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You Have Netflix, Hulu, and the Rest - You Just Need This $20 HDTV Antenna to Replace Cable

MULTIZ321

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You Have Netflix, Hulu, and the Rest - You Just Need This $20 HDTV Antenna to Replace Cable
By Team Commerce/ Mashable Deals/ Mashable/ mashable.com

"These days, it seems like every card-carrying millennial has cut the cord and embraced the cable-free lifestyle. At first, it seems fun and exciting. But after a while it can be frustrating to miss out on some of the "regular" channels.

You yearn for some old-fashioned broadcast channels, but your new Netflix/Amazon/Instagram-only media diet has made this impossible. Fortunately, you can now easily get live TV without paying a monthly fee thanks to this Indoor HDTV Antenna...."

https%3A%2F%2Fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fcard%2Fimage%2F729264%2Fa5ccfef7-1971-4cc3-a5ed-c7dee22f6bcf.png

Spend $16 once instead of a monthly cable bill.
Image: Neva Tech

Richard
 

Passepartout

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Boy, I wish I could use this. Problem is there is no line-of-sight to the broadcast site. I'm getting tired of paying $300/month for our cable TV and internet at 2 residences. It's usury!
 

SmithOp

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Indoor HDTV antennas are about as good as the old rabbit ears with foil. You are better off getting a real outdoor antenna and pointing it in the right direction. I put one up at my father-in-laws house and he gets all kinds of channels with no digital pixelation (what we used to call snow/ghosts on analog channels), he is the envy of the neighborhood because most people don’t buy the correct one and orient the direction for maximum signal strength.

I use this web site:

http://www.antennaweb.org/Address


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
 

Ken555

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DaveNV

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I think it depends on where you live. I tried one of those for my guest room, to save on the rental cost for a cable box in a room that rarely gets used. I got a maximum of about four channels reliably, and five or six others once in awhile. Very sketchy coverage. I returned it. (Thanks, Costco!)

I ended up buying a Roku that connects to my home network, and left it at that. Not the best answer, but at this point it has paid for itself in rental cable box savings.

Dave
 

Ken555

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I think it depends on where you live. I tried one of those for my guest room, to save on the rental cost for a cable box in a room that rarely gets used. I got a maximum of about four channels reliably, and five or six others once in awhile. Very sketchy coverage. I returned it. (Thanks, Costco!)

I ended up buying a Roku that connects to my home network, and left it at that. Not the best answer, but at this point it has paid for itself in rental cable box savings.

Dave

Actually, I use Roku most of the time. The indoor antenna is only when I need it. But, it works well. And yeah, I bought it at Costco! :)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

easyrider

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I started out many years ago with a 10 ft dish and c-band receiver. Two years latter Dish was the thing so after another couple of years we went with Dish. Switched to Direct and back to Dish every couple of years for the upgrades and new subscriber deal. Finally, just a few years ago, I bought a roof top antenna that gets all of the major networks and some others. I think I get 17 stations all together. I then bought a Tivo so I can record 180 hours of programs and skip commercials.

My newest Tivo was $300 with a life time subscription. The Tivo has the ability to stream Amazon, Netfix, Hulu, You Tube and many other apps. I have Amazon with my prime membership. I have Netfix. I really like live news and sports feeds on you tube. I think I watch you tube more than the other apps.

I recieved a Ipad last Christmas and loaded Movie Box so I could watch shows on the airplane. I found that I can stream these movies and tv programs to my tv. Currently we are watching Game of Thrones.

Anyway, I really don't miss the dish.

Bill
 

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Got me a 17’ antenna in the attic (out of the wind and weather), allows me to get 10 channels perfectly, and another 30 or so on clear nights from 100 miles away (Dallas). I use an hdhomerun tuner along with mythtv (free) to record anything I want, up to 6 channels at once. So, its a dvr in essence, can watch recordings (and skip commercials) in any room, on roku, atv, remotely, ipad, kodi, whatever. Stored on iMac hard drive. Loving it. Quality is superb. Will be cancelling satellite at year end and “cable” free.

Indoor antennas can be fine in many urban settings, but I am rural. I did use antennaweb to figure out my best shot at getting the channels I wanted and it gave me exactly the right choices.
 

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I have an outdoor antenna and a FireTV. My outdoor antenna gets about 20 channels with a great picture. My only subscription I pay for is PlayStation Vue. Really happy with everything and I pay about $100 less a month.
 

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Internet based TV is coming to many areas. Youtube TV is one I'm thinking about. I think it's $35 a month and seems to have everything I might want. I'm currently using indoor rabbit ears and get plenty of stations but I do like some sports I can't get over the air.
 

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Internet based TV is coming to many areas. Youtube TV is one I'm thinking about. I think it's $35 a month and seems to have everything I might want. I'm currently using indoor rabbit ears and get plenty of stations but I do like some sports I can't get over the air.

sure, internet TV is in every area that gets internet but who provides your internet access ?
$35 might be good for TV stations but if you have to pay cable ... "the cord" for internet access it's probably not better than the current cable bundle packages
 

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I would like to use this on my porch, will it work?
 

slip

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sure, internet TV is in every area that gets internet but who provides your internet access ?
$35 might be good for TV stations but if you have to pay cable ... "the cord" for internet access it's probably not better than the current cable bundle packages

I would look into it if I were you. My son has a basic internet package with cable and it’s only $30. The savings can still be substantial.
 

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I would look into it if I were you. My son has a basic internet package with cable and it’s only $30. The savings can still be substantial.

I have, 'basic internet' and a cable TV package cost a lot more than $30 / month in eastern Virginia
it's easy to get over the air antenna TV here but there are only two cable internet providers in Virginia and they charge a hefty premium if you just get internet with no TV
 
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slip

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I have, 'basic internet' and a cable TV package cost a lot more than $30 / month in eastern Virginia
it's easy to get over the air antenna TV here but there are only two cable internet providers in Virginia and they charge a hefty premium if you just get internet with no TV

We live in a small town with only one provider and for just the internet my son pays $30 a month. Then watches YouTube and Amazon because he is a prime member.
 

slip

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I don’t even include the price of internet into my tv watching because I had that for decades while I still had a cable or Dish bill.
 

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I use a $20 indoor amplified ant and it works just fine to pull in my locals. Unlike the old rabbit ears, when you pull in a digital signal, you don’t keep fiddling with it to get your best pic. It’s locked. And looks great.

Like I posted in another thread our bill went from $135 a month for tv alone to $45 for all the channels we really wanted. We use a Tablo DVR to record all of our locals and are really enjoying cutting the cord after 3 months.
 

carl2591

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in the next year the new HDTV will be amazing. Clark howard was at CES in las vegas in early feb and there are a lot of new cool thing coming with OTA tv.. now this is not internet but this will allow cell towers to use some of the spectrum to help with cell data congestion. stay tuned as this rolls out. It was all the rage at CES this year according to many attendees.
 

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sure, internet TV is in every area that gets internet but who provides your internet access ?
$35 might be good for TV stations but if you have to pay cable ... "the cord" for internet access it's probably not better than the current cable bundle packages
The Youtube TV just recently became available to my city and yes, you need internet access for it to work. In my case I pay $50/month to AT&T for a land line and internet. I have that whether or not I get any TV service so the TV will only cost me $35 if I choose to get it. It looks tempting but I'm on the thrifty side so haven't pulled the trigger yet.
 

csxjohn

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I use a $20 indoor amplified ant and it works just fine to pull in my locals. Unlike the old rabbit ears, when you pull in a digital signal, you don’t keep fiddling with it to get your best pic. It’s locked. And looks great.

Like I posted in another thread our bill went from $135 a month for tv alone to $45 for all the channels we really wanted. We use a Tablo DVR to record all of our locals and are really enjoying cutting the cord after 3 months.
I've tried different styles of indoor antennas, amplified and non amplified and none will lock the signal in. I live close enough to the stations but am in a river valley and have probs with some stations.

What brand and model are you using, one more trip to the return desk won't matter now.
 

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ive tried about 5 different ota antennas....bigoll metal ones...small ones that are supposed to sit on the entertainment center...and i currently have two of the "amplified" leaf antennas.

the leafs sofar have provided the best quality, but they are SUPER finicky about direction...even a few degrees off left or right and ill lose half the local channels (despite all of them broadcasting from the same general direction relative to the house).

im convinced that brick or concrete block is a huge impact on signal reception and plan to relocate one of the leafs into the attic....hopefully that will improve things significantly by eliminating an entire wall of brick that the ota signal has to travel thru to get to the leaf antenna.

it was only 20 bucks on amazon...i notice absolutely zero difference between the powered and unpowered leaf antennas though.
 

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ive tried about 5 different ota antennas....bigoll metal ones...small ones that are supposed to sit on the entertainment center...and i currently have two of the "amplified" leaf antennas.

the leafs sofar have provided the best quality, but they are SUPER finicky about direction...even a few degrees off left or right and ill lose half the local channels (despite all of them broadcasting from the same general direction relative to the house).

im convinced that brick or concrete block is a huge impact on signal reception and plan to relocate one of the leafs into the attic....hopefully that will improve things significantly by eliminating an entire wall of brick that the ota signal has to travel thru to get to the leaf antenna.

it was only 20 bucks on amazon...i notice absolutely zero difference between the powered and unpowered leaf antennas though.

If you do the attic thing (not quite as good as in the elements but not a lot worse and you don't have to worry about ice, wind, hail, whatever), get as big a one as will fit (assuming you have challenges with receiving) allowing for the direction it will need to point. In our case, we used a stacked antenna as we had tons of height, just not a lot of width so to speak. We get signals from 3 different directions just fine. 2 of those 3 are within 40 miles, so, we didn't have to worry about which direction to point for those. Instead, we pointed at Dallas as we wanted to get stations there over 100 miles away. We still have full signals on the other 2 directions we are not pointed at. Amplified can be useful in an attic install as you typically might divide up the single antenna feed to multiple tvs or devices, each splitter costs signal loss which the amplifier overcomes. It's a one time cost. I think the antenna was ~$150 or so. My neighbor has skimped on a few attempts with indoor antennas, but, has not achieved our result with a lot more hassle! After a few years he still does not have a working installation.
 

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We actually purchased one of these at Costco yesterday, before realizing that the TV in our new furnished condo only has one coax port. We get about fifty SD channels from the wall, but I wanted to get the locals in HD for sports purposes. To Amazon I go to research alternatives...
 

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I've tried different styles of indoor antennas, amplified and non amplified and none will lock the signal in. I live close enough to the stations but am in a river valley and have probs with some stations.

What brand and model are you using, one more trip to the return desk won't matter now.

This is the one I purchased. My locals are only 20 miles away but my PBS station is 35 miles away and this won’t pick it up. It’s more about line of sight to it than distance IMO.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076CHKHBW/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 

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ive often wondered if the different stations pump out the signals at different power settings at different times of the day.

while i can get say fox and cbs at any time, with the antenna pointed in just about any direction....abc and nbc require near pinpoint accuracy to come in...and ive noticed that the latter two come in fine during prime time...but late at night or during the afternoon ill get no signal (despite the leaf having not moved one bit...its fixed in place in one room).

according to the cordcutter app, all 4 of the major networks broadcast from downtown, which is some 15 miles away from me all in the same direction...i cant think of any other reason why two would come in great..and the other two always so spotty or not at all unless the antenna is adjusted.
 
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