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Aug 16, 2019
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For quite a while I've been using WiFi TV with Roku and a 32" LED TV. It comes in great and gets so many stations that I don't think I'd ever get to see them all in my lifetime for the amount of time I spend watching TV. Before that I used an antenna mounted on a 6' pole outside my living room window. Then after a while with WiFi TV I decided to remove the pole and antenna. But lately I've gotten interested in antenna TV again, so I can get the 3 local channels and more with an antenna. So today I hooked up an 18' piece of TV antenna cable to the TV, with an adapter screwed in to the end of it, and a 32" piece of speaker wire at the end of that, and hung it up over a curtain rod, and I now get about 10 stations with that. The image quality is HD and seems better than most things I get on WiFi TV.

I may get an amplified antenna. The amazon reviews say they work great, and I'm supposed to be able to get about 45 stations from right here.
Now I'm going to cancel FRNDLY TV, which costs me about $9 a month.

I don't know why but antenna TV seems better quality than WiFi / Roku TV.
Maybe I'll watch them both, but at least I'll have the evening news on NBC, CBS, and ABC.
 
I’m heading that way-Spectrum just jacked up their unreliable, borderline worthless internet/TV package by 25%, & Disney/ESPN tried to renew me at TRIPLE my existing yearly price (canceled them quick). Going to try T-Mobile wireless 5G, and will likely pay off the Spectrum Mobile cellphone, I’m honestly tired of Spectrum’s lousy, slow service! Shopping for a new HTDV OTA antenna as well-$21/month for “broadcast TV surcharge” would buy a really nice new one…
 
I'm pretty impressed with the $10 antenna and $150 40" TV I picked up at Best Buy this fall. The TV is 1080p, but I think the antenna picks up 1080i. Picture quality is very good, and a $0 cable bill is super nice. I don't watch too much TV, but it's nice to have on for background once in a while. I get around 40 channels or so, I think, but rarely watch any of the non-majors (there are a lot of filler stations that make up the 40 or so).

My last apartment included cable and internet, but the current one does not... I'm using that antenna for TV, and paying $10 for hotspot access on Verizon via my phone, rather than getting home internet, since I'm a pretty light user (I just checked the speeds, and I'm getting 140mbps on my MacBook via my iPhone).

It works for me, and the total cost is just $10/month above what I'd be paying Verizon for having the phone, which I'd certainly do anyway. I'd rather spend the savings on something else - a big cable package isn't a high value item to me at all.
 
I found indoor tv antenna shopping to be difficult. I tried a "highly rated" sub $20 antenna first and was not impressed. My son bought me a well regarded Winegard antenna and it seems mediocre also. I live in a rural, fringe suburban area with good channels available within 10 to 40 miles. What am I doing wrong?

 
Check out antennas from well known manufacturers like Winegard, Channel Master, and Televes.

I live about 40 miles (as a crow flies) north of Boston and use a Channel Master Omni+ mounted on a 5 foot mast on my shed, (it was easier for me to get up there than my roof, and I’m afraid of heights 😳) I also use a Channel Master pre amp.

It’s a small and compact antenna and unless the weather is terrible, all the main local and sub channels come in great (60-75% strength). Sometimes I even get Maine and RI stations. There’s almost 70 of them available, but a lot of those are repeats or stations I don’t care about and I only programmed in about 35 of them.

In addition to Sling TV, I get just about everything I got with cable for less than half the price, actually much less than half the price.


Just don’t but this hunk of junk from Amazon:

37B458F3-6564-463E-BE49-D08BB7ACEC2A.jpeg
 
Meez no understando yooz engleesh
The Antenna Man does not like that cheap antenna found on Amazon (the picture that I posted, sold under a variety of brands) He’s always saying not to buy it, but people buy it anyway. It’s main problem, besides poor build quality, is the internal amp. If (when) it goes bad, the entire antenna is useless.
 
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I found indoor tv antenna shopping to be difficult. I tried a "highly rated" sub $20 antenna first and was not impressed. My son bought me a well regarded Winegard antenna and it seems mediocre also. I live in a rural, fringe suburban area with good channels available within 10 to 40 miles. What am I doing wrong?
You're gonna need a bigger boat.

I have a rectangle antenna 4x that big, an arrow-style antenna 20x that big, and mounted 20 feet high but indoors they can get a taste of channels 90 miles away but on a stormy day they might have a little trouble at 20 miles. Pretty flat land.

I've used some nice rabbit ear antennas, and those would get most of the 20-mile-away stations but not all, and even the better stations could be iffy.

Also, some tuners are better than others. Between built-in TV tuners and various TV tuners I've used in a computer, there can be a noticeable difference in how they perform.
 
Check out antennas from well known manufacturers like Winegard, Channel Master, and Televes.

I live about 40 miles (as a crow flies) north of Boston and use a Channel Master Omni+ mounted on a 5 foot mast on my shed, (it was easier for me to get up there than my roof, and I’m afraid of heights 😳) I also use a Channel Master pre amp.

It’s a small and compact antenna and unless the weather is terrible, all the main local and sub channels come in great (60-75% strength). Sometimes I even get Maine and RI stations. There’s almost 70 of them available, but a lot of those are repeats or stations I don’t care about and I only programmed in about 35 of them.

In addition to Sling TV, I get just about everything I got with cable for less than half the price, actually much less than half the price.


Just don’t but this hunk of junk from Amazon:

View attachment 134027
That looks like the Lava I put at my camp to hit a TV antenna farm 70 miles away … and similar distance for clear FM radio reception … but, had to build a Loop antenna for AM radio …
 
Most of the channels are on the UHF band anyway. You can even use an old school UHF antenna. I have been using an ancient outdoor antenna from the 70's which I rubbish picked about 10 years ago. I pick up 66 channels presently. You don't need to have a so called "DTV" antenna which is just a marketing term.
 
If you only need UHF, the small and inexpensive bowtie type antenna works great. If you need VHF it gets more complicated. I'm still a fan of old-school Yagis for that. Check sites like antennaweb to see which RF channels your local TV stations broadcast on. The RF channel is seldom the same as the advertised channel number.

I installed a Winegard 2200 some time ago and found it was very good for VHF, but they seem to be discontinued now. It was the dipole and amplifier section of a Winegard crank up RV antenna, sold with a stationary mount.
 
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