Anybody use OTA TV?

[BWR1953]

My cable bill has gotten nuts. I'm researching Over the Air TV again. I live a fair distance from most commercial TV stations and have been looking at antennas and whatnot.

Anybody still doing it 60s style?

 

[matt167]

My mom does. About 60 miles. She gets about 20 stations with a large old school antenna. The digital channels allow each station to broadcast up to 5 sub channels I think so it’s a lot

 

[dingbat]

My cable bill has gotten nuts. I'm researching Over the Air TV again. I live a fair distance from most commercial TV stations and have been looking at antennas and whatnot.

Anybody still doing it 60s style?

Replaced cable long ago with streaming.
Have broadcast TV as well but signal gets broken up with wind and rain events. Only use to watch local News

 

[briangcc]

We stream as I have no earthly clue where the outside roof mounted antenna wires terminate. Wasn't disclosed during sale and I highly doubt it still functions. I'm going to have it removed when we have the roof redone next year.

 

[alldodge]

Wish I lived close enough for OTA reception

 

[cptbill]

Been on OTA TV for a couple years now, we us a power boaster/splitter for 3 TV's and generally pull in 70-90 channels. We're about 50 or so miles nw of Tampa. Also have roku TV's and don't miss cable at all or spectrum's bills

 

[BWR1953]

Been on OTA TV for a couple years now, we us a power boaster/splitter for 3 TV's and generally pull in 70-90 channels. We're about 50 or so miles nw of Tampa. Also have roku TV's and don't miss cable at all or spectrum's bills

What kind of antenna setup do you have?

 

[redneck joe]

most new tvs have lots of built in free stuff. My samsung tablet does as well. I am in MO with family and they do ROKU and they appear to have a good choice.

 

[1960 Starflite]

Never had satellite, never had cable, never had Internet programs. I remember not having a Television until 7 years old. Yep, I'm old, 77. My OTA 22-27 channels is a bonus from the 50's 3 black and white shows.

 

[BWR1953]

Never had satellite, never had cable, never had Internet programs. I remember not having a Television until 7 years old. Yep, I'm old, 77. My OTA 22-27 channels is a bonus from the 50's 3 black and white shows.

I'm 71 and have had them all. I'm quite capable of operating all of them and frequently use streaming services, but the pricing keeps going up and it's just getting nuts. Hence, the idea of checking out OTA again.

I remember as a kid living in Virginia, going up on top of our big, really old house and rotating the antenna... in the snow. It's amazing that I managed not slipping off that snow-covered roof!

 

[BWR1953]

most new tvs have lots of built in free stuff. My samsung tablet does as well. I am in MO with family and they do ROKU and they appear to have a good choice.

Yeah, my TCL also offers quite a variety... of stuff I don't watch. My cable company is offering an a la carte option of 15 stations, but that doesn't quite match up with our viewing habits. And even so, it only cuts our bill by about $80 a month. And I'm a big-time DVR user and record pretty much everything I watch.

I've considered trying going with no home cable and internet and just using 5G phone. But, I'd have to get a 5G phone for that and am not sure what kind of coverage and data rate I'd get.

Still researching.

 

[cptbill]

What kind of antenna setup do you have?

It's from Walmart, looks like an 8 and then I have a cheap china splitter/amp. You can use just about any of the amped slitters, my neighbor has the same ant. but he uses a different splitter but both of ours came from amazon

 

[alldodge]

OTA is line of sight, so take into account the curvature of the earth and then if your in a hole or behind a hill, these things all take distance from station

 

[BWR1953]

It's from Walmart, looks like an 8 and then I have a cheap china splitter/amp. You can use just about any of the amped slitters, my neighbor has the same ant. but he uses a different splitter but both of ours came from amazon

Do you use a power rotator?

 

[BWR1953]

OTA is line of sight, so take into account the curvature of the earth and then if your in a hole or behind a hill, these things all take distance from station

Yeah, I'm 50 or more miles from stations, so that will influence the height of my antenna. I'm a little concerned about that height factor since I live in the lightning capital of the US.

 

[aspeck]

Amazon.com

Check out the Superbox. Will get you anything you want from all around the world. Initial outlay of $220, but that is it. No monthly fees.

 

[BWR1953]

I'm watching videos of it now. Interesting.

Current price is $359. But that's less than 2 months of my cable bill.

This video gives the basics and some unnecessary tech stuff, but he provides a link to a channel list.

 

[aspeck]

The one in the Amazon link is "last year's model" and sells for $220. It is definitely good enough ... the S3 is fine. The downside is it only does 1 feed at a time ... can't watch 2 different shows at same time and there is no DVR because of legalities. If the show or sporting event is on any streaming service, you can watch it with this in real time.

 

[nola mike]

The one in the Amazon link is "last year's model" and sells for $220. It is definitely good enough ... the S3 is fine. The downside is it only does 1 feed at a time ... can't watch 2 different shows at same time and there is no DVR because of legalities. If the show or sporting event is on any streaming service, you can watch it with this in real time.

I couldn't tell from the description what exactly they're selling here. In the past these were basically pirating content, idk if that's the case here or not. I have a rooftop antenna and home made dvr system that's accessible to any device on my network. Also for free content Samsung TV and Pluto are pretty good. Sports are a little trickier. I've been getting free MLB.tv with t-mobile for years now.

 

[redneck joe]

does tivo still work for dvr stuff?