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Life Without Cable and Attempting to Watch Local Stations
LibraryBoy
Posts: 1,803
A few months back we ditched cable and went just internet and Roku. Before we could try and figure out how to watch local stuff still (I need my CBS Sunday Morning), my wife broke her ankle and we had to go live in her grandparents' house for 3 months while she healed and couldn't walk upstairs. Now we're back in our house and ready to tackle the TV problem again. The question is, do we need one of those big outdoor aerials to watch the local channels, or can we get by with just a set-top digital antenna? After the winter we had, the last thing I wanna do is tempt fate by climbing up on the roof to do anything!
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Zhurrie
Posts: 617
Ahh, this is an area of a useless specialty of mine, antennas! I am cable/dish free and get tons of channels over the air and also a Roku and Amazon Prime acct. I'll never go back. This will help me more than anything to help you properly, complete this and post your results for me to see: http://www.tvfool.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29
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Any antenna recommendations?
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If you only want to get the stations in the 12 mile away range you can use almost any good antenna that covers both UHF and also at least the high VHF. You could probably get away with even installing it in your attic (inside) to keep from having to go on the roof. I will say that on the roof is always best though, but for only 12 miles and LOS you might even get away with a small indoor antenna with solid specs. A smaller Antennacraft HBU22 could probably get everything 12 and 40 mile stations and at around like $30-40.
You could pair it with a ChannelMaster CM777 amp to maximize everything but I'd probably hold off until you see if the antenna alone is enough.
You could go with a larger Antennacraft HBU33 or even 44 (which is pretty big) the 44 could maybe still fit *in* an attic but it might be tough. On a roof these would probably catch a ton of channels both in front and back for quite a long range.
If all of the channels you want (and you are sure) are UHF only, then you could go with a more attic-friendly square DB4 or DB8 or ClearStream4.
Hope that helps! Feel free to ask if you have questions.
LOS = line of sight meaning you have a direct path. 1Edge means that the signal is reflected once between you and the source or some similar interruption. 2Edge means it is being reflected or impeded at two points. Tropo means that the signal is basically bouncing off of the atmosphere and some of it bleeds into your area but it is most likely really weak and spotty based on weather and other conditions.
The higher the frequency the shorter the wavelengths which is good for penetrating into like an attic or an indoor antenna, but worse for covering distance. (AM radio uses long, slow waves, which are subject to interference and penetrate poorly, but can cover great distances... and tropo would be like how at night or certain times you might get a station from really far away but not always.)
A couple of networks make it hard, though. Cartoon Network, for one. If I wanna see Young Justice or the DC Nation shorts, I have to hope someone posted 'em to YouTube and I can catch them before they're taken down. HBO is a tough one, too. We like Game of Thrones, and a guy we want to college with is in that new show Veep, so we want to see those but it looks like we'll have to wait. Too bad you can't subscribe to *just* HBO Go.
Who needs Nathan Summers? ;))