When TV Was Free

[Carol Dee]

I don't think antennas work here. A couple of years ago any time you had TV on announcement would be made that has of certain date you would no longer be able to use antennas. While I dont watch a lot of TV I always have it on for background noise. Think it has to do with living alone. I do like netflix its cheap and I get to decide what I will watch.

If you have a newer television and the proper digital antenna set up you should be good. We had to get an adapter for our old set up.

 

[Carol Dee]

We have a digital antennae that sits next to the tv.
There are lots of different types (check Amazon) and I have tried 3 or 4. The one we have now does an ok job, but they are finicky if you live a few dozen miles from the closest transmitter. There can be as little as a micrometer difference in position as to whether the signal comes in or not. This can be frustrating if there is something you're actually interested in watching. There have been times I have fiddled with that darn antennae, slowly rotating it, lifting it up or down, moving it sideways until I get a picture. There is a button on the antennae remote that lets you check for signal strength.
Sometimes I'll be messing around with it, holding the antennae head high and holler for my husband to grab the ladder and we get it positioned just so, sometimes with a book or two underneath to get the perfect picture. Just part of tv's entertainment value I guess.
And the change of the earths angle to the sun seasonally also makes a difference. There are times when a station doesn't show up until summer or winter.

Yep, a good wind can have us loss the station until a slight adjustment is made. But if it is in the attic or stuck to an inside window that could/should be avoided.

 

[thistlebloom]

Yep, a good wind can have us loss the station until a slight adjustment is made. But if it is in the attic or stuck to an inside window that could/should be avoided.

There is no way I'm crawling into the attic for any kind of tv watching!

Our tv stand is an old tiger oak dresser that was my grandmas. Sometimes opening a drawer makes the difference in a clear signal when it's breaking up and digitizing.
So weird.

 

[jackb]

I don't think antennas work here. A couple of years ago any time you had TV on announcement would be made that has of certain date you would no longer be able to use antennas. While I dont watch a lot of TV I always have it on for background noise. Think it has to do with living alone. I do like netflix its cheap and I get to decide what I will watch.

What you are referring to was when the TV stations changed from analog to digital broadcasting. The old antennas for analog signals would no longer work. When the cable company raised our rates to more than a car payment I cut the cord and installed digital antennas, one outdoors and one in the attic. They cost less than thirty dollars each and depending on weather we receive 20 to 30 channels over the air for free. We have internet and a few streaming services and now have better TV than we had with cable. The digital signal is better than cable TV as the cable provider has to compress the signal and over the air broadcasting has better quality. The small shark fin like object on my ham antenna mast is the digial antenna, cost $27, it really pulls in digital signals. Since we dropped cable they have been sending weekly offers to provide TV for $29 a month for two years. We will never go back to cable.

 

[jackb]

I would like to add to the previous post that each of the local broadcast stations have sub-channels broadcasting old TV shows like Gunsmoke, Perry Mason, MASH, All in the family and several more that are shown late into the night. My wife loves these old show so I purchased a device on Amazon for under $30 to record them for her. The device uses the outdoor antenna but does not interfere if you are watching another station, it is tiny, about 6" wide and 1" high. It can be programmed to record a station once or every day at the same times so you can never miss a program. The TV set does not have to be turned on and the media can be on a flash drive or micro SD card. You can watch the shows from the device or place the storage device into your PC, tablet, whatever and the picture quality is incredible. Ah, the digital age!

 

[Carol Dee]

I would like to add to the previous post that each of the local broadcast stations have sub-channels broadcasting old TV shows like Gunsmoke, Perry Mason, MASH, All in the family and several more that are shown late into the night. My wife loves these old show so I purchased a device on Amazon for under $30 to record them for her. The device uses the outdoor antenna but does not interfere if you are watching another station, it is tiny, about 6" wide and 1" high. It can be programmed to record a station once or every day at the same times so you can never miss a program. The TV set does not have to be turned on and the media can be on a flash drive or micro SD card. You can watch the shows from the device or place the storage device into your PC, tablet, whatever and the picture quality is incredible. Ah, the digital age!

View attachment 28434

I need to look into this. Thank for the heads up.

 

[flowerbug]

Our tv is free. If I ever had to pay to watch I'd just take it out in the woods and shoot it.

Our neighbors next door have dish and get 150 channels. They end up watching the same programs we do on broadcast OTA tv.

We also have a 16 year old tv that is a square box. We are so out of style!

oh, yeah, i have the same feeling about t.v. too... the only thing that saves me is that Mom hates the commercials so much (as much as i do) that she'll mute them so i don't climb the walls from the noise. i don't listen to commercial radio stations either.

if you ever do watch t.v. enough it is worth the change to a flat screen because they do use a lot less electricity in the long run they pay for themselves if they last.

 

[flowerbug]

We have a digital antennae that sits next to the tv.
There are lots of different types (check Amazon) and I have tried 3 or 4. The one we have now does an ok job, but they are finicky if you live a few dozen miles from the closest transmitter. There can be as little as a micrometer difference in position as to whether the signal comes in or not. This can be frustrating if there is something you're actually interested in watching. There have been times I have fiddled with that darn antennae, slowly rotating it, lifting it up or down, moving it sideways until I get a picture. There is a button on the antennae remote that lets you check for signal strength.
Sometimes I'll be messing around with it, holding the antennae head high and holler for my husband to grab the ladder and we get it positioned just so, sometimes with a book or two underneath to get the perfect picture. Just part of tv's entertainment value I guess.
And the change of the earths angle to the sun seasonally also makes a difference. There are times when a station doesn't show up until summer or winter.

our digital antenna is up on top of the house stuck on the chimney because we wanted to be able to pull in more stations and have a lot of trees to the north blocking some of the signal. even with that up there we still have times when the signal gets blocky due to storms.

not that i mind much at all. i've gone years without having any t.v. at all and won't miss it when this one is off/gone.

the computer/dvd player and some youtube things once in a while are good enough for me.

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

ok. So hate me.

Hubs was gone in Calif to do a painting job. I couldn't get my Directv DVR to work so I called, literally crying, to my DD up in WA about it. We ended up laughing at my "First world problem".

 

[thistlebloom]

Our family tv broke when I was 12, dad didn't think it worth replacing. I grew up, married, had a first kid at 29, and at 33 we got a vhs player and a non tv thing to watch them on. First tv type thing in all those years.
Some years later we inherited my dh's grandmas old tv (very basic, no remote) and that's what we had until it died and we got the tv we have now. When it dies I'm done with tv.