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20 years ago, we decided to get rid of cable TV.

Our young children were starting to watch too much TV, and the price was continuously going up.

At first, I just had a FM antenna on the ceiling connected to the TV. Not the best reception, but it worked.

After a few years, I upgraded to a omnidirectional amplified antenna. Much better reception, but a bit of ghosting problems.

Then I moved a bit farther away from the transmitters. Good time for another upgrade. I bought a Yagi UHF/VHF and put it on a 40ft. pole.

Nice, picture and sound is better quality than cable can deliver.

Then came digital. I lost track of how many people told me that I wouldn't be able to use my antenna with digital. It's amazing how many people believe a totally false claim from the cable company.

Especially when they have an antenna on their roof to pick up the local stations for free, and then compress the signal and sell it to their customers.

With digital allowing for additional channels per station, I now get over 20 channels over the air. People in larger cities would probably have access to even more.

Since most of the specialty channels have a website to stream their shows over the web, anything cable offers, I can get for free, or at a greatly reduced price.

Since cutting the cable, I have saved about 25 thousand dollars, for a total cost of 250 bucks for the antenna(s).

Has anyone else cut the cable? How is your antenna experience going?

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The last time I lived in an apartment where I was in charge of the cable/internet. I got cable/internet through a company - it was nice enough, etc etc. But then I realized that none of us ever watched TV. And the shows we did watch we usually had to end up watching on hulu anyway because we wanted to watch them together and our schedules didn't work out for the original air time.

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actually during that year when I cut cable, one of the roomies was a huge sports junkie (mostly college but also pro - mostly football overall). His attitude was just "if there's a game that I have to see live I'll go to a bar."

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Don't have cable, providers charge far too much for a billion channels that still have NOTHING on them... and the combination of living at the bottom of a hill and having a tin roof on the house means we don't get any antenna signal either. We are netflix and youtube all the way.

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I haven't watched cable for probably 15 years, the last time being when I was in middle school. I think everywhere I've lived cable is available but I find cable productions a waste of time. If there is a series I do find worth watching I can easily find it online on my own time schedule. I doubt I'll ever watch cable for the rest of my life, heh.

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Haven't had cable in ten years +, and even then it was 'borrowed' from a neighbor :whistling: I should do better but something is anmiss with my feedline at the antenna and I haven't bothered to check it since I still get the channels I watch most very well. I need to fix that when I can because when it was right I got about 30 channels, including a couple low-power private local ones :) I watch mostly PBS shows, mainly because I am sick of having commercials crammed down my throat. If I'm watching where they have those I turn it or mute it till they're gone B)

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My problem with getting rid of the cable is that I like to watch live sports. I know I can subscribe to the NHL channel on Roku and perhaps MLB, but not college sports or NFL. Perhaps some of you know how?.

I like the occasional live sports show too.

With a little hunting, you will discover there are a few people on the net that put out very good HD streams of live sports on private channels.

Usually I get the link off Twitter. I don't really use it, just follow people with good streams. Many people who stream stuff communicate the link via Twitter.

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I dumped Dish network when I moved into my aunt and uncles home for a while because they had cable(comcast) and then I moved into my own apartment and the landlord did not allow satellites on her apartment and there were no pack porches so we got comcast. We have had it since. I have wanted to get rid of it for three years but I am outvoted. Why have something you barely use? By that logic I should get rid of Netflix too. Since I never use the DVD service I should consider cancelling it too and just rent at Movie Madness if I ever want to rent something. That is the only video store in town I know that is still around. At least there is no monthly fee.

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Your landlord cannot deny dish TV avtennas in the US unless there is no safe place to mount them anywhere on your private property or the communal property. The only other time they can be denied is if the landlord provides cable. These are Federal FCC rules that apply to everyone anywhere in the US and they have been tested and deemed valid in court. If I get bored I'll try to find the FCC webpage which covers this, but you can probably google the info yourself.

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For "free", go to "www.netflix" website and witness for yourself the future of entertainment delivery around the world. The Wall Street analyst's are betting big on this type of entertainment delivery!

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Yes, eventually "TV" will be a website on the internet and the thing hanging on your wall or in your entertainment center will be a computer. We're coming pretty close already... another decade may see it fully realized.

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Guest diaperboykcmo

I can't live without cable, we have direct tv and it pisses me off when I'm watching a game and the feed goes down!

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Yes, eventually "TV" will be a website on the internet and the thing hanging on your wall or in your entertainment center will be a computer. We're coming pretty close already... another decade may see it fully realized.

That's my home theatre computer!

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Yes, eventually "TV" will be a website on the internet and the thing hanging on your wall or in your entertainment center will be a computer. We're coming pretty close already... another decade may see it fully realized.

The future is already here.

My TV has been a monitor with two feeds for more than 5 years.

In the last 10 years video streaming has gone from barely watchable in a tiny box, to nearly as good as the full HD feed off my antenna.

The quality of the feed depends greatly on the computers putting out the feed. Quite a few people out there have a significant investment in their computers to stream video.

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The future is already here.

My TV has been a monitor with two feeds for more than 5 years.

In the last 10 years video streaming has gone from barely watchable in a tiny box, to nearly as good as the full HD feed off my antenna.

The quality of the feed depends greatly on the computers putting out the feed. Quite a few people out there have a significant investment in their computers to stream video.

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I have cable through my landlord, so I pay $20 which is combined with rent. The only reason I wanted it was so I could get HBO. As soon as I can get HBOgo without having to get cable, I will never need cable again. I also have netflix and amazon prime available to me as well, which is more than enough.

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I can't see cable going away anytime soon..

The cable companies want you to believe that. With current technology no one really needs cable, anything available on cable can be accessed in other ways, and on your own time.

PVR's are also obsolete, with everything ever made now on the net, you don't need to record it yourself, unless it's for the upload.

The main reason I will never have any cable services is the requirement to have TV service before any other service.

Why would I pay for something I don't need and am currently getting for much less cost.

The phone company is much better. I can have internet with no phone service, now that's customer choice.

You can cut the cable, you won't miss that big bill at all. Many people are, last year cable subscriber base decreased for the first time.

Right... there are always pioneers and early adopters, but widespread use of the technology is still another decade or so out.

I wouldn't exactly describe myself as a pioneer or early adopter. More like learner perhaps. When one option is not available, you get more investigational.

I start to think, will that work, and go try it out.

The decade away is because of the sustained misinformation campaigns of the cable companies.

TV broadcasting is over 50 years old, yet more people knew how it worked back in the 1960's, than now.

If you look at pictures of neighborhoods from the '60s you will see an antenna on nearly every house.

The vast majority of people think you cannot put up an antenna and get good TV. The digital change was good for cable, it added to the confusion and provided them with an opportunity to spred erroneous info.

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I gave up on cable almost two years ago - it was just getting to cost too much. Haven't replaced it with OTA because HD sets are also too expensive and not worth it. Honestly, having no TV is not the worst thing to deal with.

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DirecTV work well enough for now because I mainly just watch sports, but I pay more than I'd like. In my current living arrangement there isn't suitable internet, but in a future situation I'll most likely need an ISP and would prefer to substitute internet service for the directv. The internet service will need to have an acceptable bitrate and not attempt metering or capping (that means no AT&T, etc). I'm willing to pay good money for it too. That and subscriptions to whatever online services I need (that's not counting all the free ones) probably wouldn't cost more than what I pay for my directv subscription now, and I'd get internet on top of it. My concern is that the online services need to be things I can do with the web browser and not require proprietary computer software and operating systems I have no plans on ever using.

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I gave up on cable almost two years ago - it was just getting to cost too much. Haven't replaced it with OTA because HD sets are also too expensive and not worth it. Honestly, having no TV is not the worst thing to deal with.

You don't need a HD tv for OTA. All you need is a digital tuner. It could be in the tv, a separate box, or on a computer card.

If you're close to the transmitters, a cheap $20 antenna will do, check out TVFool website http://www.tvfool.com/

to find out what you could pick up.

For best results use rg6 coaxial cable to connect antenna to TV.

Digitalhome http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=81

has very good info about antenna choices for your reception needs.

If you do get a HDTV you will find it's worth it, especially with an antenna, you will receive a full uncompressed signal. Not the compressed crap the cable company sells you. Lower price, better picture, go for it you can't lose. In a hockey game you can seriously count the players chin hairs and see continuous puck motion.

Need help? Just ask in this thread, digital reception is pretty easy, it's all or nothing, no snowy pictures anymore.

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