• Hey Guest!
    British Car Forum has been supporting enthusiasts for over 25 years by providing a great place to share our love for British cars. You can support our efforts by upgrading your membership for less than the dues of most car clubs. There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Upgraded members don't see this banner, nor will you see the Google ads that appear on the site.)
Tips
Tips

Cable cutting tv antenna?

Share this page

NutmegCT

NutmegCT

Great Pumpkin
Bronze
Offline
Just wondering, for those who've dropped cable ... What tv antenna are you using now?

Make/model/indoor vs outdoor, etc.

Thanks!
Tom M.
 
Have 2, both indoor and small about the size of a typing sheet. One is Best Buy labeled the other is RCA. Both under $20 and work well but I am within 10 miles of all our local transmitters, I think.
 
Thanks. I'm about 45 miles from five stations (one transmitter). Using the FCC map I should get clear signal, but don't know what antenna to get.
 
Last edited:
I tried an antenna but I'm too far from a station to get decent reception.
 
Too many trees and hills between us and the transmitters. All internet for us.
 
Flatlander here, two different antennas, the similar ones to what Bayless describes. Both pull in 40+ channels. What is available for viewing is somewhat lame though. Aside from the local news/weather on the network affiliates, it's mostly reruns of old network shows. But certainly worth dropping cable TV for. Most of what's available there is just a more contemporary lame programming, IMHO.

I've contemplating getting a more expensive antenna, one of the "300 mile range" ones but from what I can tell the increased station selection would just be redundant to what we get now. I'll "keep the cheap" antennas. Streaming across broadband internet has better and more selective program choices for us.

Just my tuppence worth.
 
Clever cable company like mine, "bundles" the basic tv, 100mbps internet, and basic phone, for $140 per month. Remove one, the price of the other two goes up. Only thing keeping me from dropping the entire service, is that the cost of internet alone (to allow 'net phone) would be almost the cost of the $140 total I'm paying now.

To keep my tiny remaining bit of sanity, I'd need phone and internet - and my $8.50/month Netflix.

yeesh
 
Yeesh. Sounds a bit monopolistic to me.

Oh, for the days of land-line copper and dial-up...

.not.
 
Update: I bit the bullet, bought an antenna, ran the coax, and ...

I now get 30 stations from the one transmitter in my area. Wow - had no idea that was possible, as my two previous tries all resulted in zero stations found. Antenna is a GE/JJasco 33685, mounted inside, at the southwest window of the second floor.

For me, the local stations (for news and weather), and PBS stations are what I need.

Now the tough part: my $140/mo Spectrum cable bill (tv, internet, phone) no longer needs tv. But the removal of tv only saves me $40/month, and raises the 'net and phone service by $10 each. Bottom line savings is only $20. Wonder if there's a cheaper ISP, so I can get basic 'net and use a 'net phone.

hmmm
 
Although I dropped cable TV over 2 years ago and saved $100/month I finally dropped the phone a couple of months ago. Provider is still having a hard time figuring out exactly what my bill should be. It better be a t least $25 less than it last was. I do have an alternative. AT&T is really pushing their fibre optic internet at somewhat less than my current cable. I can always threaten that or even make the move.
 
Thanks. Would you be having ATT internet and phone? or just internet, and using a 'net phone?
 
I would say that if Canadia is anything to go by there are literally no deals during covid time - admittedly we have monopolies here so the cost is crazy expensive at the best of times
 
Last edited:
Dropped the land line entirely. Only use cell phone now and satisfied with that. The only calls we ever got on the land line were those stinking robo calls. Only reason I kept it after dropping cable TV was sentimental. Had that number since 1970.
 
Bayless said:
Dropped the land line entirely. Only use cell phone now and satisfied with that. The only calls we ever got on the land line were those stinking robo calls. Only reason I kept it after dropping cable TV was sentimental. Had that number since 1970.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Completely forgot about my cell phone, altho' service in this neck o' the woods can be dodgy at times. Could you share what you pay monthly for internet, and for what speed?
 
Bayless said:
Dropped the land line entirely. Only use cell phone now and satisfied with that. The only calls we ever got on the land line were those stinking robo calls. Only reason I kept it after dropping cable TV was sentimental. Had that number since 1970.
Click to expand...
Kinda similar here except, while we don't have the land line, we did keep the number and have it ported to a VOIP phone. One of these days I'll probably drop the number and the VOIP as well - like you 99% of our calls are robots spam.
 
I thought about VOIP just to keep the number but figured it would just be a continuation of those same robo calls.
I am currently on Cox Cable for internet only so I lost my "bundle Discounts," about $25/month IIRC. As I said, they seem to be having a hard time getting the bill straight but I say it should be about $80/month, still more than I like. As for speed, I am quite happy with that. On the average of several different tests run just now, I get 170Mbps down and 10Mbps up. That is probably more than I really need.
 
I live in a very challanging area reception wise - I ended up making my own antenna because none of the affordable ones sold at the various stores seemed to do well on reception. I ended up using a 12ft grey 4-inch PVC conduit and put an array of 8 V shaped whiskers at the top. It works quite well, but it is directional. If I aim it one way I can get most of the channels from one city (20 or so miles away), and if I aim it about 70 degrees different I can get the channels from another city about 40 miles away. There is no orientation that lets me have both, and using 2 paired together does not work either because they seem to cancel each other out. The pole/antenna setup is removable so when I'm not home I lay it flat on the ground to reduce the risk of getting popped by lightning. There is no cable or internet where I live so streaming is not an option.
 
Yakko - why not use two antennas, with a coax switch? Something like:

coax switch.jpg
 
I thought about one of those - I normally use a small off-the-air digital tuner box that can record directly to a USB drive (kind of like an HD VCR without the C) because I'm never home when what I'd want to watch is on, and theres no easy way to auto switch between antennas. The main reason I'd want to switch to the city 40 miles away is because they have a full time weather channel. So for now I set up an old TV on an antenna that gets that channel (its not something I'd want to record for later viewing) and just go in the other room to check the weather status when needed.
 
Back
Top