Without cable tv, what stations do you get?

[Steve BWV'99]

We got rid of satellite 3 months ago and dont miss it, we have a HD antenna I installed in the attic to get all the HD local channels for free. We are fortunate not to have sight issues to the tower, you can check www.antennaweb.org to get an idea how far you are and what kind of antenna you need.

One thing to keep in mind is that some cable companies are charging if you utilize a certain amount a bandwidth/month, this is their counter for people cancelling and streaming all the TV through the internet. Fortunently, ours does not do that.

 

[pixiewings71]

But how are you connecting to the internet?? Isn't it through your cable company??? Believe me - I wouldn't miss cable. I already watch most of the shows online, but DH would miss the sports stations.

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We still have Comcast for our internet, they are the ONLY company who offers high speed internet at our house so we are basically stuck. But no extended, just the basic basic plan that's very cheapo.

 

[seashoreCM]

If the TV has an ATSC tuner (channel selector) built in then youdo not need a digital converter box.

On average digital converter boxes work just as well as the built in ATSC tuner. Some are better, some are not as good.

Roughly, if you got a station really clearly before the digital changeover, then you should get it reasonably well on your digital TV or with a digital converter box. If the station came in only so-so, you are likely to have numerous interruptions with the digital channel, ranging from the picture freezing and then jumping to catch up with the action, or a momentary blue screen. If the station was fuzzy to begin with in the old days, most likely you won't get it at all in digital form.

Generally you need a "better" antenna than the one you used to use.

Unless explicit permission is granted, you may not put antennas including satellite dishes on condominium roofs or other common areas that you are normally not allowed to go onto/into. But the homeowners association may not discriminate for example let one resident do it while disallowing another resident.

There is no intrinsic difference between a digital TV antenna and an "old fashioned" TV antenna. Some digital TV antennas are optimized for frequency assignment channels 14-59 (are UHF-only) because most digital (and HDTV) stations are in that range. A station's current (digital) frequency assignment channel may or may not be the channel number in its logo.

 

[RooRach0906]

My parents and us too(two different houses), live about an 1 hour away from the "city". They have a HDTV (not just ready) and a Digital Antenna on top of their house. They get ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and 1 other also they get the .1 and .2 channels which are weather and reruns of shows. Their picture is a great not much different from ours (we have satelite/ just downgraded our package and got free HD for life).

As far for internet goes my parents use a aircard... one computer at a time. We (DH and I) have a MiFi card basically an aircard but you can use up to 5 devices at one time. For both my parents and us, we have three internet options dial-up (super slow), satelite (Expensive/ at least in our area), or the aircards.

 

[ktlm]

Not all newer televisions will convert. You will have to look up the specifications for your specific television. Also, as others have said, there are a lot of factors that go into what stations you will get, and you may have to buy a pretty expensive antenna. We got some battery operated smaller tvs for my Mom and for ourselves as we were worried about not being able to get weather broadcasts if there were storms and the cable/electricity went out. My Mom lives within 10 miles of where all three of the local majors broadcast (NBC, CBS, ABC). She gets them all fine. We are 30 minutes from her- we got one station and then only occasionally did we even get that, so we returned the TV. Even with her good reception, the digital does glitch and freeze up some- it is just like when the cable has issues and you get those little black boxes on the screen and picture freezes and then jumps ahead.