Needing a TV provider, tired of just PBS

[Josh B]

Actually I talked to one of the station managers, he said he didn't care if it came on or not, and he claimed I was the only one who had asked about it

 

[ZMan]

https://www.rabbitears.info/searchmap.php check here to see the channels available in your area.

Also, this is the antenna I use.
HD8200A Long Range VHF/UHF Outdoor HDTV Antenna - 65+ Mile Range https://a.co/d/dF1mxZZ

 

[Josh B]

I was looking at that and scrolled across and it had be a rotator and next over an amplifier, and on over a total of $407 and I hadn't clicked on anything yet. They have very high hopes in me
My sister got another antenna a couple months ago that helped hers a lot, I haven;t spent much time over there lately or asked much about it but said once it was getting good reception, even tho that's a different area than mine

My antenna has an amplifier and is in the attic up about 15 feet, I could probably get another 5 or 10 feet by putting it on top.

Actually I;m beginning to think my amplifier went out

 

[RonD]

Just a heads up
An amplifier can not increase the signal you get from an antenna
The signal at the antenna is as good as the signal gets

An amplifier can keep it from getting worse as it travels down a coax cable to the tuner

i.e. if you have a crappy recording of a song and play it thru a 10,000watt amplifier you get a LOUD crappy song out of the speakers, it can't improve the signal

So biggest antenna for best possible signal at your location is where the money should go
If you are under 75ft of coax cable and just one TV, no amplifier is needed
If you have longer cables runs and multiple TVs using splitters then an amplifier will help

 

[DILLARD000]

My most local stations stopped providing a local signal several years ado, apparently the law was no deterant, and PBS is ok but no local news, weather OR sports.
I just left the DISH website after speaking with an aunt about it, but all they tried to sell me was the internet, which I already get for half of what theirs is.
I'm wondering which way to go with some TV, any suggestions other than shaving my hair and moving to a monastary?

Get a TV with a Roku operating system from Walmart. Use any generic ISP service with a WiFi router to connect to several dozen totally free streaming services, including YouTube and local and national and world news broadcasts. No brainer. Just takes time getting use to searching for what you like to watch. Not a neat orderly lineup of channel numbers like old traditional broadcast or cable or satellite.

 

[Josh B]

I'll work first on finding a local access channel, so even if I do try a Roku or a cable there will still be something that stands alone if necessary.
I think I'll pull that antenna I have apart and check the caps in it to see if any are blown and need replaced, and also try getting it up higher, likely on top the house, hopefully that will also give it a chance at least to find something going on out there, possibly also a larger antenna.
If I can't get nothing to work there I'll likely find a local cable service and get their cheapy special

 

[cbxer55]

I refuse to pay for the TeeVee. Because paying for it means paying for damned commercial interruptions. NEVER.

I use wascally wabbit ears myself. Got plenty of channels to choose from too. Works for me.

 

[Josh B]

Hek, you;re right downtown!

 

[cbxer55]

Me? I live off Air Depot between Reno and NE10th Street.

 

[Bill]

I was looking at that and scrolled across and it had be a rotator and next over an amplifier, and on over a total of $407 and I hadn't clicked on anything yet. They have very high hopes in me
My sister got another antenna a couple months ago that helped hers a lot, I haven;t spent much time over there lately or asked much about it but said once it was getting good reception, even tho that's a different area than mine

My antenna has an amplifier and is in the attic up about 15 feet, I could probably get another 5 or 10 feet by putting it on top.

Actually I;m beginning to think my amplifier went out

The roofing material attenuates the signal by about 3-6 db in the best case. A wet roof will cause additional attenuation. Moving the antenna above the roof will improve signal strength quite a bit. However, with digital tv you have a picture or not. Back in the analog days it made a visible improvement (less snow).

An amplifier is only required for long feed lines where the attenuation in the feedline exceeds a given amount. I prefer losses less than 3 db, but I used to do TV and radio DXing. What really matters is the net signal strengh at the receiver after all losses. If you have strong signals at the antenna 6 db of loss isn't going to matter. If you are in an area with fringe reception you can use an amplifier at the antenna to compensate for the feedline loss, or use feedline with a lower loss. RG-6 has about 5-6 db of loss per 100 ft on the UHF channels. LMR400-75 has a loss of about 3 db per 100 feet, but is much more expensive and so are the connectors. This is assuming you have a quality run of coax. There's some real bad coax out there. You can buy good coax from the sites that sell to hams and two-way radio like Davisrf or therfconnnection. Just make sure it is 75 ohm.

 

[dvdswan]

I use the Firestick and a digital antenna. There are a lot of FREE streaming services, as mentioned before; PlutoTV, TUBI, FreeVee (used to be IMdB) are a few. TUBI give me live local news from all the Seattle channels, but its only news and what they want to provide off news hours. Some just repeat the news until the next news hour. PlutoTV and Tubi are my go to streams, if I want a movie FreeVee does have a pretty good selection.

We pay for the high speed internet and actually got a deal, much lower than when we first quit cable. 3 years ago our cable / internet was about 180 a month and watch maybe 10 channels total. When we drop cable the bill dropped to about 80, the then "deal" we had with the provider ended and it went to 120. Called and locked a deal for 2 years at 40. Just recently renewed at 35 a month.

The digital antenna I get about 35 area channels, mostly fuzzy because where I have the antenna, but the "just in case" internet/power goes out in the area I can still get local news.

The thing is you just need to look/search/decide what services you want to use.

 

[Eddo Rogue]

Firestick or Roku etc...
My internet provider has an app for roku so I can stream some basic cable channels as well. Between yotube and the Spectrum app is plenty of content. I even cancelled my Netflix. My Samsung TV has some built in channels too, so thats 3 sources of content free...except I do pay for the yotube to get no ads, so worth it.

 

[Josh P]

The roofing material attenuates the signal by about 3-6 db in the best case. A wet roof will cause additional attenuation. Moving the antenna above the roof will improve signal strength quite a bit. However, with digital tv you have a picture or not. Back in the analog days it made a visible improvement (less snow).

An amplifier is only required for long feed lines where the attenuation in the feedline exceeds a given amount. I prefer losses less than 3 db, but I used to do TV and radio DXing. What really matters is the net signal strengh at the receiver after all losses. If you have strong signals at the antenna 6 db of loss isn't going to matter. If you are in an area with fringe reception you can use an amplifier at the antenna to compensate for the feedline loss, or use feedline with a lower loss. RG-6 has about 5-6 db of loss per 100 ft on the UHF channels. LMR400-75 has a loss of about 3 db per 100 feet, but is much more expensive and so are the connectors. This is assuming you have a quality run of coax. There's some real bad coax out there. You can buy good coax from the sites that sell to hams and two-way radio like Davisrf or therfconnnection. Just make sure it is 75 ohm.

Those figures are pretty accurate. Every 3.5 dB of attenuation is 50% less signal strength. I served 5 years for the cable company in Phoenix. If you need a cable with less attenuation, look at RG11.

 

[Josh B]

A bleeding signal would be fine, if I had any signal to bleed :/

 

[Josh P]

Free to air satellite has some good channels.