Cutting the Cable Bill?

Not long ago, we finally retired our old trusty Panasonic 27″ CRT television and upgraded to a new Panasonic 50″ Plasma. Unfortunately HD programming is needed to see the difference, and I could count the number of HD channels available by Comcast with my toes. Hence I ask myself the question, why pay for all this when it’s all available for free over the air? So I went on a little quest to try finding a way to save on cable bill.

First, I investigated what I can pick up from where I live, and for that, I found a nice web site, antennaweb.org that, given my location, revealed what channels I should receive as well as the direction of the stations. I later found that tvfool.com gave even better information, but either one works. After typing in my address, I found that I had all the local stations I wanted, but Fox would be very weak, so that would be my limiting factor.

Next, I tried hooking up some antennas. According to the web, all I need is any old UHF loop-style antenna, so I dug around my cobweb-filled garage and found an old Radio Shack UHF/VHF antenna…

When I tried it, the number of stations I got were limited and the signal strength wasn’t great. So I did some research on indoor antennas and found that the Philips Silver Sensor was a great indoor antenna. I didn’t find them being sold locally, and given that I wanted to be able to return it if it doesn’t work well, I ended up with an antenna with a similar design, the Terk HDTVa.

This antenna worked well, and if I pointed it at a specific location, I was able to pick up FOX. There was one issue, however, which was that it was directional and there was no spot that would pick up all channels. Given that I had a Tivo HD, which is always recording, I needed an antenna I don’t need to move.

Then I tried the omni-directional Terk TV-5, which is not as directional, but it was weaker and also was very sensitive to the degree of rotation of the antenna. Given that I still had to rotate the antenna, it might as well have been a directional antenna.

Finally I found the antenna that gave me all the stations…

The Radio Shack Indoor/Outdoor Antenna, 15-2187. It had great reviews, and given the size, it had a larger surface area, I decided to give it a try. Voila! I now have a spot where it picks up all channels! There’s still some occasional breakup on a channel during rainy days, but it’s certainly a whole lot better than the smaller indoor antennas. Despite some web sites mentioned that the higher the better, I found that the prime spot for picking up Fox was right on the ground next to the TV. It certainly isn’t the designer furniture I was looking for, but with it only half visible, it was acceptable, even to Karen.

I have currently hooked up the antenna to my Tivo have given it a trial run for a few days, and so far so good. As long as the antenna has a lock on the station, the picture is perfect because it is digital. Now with the writer’s strike, the original programming options are more limited, so this is the perfect time to cut the cable bill… completely!