I just cut my satellite TV cord!!

[SherrieT]

I'd been planning to do it for a long time but this time I finally did it. My new billing service starts tomorrow so I told them to cut it off then. I can't believe how much I was spending on channels that I never watched/listened to.

Now off to check HD antennae so I can get my local channels for just the price of the antennae

Sherrie

 

[Capvin]

I would be interested to hear how you do with an antenae and what type you wind up with. I have DirecTV and feel the same as you do. Because we have a large house with a lot of rooms we have six boxes that we pay $11.00 per month for them alone. Even though we have pretty much basic since we have HD the bill is high. We live out in the woods and we do not have cable service otherwise I would switch to cable. Our only options are sattelite or antennae.

 

[SherrieT]

I'm in town so I'm thinking that I won't need as powerful one as you might.
Going to be doing a lot of experimenting. Hope to have a decent set up by the weekend for football!

 

[Darin115]

We didn't cut it off completely but we did cut the movie channels and went back to the $39 package. It was $89 a month and we don't watch much tv.

We had a month of Netflix free. We are loving it so far and may decide to cut the satellite bill by going to basic channels and keeping Netflix.

We got fed up of cable and switched to satellite. Now we are getting tire of satellite.

Darin

 

[Imp]

I haven't had cable in 25 years.
With just a roof antenna, I get 34 channels
of which 4 have poor reception
during windy weather maybe 8 have bad reception
About 18 are channels I do not watch for various reasons
So I have about 12 channels I get and I like.

Imp- I'm in the burbs SE of Seattle, and get channels from Seattle, Everett, Tacoma, and Olympia Wa.

 

[BoltonChicken]

I would be interested to hear how you do with an antenae and what type you wind up with. I have DirecTV and feel the same as you do. Because we have a large house with a lot of rooms we have six boxes that we pay $11.00 per month for them alone. Even though we have pretty much basic since we have HD the bill is high. We live out in the woods and we do not have cable service otherwise I would switch to cable. Our only options are sattelite or antennae.

After several decades of dealing with cable, etc., I have found that DirectTV is by far the best. The idea here though, is not to go berserk and put a TV in every bathroom and closet. We use one HD TV and watch it in our living area. In the bedroom we read and sleep. Success with outside antennae will depend entirely on how close you are to the broadcasting station and how hilly the terrain is. More than 20 miles over flat ground is about maximum for a good signal.

 

[fuzziebutt]

I had to quit work a couple of years ago, and have been trying to get my disability started. I called DirecTv on told them that we just can't afford the 60 bucks a month with everything else we have to pay. They applied some discounts, and we now have to pay 45 bucks a month, for a year. I am going to see if CenturyLink will bundle DirecTv and wireless internet, and do away with the phone. Magic Jack looks good. We have an antenna that we use in the bedrooms, and we get 4 channels really well, and we live about 60 rural miles from the closest station. More when the weather is good an it's not windy. AND I finally got approved for my disability!!

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

We just cancelled our Dish Network a week or two ago!

 

[SherrieT]

Picked up an indoor antenna from Best Buy tonight and it showed me that I'm going to need an oustside one. Going to take this one back tomorrow.But I am amazed at the channels that it did get are coming in so incredible and in HD!!

 

[dirtsaver]

When we moved back to the country 20 years ago we did not have anything available other than antenna TV. Yes it was rough not having things like 24hr weather channels but we soon found there was plenty to keep us busy. We really didn't miss cable that much.

Fast Forward 20 years....to the arrival of Digital TV. We bought the convertor boxes from Wally World with our Govt issued vouchers.....and found......almost zip,nada,zilch,dead air! I already had a good antenna up(100 mile range outdoor antenna from Radio Shack) and since we only like 50 miles out of Louisville we should have been ok. I invested another $70 in a TV signal amplifier, them more $ in signal splitters to have one TV in the living room and one in the bedroom. That got us about 5 channels(not counting sub-channels) but still not great reception. And where I had no issues with my ham radio gear causing TVI before,anytime I tried to transmit I wiped out both TVs.


Anyway, I researched and experimented for almost a year and finally cured the problems. First, I threw out the DTV convertor from WalMart and got a better one from Best Buy. After that I could do away with the preamp system and still got more channels AND better reception than before...plus... no more interference from my ham radio gear even at max power! I also added an antenna rotor to turn the antenna toward other cities for more channels. We can now get channels from stations in Louisville Ky,Cincy Ohio and some Indiana cities. Our best stations are less than 50 miles away but we can get others farther out.

One last thing....we bought ourselves a flat-panel LCD-LED TV for Christmas and we have even better reception going straight to the TV instead of routing through the digital convertor so if you have a TV that has the built-in digital you should have no problems since you are close to town.