services that come along the way.

  4. Coat Hanger Antenna works really well!

  5. I used to use an OTA antenna and it worked fine, most the time, for local channels. Sometimes for no reason a station you’d get in beautifully would just go dark and a station you’d were never able to get would come in crystal clear. I’ve since upgraded to FIOS, as our new home doesn’t get reception very well.

    For web content, DVI-HDMI works great. You can even expand to full screen, sometimes 16:9 depending on content. If you use verizion, ESPN360 is free and offers a wide range of sport. For the money, I would invest in a blu-ray with Netflix capability built in. Mine has worked flawlessly for over a year now and must nicer than hooking up the computer to watch streaming content.

    Not having cable, in my opinion, wasn’t hard. I lived without it for over 4 years. Now that I have cable I find myself watching things I would have never watched before. Like you, I like the sporting options with cable, so I’m hesitant to cancel.

  6. I’ve been having this internal struggle as well. With a DTV bill over $80 each month, I’d really like to shut that off. I’ve started experimenting with XBMC and Boxee on older computers since I’m not in the HDTV age just yet. However, I’ve found that it’s better to have newer equipment, because of the OS limits with the Linux operating systems.
    My other drawback has been the lack of childrens programming that is accessed by these services. DVDs can be ripped to your network for easy viewing, but my TiVo wins this competition so far, so the DTV stays.
    Lifehacker posted good how-tos on Boxee and XBMC over the last 6 weeks, and for a low initial investment might prove an interesting option.

  7. Did you consider pros and cons of using Dell Zino HD? with wireless Keyboard and mouse you can get a lot of digital content to your TV with out much hassle.

  8. I have always been anti-cable and was worried when the digital switch took place, but I have purchased the Terk HDTV (or HDTVi) antenna and it works very well. I agree, there are not HDTV-specific antennas, but you do need more than rabbit ears. The Terk is rabbit ears with an extra receiver arm, and I am able to get about 24 channels with it (major networks, old UHF channels, PBS). I am also in 3-story condo building. It is a tad clunky but does work. Now I’m looking into cable-free DVR’ing …

  9. I have the antennas direct ClearStream C4 and it works pretty well. My stations are between 40-70 miles and most come in pretty strong. I think they make a Clearstream C1 which would be smaller and probably work well in an urban environment.

  10. Funny that you post this today…I’ve been thinking about doing this for a long time and just ordered a HD antenna from Amazon last week (this one http://bit.ly/62N4XQ). I got it yesterday and it works way better than I would have thought. Crystal clear and over 30 channels. I figured that I can get all of the shows I watch online, the only thing missing is live sports, which is where the antenna comes in.

  11. We’ve got a 15.00 OTA HD antenna and we get 5 hd channels and about 13 regular channels with it. The local CBS, NBC, FOX and ABC affiliates are all within 5 miles of my house, so the hd signal actually kicks the crap out of the cable one. Go figure.

  12. I haven’t been very impressed with the digital TV switchover. Before the switch we were able to get all the local channels with no problem. Now the channels constantly go in and out and freeze making watching TV a pain. We bought a special $50 HDTV antenna at Radio Shack and it didn’t work any better than out $3 rabbit ears so we returned it. Now we are going to go ahead and buy a digital TV and see if it is the converter box that is causing the channels to not come in.

  13. If you’re not far from the signals then a $10 indoor antenna like this one will do the trick
    http://www.amazon.com/RCA-ANT111-Basic-Indoor-Antenna/dp/B000HKGK8Y

  14. Look what I found…

    $19.99 for the software that allows you to stream to your consoles, netflix, hulu, amazon VOD.

    Use code HOLIDAY

    We’ve got PlayOn for only $19.99. Our lowest price ever. Just visit us here, enter coupon code HOLIDAY, and purchase now. Watch all of your favorite streaming shows and movies (Holiday or otherwise) on Hulu, Adultswim, Netflix, and more. Stream your personal media content to your TV, show off your photos to visiting family and friends. Kick back and get lost even if only for a little while. Best of all, PlayOn will still be there long after the holidays.

    Regular $39.99, offer expires Nov 30, 2009

    http://www.playon.tv/playon/

  15. I can understand your desire to not want to pay for cable tv. I was the same way until I went to Time Warner’s site and found a package called the Family Pack for about $15 a month. That was much better than the $125 I was paying for cable and internet. So now I have cable for $15 but internet service still costs $45 🙁 Oh and they are charging me $7 a month for a digital box, I told them I didn’t want it and will hook straight into the tv but they said I had to have the box.

    I haven’t tried over the air signals but a guy a work with tried it, said he got a few channels but it wasn’t too great in this area. We are in the south and its not really much of a metro area so I figured it was just where we were that they wouldn’t have too many channels. Maybe its all dependent on location.

  16. I lived with OTA for almost 2 years now and do not regret it. I was not watching TV almost at all before so I was paying the $70 for nothing.

    In my opinion American cable TV is not worth it. The “entertainment” is mostly garbage. I travel and when I find myself in Europe I like watching TV as it is indeed entertaining.

  17. Seth @ Etown Web Design says

    My wife and I have been sans cable for a few years now… we have 2 simple ways that make it very doable.

    1. The obvious… Redbox. We rent a movie or two each week, and watch that instead of regular TV.

    2. We joined a gym that has individual TVs (with cable) attached to each cardio machine. So, when we want to watch a show we really like, we just go run/walk for an hour. It’s a great way to get in shape while saving money. Both of our gym memberships combined ended up costing about the same as cable, but mine is reimbursed through my work, which makes it even that much better.

  18. Rabbit Ears: I recently dug a 10+ year old set of rabbit ears out of the closet and am using them to get all available local channels. The image quality is perfect if the signal is good, but walking in front of the antenna will cause problems. My solution was to put them high up on a cabinet in the room. Be aware that the signal can be HD but the *source* can be old fashioned 480i. If so, there’s nothing wrong with the antenna but the image will be so-so. HD content is often restricted to prime time and sports.

    Netflix – Streaming to TV: I bought a LG BD390 Blu-Ray player. I don’t care about Blu-Ray (just have one disk…), but it also uses Wi-Fi to stream Netflix, Youtube, Roxio CinemaNow, and Vudu to your TV. I mostly use it for Netflix, and, with a 6mbps DSL connection the quality is better than DVD! Youtube is fine, but as always it’s full of narcissistic and marginal content. The other two services are pay-per-view with fairly high prices ($3.99 per viewing, $20 to “own”) so I doubt I’ll ever use them.

    There are several other Netflix players, just go to the Netflix website then search for reviews at Amazon, Cnet, etc. I personally prefer an all-in-one device (CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, streaming video) over the Roku box.

    So far I’ve saved $68 per month vs. DirecTV and in another month the savings will have paid for the LG player (which was about $275).

  19. I suggest building your own HD antenna from coat hangers to put in your attic. I know a few people who have been quite successful with this, getting much better reception than they did with a standard antenna. Google for “coat hanger antenna” to get a few designs. Good luck!

  20. Jon @capitalistmaven.com says

    You seem to be missing the entertainment value in actually finding and deploying a working antenna. Maybe you are not of the engineering mind but many people actually find this to be part of the fun…

  21. We went through all of the steps from indoor antennas through mounting in the attic. Last June we bought a DB4 from Antennas Direct (through Amazon). It is quite small and light and we mounted it on the roof. We get 3/4 of the big 4 networks plus PBS. I’ve only missed 1 Lions win due to it (insert smart remark here). We stream to our laptops, do Netflix, and will likely do a PS3 as a set top in the future. Giving up on the trips to the Blockbuster (not to mention the return trip and nagging movie that had to be back), we pocket a lot more time and driving costs, aka life units, using this appproach.

    We haven’t missed a thing and I carry a resentment with our monopoly cable provider, so it is good not to send that bill off each month. We increased our DSL speed as a trade off, but are still $40-$50 ahead each month.

    The kids indeed watch less crap, and we haven’t missed it a bit (outside of that football game).

  22. For downloaded content I find playing them on the TV with
    http://www.videolan.org/
    is best.
    You can set the aspect ratio of the video if its not right you can also
    Crop & Set aspect ratio. This allows you to get the aspect ratio you want and at the same time fill the entire screen.

    I just plug the HDMI cable into the laptop and TV and haven’t had any problems.

  23. I’ll give another vote for the Clearstream antenna. Wow! We had an antennas direct db2 indoors and could get some stuff but it would not pick up vhf and ABC went from uhf to vhf after the switch in our area (why??). Also having it indoors, we had to change the direction to pick up different channels and it was not certain when we would get channels clearly. The Clearstream antenna does uhf & vhf. So now we get 23 channels and they all come in perfectly with the roof mounting, a pre-amplifier, and the clearstream antenna. We just tied it into the cable box left behind by TWC and it works great on all of our tv’s. UHF is highly directional too but the Clearstream is able to pick up channels with towers about 45-50 degrees apart in our area which was everything I had hoped for.

    At first I tried to take the easy way out when we dropped cable but decided that roof mounting was the only way to go.

  24. Why jump through the hoops here? Go get a $4 Svideo wire and a $2 headphone to sound wires – and hook up your laptop to any HDTV (that has an s-video input).

    Then go to the stations site?

  25. My suggestion would be to try different antennas, not just one, just making sure that you can return any that you try without penalty. The antenna you use makes a world of difference–and I’ve found that the price of the antenna generally has no relationship to the quality of the signal you get!

    We currently are using the Winegard SS-3000 Indoor UHF/VHF Antenna. It’s a bit on the pricy side ($50 on Amazon), but we can get all of the stations from both the Providence and Boston markets (we’re about midway between the two) without issue.

  26. There’s what I like to call the poverty package on my cox cable. $13.99 a month for the networks, c-span, and maybe the food channel. In spite of this I still don’t get cable because I’m spoiled now from netflix and dvds and can’t stand commercials, those annoying icons in the corner of the screen, and I find most shows on tv stink. The only reason I can see to have any tv reception at all is if you are a sports fan or like to watch the news. Renting seasons of tv shows you like on netflix is the way to go.

  27. MoneyProgress says

    I’ve been using an antenna only for over a year now. It has worked well for me, but I am in a “nice flat metro area” 🙂

    It was just OK in analog before the digital switch. However, the new digital signals have been great! The HD quality is really nice and if it gets blocky or cuts out we can usually adjust the antenna ($15 cheap one from walmart) to fix it. I also like that I can hit “info” and see the title of the show that is playing if it is during a commercial and things like that.

  28. I can’t get OTA reception at home, but I do use an antenna for tailgating and the Antennas Direct DB2 is what I have.

    The important thing to remember is that unlike analog signals, digital signals require Line of Sight, therefore no obstructions and getting the antenna as high in the air as you can is key. Reading the directions for your tv is key too to make sure you program in the channels correctly (i.e. if I punch in 2.1 on the remote I get nothing without programming the tv first).

    Also, HD quality from OTA broadcasts is uncompressed, unlike cable and sat. tv, and therefore the best way to view HD.

  29. Wow, you all married the right kind of woman. What was I thinking? Guess I’ll have to get a divorce so I can be without cable TV.

  30. I wasn’t sure from the way you phrased it if you knew that using a PS3/Wii with PlayOn can stream Hulu to your television. I’ve been doing that for some time now, and in general it works pretty good. Between Hulu, CBS.com, and Netflix streaming through PlayOn, you’re in pretty good shape for entertainment.

    Tim

  31. My wife and I have been off cable for 5 years now. We leave in Orange County, CA so perhaps we have a better chance but I bought a $30 outdoor antenna and can get all the channels we need 2, 4, 5, 7, 11, 13, 54, 58 etc… They come through clear and HD.

    I think the outdoor antenna’s are the best bet and they are very easy to install.

    The first step is to go to

    http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/Address.aspx

    and enter your address. Click ‘Show digital channels only’ and you should be able to view a map of the antenna’s in your area and the channels they provide.
    Ignore the channel numbers at this point…they are meaningless to you.

    Click on ‘View Street Level Map’ . This will show a map with the closest antenna’s and the channels (these channels are the actual numbers you will recieve)…Google maps on satellite view then makes it really easy to aim (or you can use a compass).

    This may be helpful for indoor reception too if you can aim the antenna or put it closer to the right direction. Good UHF antennas tend to be very directional so that may be why you get bad reception too…unless you know where to aim.

    The antenna we use is from Radio Shack and is called a 15-2160. You will need an RG-6 cable and a 15-1230 adaptor from Radio Shack. If you need to aim at multiple locations then you will need multiple 15-2160 / 15-1230 units and a splitter/combiner 15-1235 (connect antenna’s to OUT and receiver to IN).

    Note you can place this antenna in your attic too…unless you have foil insulation. Or under a front porch etc. I used an attic at my rental place because I wasn’t allowed an outdoor antenna. If you don’t have that option you can try a decent indoor antenna.

    We have used this set-up for 5 years without a hitch and combined with Netflix, Hulu and tvshack.net we don’t need anything else.

  32. Just get digital basic cable for around $15/month. It’s not advertised anywhere, call them up and they will insist there is no such thing, but they legally have to offer it. Take a close look at their rate sheet and it will be listed somewhere on there.

  33. I use the Winegard SS-3000 indoor amplified antenna — works fine for me, picking up stations I couldn’t get before. However, I’m in flatland, so YMMV.

    I also paid attention to the antennaweb info on the tower locations and was able to pick a directional antenna and orient it accordingly. If you are in a valley, with the towers in all directions, this won’t work as well for you.

  34. Radioshack is a rip off for attenae. I would recommend the terk HDTVi or HDTVa directional attenae. You can pick them up for <$30 and they work great.

  35. Install TVersity on your home PC and you can stream hulu and other internet video to Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, etc. Works pretty well, I just started doing it. With Netflix you can also stream movies to 360/PS3. I was going to drop DirecTV, but stuck with it since I was able to talk them down $20/month. You’ll probably need a an attic/roof antenna to pick up decent local channels. Good luck.

  36. I ditched the cable 3 years ago and certainly haven’t missed writing a check to the cable company every month! Everything that I want to watch and more is available online, with the exception of some live sports in HD. Most of the games that I want to watch are on broadcast TV, but occasionally there will be a game that is only on cable, and I have found that I enjoy spending my $80 a month to go watch my teams play at a sports bar with friends. Watching sports events is more fun with friends anyway, and it is good to get out of the house. For TV shows, I can wait until the series comes out on DVD and then watch them at my leisure without commercials.

    If you have a quality antenna and position it properly, your picture quality can actually *exceed* that of cable, because the cable company recompresses the network signal before they send it to you.

    Cable TV is a waste of money.

  37. Our house has one of those big attenas on the roof so that makes going without cable really easy.

    Other places I have lived I have tried other antenna fixes. It really matters where you locate your antenna. TV waves are pretty long so they are shielded from entering the home quite easily by metal wires in the walls if they are too close together. My one apartment had metal mesh in the windows to prevent break ins and I got almost no signal unless I opened the window.

    In another apartment with a large living room, I found soldering the coaxial cable to a hammock frame I was using as a couch worked better than the antenna from radio shack. Even a long coaxial cable attached to nothing worked better than the radio shack antenna. I have heard of great reception from attic antennas as the attic doesn’t have the wires running through the walls.

    I love my house top antenna! We use the money saved from cable for netflix and season theater tickets.

  38. I am using http://www.hulu.com. My TV can be connected to my laptop, so I watch TV program using hulu.com. Who needs TV anyway, since we have youtube.com?

  39. I’ve been getting OTA DTV for over a year now. I get over 20 channels for free, it’s great!

    1. You should call it DTV and not HDTV, because not all the channels broadcast in HD.

    2. There can be differences between DTV-specific antennas vs rabbit ears. While rabbit ears could work, they’re probably less effective than an antenna designed for DTV signals.

    I have this non-amplified digital antenna, which picks up better than another amplified rabbit ear antenna I had:
    http://www.fta-receiver.com/comersus/store/catalog/hdtv_antenna_philips_silver.jpg

  40. Even with those indoor antennas they look pretty directional and would probably benefit from checking on antennaweb.org to pick the best direction for your location.

  41. Hmm, nobody’s mentioned free-to-air (FTA) satellite. It’s a few hundred dollars one time setup cost for antenna (dish itself and a low noise gain block) and receiver (the box) and then you have access to huge number of channels from all around the world. You do need a clear view to south-southwest roughly from the spot where you can install the dish though. It’s also a little bit more work to research this matter, choose the equipment and set it up then simply stream Internet content on a PC, but everything is Googleable.

  42. We got rid of cable back in May. OTA DTV has been just great for our family. Our two kids, 7 & 5, barely watch tv now, and they don’t seem to miss it. The TV is rarely on at all in our house now. When we want to watch something, we watch on DVD and I use Hulu regularly. Absolutely no complaints here. I can’t imagine paying for cable ever again.

  43. We have kids. So not much time to watch TV. We have been living on OTA for 4 years now and are hooked on 5 pbs channels it picks up.

  44. Check out AppleTV — they’re not so much, and plug iTunes right into your TV. Then, you can buy pre-paid iTunes cards for credit (based upon any budget you want to maintain), and buy/rent movies, TV shows, music, etc. on demand. As for the PS3 — I have one, they’re ok, but they’re not so intuitive for watcing movies from files — they play BlueRay discs and Games awesome, though.

  45. Gretchen Macdowall says

    I ditched cable in July after my provider RCN did not show up for the second time so 2 personal days down the drain. I had tv,internet,cable through them so when it broke I had nothing.

    Aiming to be less dependent on one source I switched to cell for primary phone, got Verizon FIOS for internet and use Boxee and Hulu for tv. This is a perfect setup if you have a MacBook pro and an external monitor because you can set Boxee to play fullscreen on the external monitor and control it with the Apple remote that comes with the MacBook pro. Have not looked back.

  46. I have one of the big vintage roof antennas. It works great with HDTV. I get all the broadcast channels in my area. (Digital works over the UHF spectrum so if you get a roof antenna, you just need the UHF antenna, not the VHF.)

    Assuming no really bad storms, it works perfectly.

    I have no luck with the little indoor antennas though.

  47. I refer to this as the “cable-buster”:

    1. OTA DVR for all recent network shows (that may not be available online)
    2. Streaming online content (currently use http://www.zeevee.com/zinc)
    3. Streaming local media content (like ripped DVD’s, music, pictures to the TV)

    These can be implemented many ways but I use a HTPC (home theatre pc). A solid computer, hard drive, tv tuner, antenna, and mouse remote are the startup costs.

    There are also many set-top boxes that achieve one or more of the above functionality:
    Online Content Player:
    Roku
    Vunow
    Myka Ion
    Vudu

    Digital Media Receiver:
    Netgear Entertainer
    Asus O
    WD Player
    Seagate Theatre
    MediaMVP
    CinemaCube
    Popcorn Hour
    Moxi

    OTA DVR:
    DTVpal

  48. Got a $8 Phillips antenna from Walmart, now I get about 8 HD channels for free.

  49. I live in the Oakland hills (bay area), and I have a cheap powered HD antenna and get excellent reception on about 18 channels, including all the networks and 3 KQED (public tv) stations.

  50. I’m not sure if you know this already but the WD HD TV Live can connect to your network and stream content from your pc and youtube, it can connect to an external drive as well like the older models. Costs around $150 bucks, the link is [ http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=735 ] Nothing can beat cable though; I’m a couch potato 🙂

  51. Great idea, but I think you should consider less expensive cable alternatives. Otherwise, what is the point/fun of this experiment? My husband and I “survive” without cable (and I love TV and sports) via the following:
    (1) Basic RCA Antennae. We tried more expensive (and weird looking) ones first and this one is the best. It will take time to figure out the optimal positioning of the bunny areas for each station.
    (2) Converter box – with signal meter. The signal meter is key as it helps determine where to point the bunny ears for trouble stations.
    (3) Hulu–Plug your laptop/computer into the TV with VGA monitor cables, get a basic wireless mouse (a.k.a. your new remote), set Hulu to your bookmarks, subscribe to your favorite shows, and watch away.
    (4) Instead of Netflix, try your Public Library’s movie/tv collection. Our library system gets new movies and TV seasons as fast as Blockbuster. If they don’t have what you want, you can request it. If something is at a different branch, they will ship it to your branch within a couple days. The “shopping” and “requesting” can be done at home online. You pay for these library services with taxes, so why not use it?
    (5) Sports is the only reason I ever consider getting cable. However, if you happen to use AT&T for your internet (like we luckily do), you get free access to ESPN 360 on your computer (computer = TV after following #2).

  52. Ditto you can get great OTA reception with the right equipment. I get about 60 stations in my area. Goto Antenna web to find out how far you are from your TV stations and buy the correct Antenna. You may have to point some Yagi Antennas if you far from the stations. You can get great reception even at distances of 120miles. If you are that far you will want to mount the Antenna on your roof. In my case Im only between 30-40miles out from the stations, I have one Antenna in the Attic and a second on the Roof feeding 4 tuners for DVR recordings and the TV direct if for any reason we have a computer off. Works great and the picture is better then cable / your not having to deal with the extra compression as its coming straight from the station to your house. If your in a remote area with no major cities near by then you will probaby want to go with Sat, but for everyone in metro areas that doesnt want to pay into the coffers of Comcast etc.. I would strongly recommend you try it. I recommend Silicondust tuners and your favorite DVR software for Windows, Linux or Mac. Win 7 has basics built right in(Media Center) so there isnt much excuse not to experiment a little and see what you can do to save those extra pennies. There are also a lot of plugins and added functionality. Many, Many options out there for anyone who likes to geek around a bit.

  53. James Dukk says

    It’s definitely about getting the right equipment… the right antenna and the right amplifier if needed, along with good coax to get the best reception and signal to your television.

    I own a Winegard indoor antenna which works just great for me, but I’m also only about 20 miles from most of my towers. I had a pre-amp on at first but this was actually overloading my local ABC station so I had to remove it from the equation. I get about 32 channels here in Chicago and while I have not yet pulled the plug on my cable I do really enjoy watching the Bears games over the antenna. Can’t believe the quality without the cable compression.

  54. I’ve had a roof antenna for about 2 years and love it. Iam about 50 miles outside of Boston near the NH border and get around 60 channels. I bought a $75 antenna (pretty big) and a mast mounted amp. The picture quality is great and free. The rest is from Netflix and BlueRay/DVD. Saves around $90/month over satellite.

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