Fed up with cable and satellite

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Uh... (neck-snapping headspin)...Unless ya plan on stealing wifi bandwidth from the McDonalds across the street or your neighbor's unsecured router.....You forgot one *very* important detail innat plan o' yours....

 There's a good reason they can charge so much:

Yer gonna need cable or satellite service to  *ACCESS THE INTERNET* to watch those free YouTube movies. Dialup just ain't a-gonna cut it.

Lemme know how that works out for ya, eh?

yes still need internet on cable or satellite,,,

I went to antenna for local news and weather.. purchased a roku for $100,,, subscribed to

Netflix for movies at 7.95. 

2 months to break even.,,,

we pay for so many services any more, cable internet phone etc. just seems to be money thrown away.

ROKU rocks!!

What is roku?

A brand name (maybe the best) of a number of streaming devices that connect to your Wi-Fi and allow you to get paid services like Net Flix, Hulu plus, Amazon , and others, as well as a lot of free stuff, like old western movies, etc. .

I picked up an RCA streaming device at Wal Mart for $29.00 on sale, but I like my Roku better, and they are avaliable also at WalMart starting at about $58.00.
Someone makes one that will only connect to the paid services, and you probably don't want that, so if you are not getting a Roku, be sure what you are getting.
Google Chrome has started selling a streaming device that plugs into the USB port of your TV for $39 but I haven't even seen one of those yet.

OR, your can buy yourself a brand new "SMART" TV that has all that built in.

If you are really serious about cutting the cable "cord" , you may want to get an antenna.

Since the TV stations were required to go to "digital" broadcast, they have added a lot of extra channels to what they broadcast.
You still get the same ole ABC,NBC,CBS,PBS, but most of the broadcasters have added extra stuff, like on PBS there are 4 channels, channel 19 in Huntsville also has a 19.1 that broadcast some old TV shows, 48.1 , and 52.1 are also either independent channels , and  METV network.
I have an 8bay bow tie UHF antenna (that's probably older than you are), and an amplifier, and I got all those stations in Huntsville just as clear as my satellite ,(maybe better), until a damm squirrel ate my antenna wire into . Now I'm waiting on good weather to work on it.

I don't know what antennas cost these days, but unless you have some got to see thing on cable or Dish, you can make it very well on just an antenna, and even better if you get a Roku and Netflix.

Seeweed's got it on an' poppin'.

Ya still need an internet service provider (cable/satellite) to get online to Youtube or any other streaming TV site.

Off-the-air is the only way to get any TV signals for free.

How good your reception is and how many channels you can receive depends on a buncha things. 

The quality of your antenna

The quality of your installation

The quality of your amp

The quality and type of your coax cable (Big, fully shielded, low loss cable is the best, but beaucoup bucks.)

The quality of your connections

The height your antenna is mounted

The direction the antenna is aimed in

The terrain. Being surrounded by high terrain means having to mount the antenna higher to receive signals.  Where I live I'd need at least a 60-foot tower to catch anything other than PBS out of Florence. I'm also on the fringe area of most of the Huntsville stations. (weaker signals by the time it gets to me)

Also a good antenna rotator is needed for catching stations from different directions.

TV operates in VHF/UHF FM mode and as such only works by line-of-sight. (hence the need for elevation and an ability to rotate the antenna for a wider variety of stations.)

If the receiving antenna can't physically 'see' the transmitting antenna, it won't receive the signal.

It sounds kinda complicated, but if you live in a flat area within range- most folks just put 'em up, aim 'em towards where the biggest group of stations are and everything usually works.

Ya won't get online that way, tho.

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You and I both forgot to mention that if you have an older TV, you will need a digital converter box, and they cost about $50. If you don't know whether or not you need one, (although there are exceptions) if you have a new flat screen HD , it probably has one built in. If you have an older CRT type TV, it most likely does not.

Don't know where you live Pup, but here in MS, my antenna is mounted to the eve of my house, and probably sits 25 or 30 feet above ground.
A while back, I was working on some old TV's to determine which ones worked. I have a 4bay antenna without a booster, on a 7ft pole that I just set in an umbrella holder and pointed toward Huntsville. Turns out the channels from Huntsville came in very good just on that. On the other hand, these little $40 amplified antennas that are about the size of your wireless router, are not sufficient for this far away from the broadcasters.  Pup is right about the hills getting in the way , but in most places here , unless you are down in a hole around the river, the broadcast towers on Monte Sano Mtn are pretty much line of sight to here. My son kinda lives in a hole in Sheffield, but gets the Huntsville stations just fine, although he has a big yagi stack antenna abouot 10 ft long.

I don't have a rotor on mine, I don't know what is available to the South or North, that we could get, and I know there is nothing to the West all the way to Memphis, so around here you are pretty much limited to Huntsville, and I (think) I get around 16 channels (4 are PBS duplicates), and they are all UHF, so no need to get a VHF unless you are up on the mtn and want to get Tupelo , Columbus, or Nashville. If I had my way I'd do away with that satellite, but I got a wife , and , well you know --

don't forget the ye olde "knife edge effect" if you live in a hole behind a hill. in those cases an antenna low to the ground may work.

"In electromagnetic wave propagation, the knife-edge effect or edge diffraction is a redirection by diffraction of a portion of the incident radiation that strikes a well-defined obstacle such as a mountain range or the edge of a building.

The knife-edge effect is explained by Huygens-Fresnel principle, which states that a well-defined obstruction to an electromagnetic wave acts as a secondary source, and creates a new wavefront. This new wavefront propagates into the geometric shadow area of the obstacle." wiki

 Weed, you give me hope. I wondered about the eight bay antenna for Huntsville. I assume you are talking about the LairCo fly-swatter.

   the only thing to the North would be WHDF [ex-WOWL] at Minor Hill, TN..... and Nashville of course.

You could always go back to how it was in The Shoals when I was a kid visiting my grandparents here.  All you could get was WOWL-15, and Earline in Storyland dancing around a rather grainy black and white tv screen.

In later years, we'd bring big city friends to our lake house.  And they'd just howl when the Saturday night country music show would come on the air.  The owner of the Big Star in Waynesboro was the host, and I'll admit it was much funnier than Saturday Night Live ever thought of being.

You can always go to TIVO and record all your television.  Then jump over all the advertisements.

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This is not exactly the antenna I have, as mine is probably 50 to 60 years old, but it is close.

http://www.amazon.com/Terrestr...ywords=8+bay+antenna

and until that damm squirrel ate up my cable, I got excellent reception on the Huntsville stations, at least as good as from the satellite, and of course, the satellite gives a better picture than I ever got on cable. 

The broadcast stations are all (I think) in HD, 

At our place down on the Coast, I used to take my satellite box with me, but now , there are a plethora of stations brodcasting down there, and I just use an antenna there. Out of both Pensacola and Mobile , each has a station that broadcast nothing but the local weather, 24/7. That is h ow I heard about the expected storms in middle Alabama a coupleof years ago, and decided to stay another day - that was April 27, the day the tornadoes came. I wish we had one of our stations up here that did that.

just think of how many of those antennae lie buried in garbage dumps.

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I have seen plans where people have taken old satellite antennas, and put a wi-fy usb plug at the focal point, and pointed it towards some free wi-fy like a library, or a Mcdonalds. Never tried it, but I got some old antennas and may decide to give it a try at the coast. Also read an article that I can't find right now , some company makes an outside antenna, that you can hook up to (as I understandn it) a wireless router, and will give you wi-fi off any open network.
If I come across the article, I'll post the location.

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First, if you go that route don't sign in for electronic banking or use your credit card. Anyone can access that info on an unsecured network.  Plus, it is illegal, although few are prosecuted.