Growing Rabbit Ears in The Search for the Perfect Antennae

Quest for the Holy Antennae Grail
The time has come to find antennae options for at least one of our three HDTVs.  "What?!? Has anything changed with your desire to go cable free?", you ask.  Nope, it's little more than the desire a few of us around here have to watch the Oscars or an NFL game- say- the Super Bowl once in a while.  Or accessing some terrific television programming that we might otherwise watch individually on our computers.

Blogging Delays Equal Antennae Displays
When exploring solutions for this portion of our to find cable-free content viewing solutions, I almost decided to give up on an antennae for a while.  We went through 6 different digital TV antennaes, both indoor and outdoor, starting with products that are on the lower end of the price range to see what works at which price points.

Eureka! Striking Gold with An Indoor Antennae

For a while I though that perhaps I needed to try eating more lettuce, carrots celery and growing bigger ears myself to finally find an indoor antennae device that works well for the location of our home.  For the record, living in a large Southern city, we have ample reception options from the major television networks and other TV broadcasters.  

Viewing the charts from the FCC website, it seemed very likely that an indoor antennae would do the trick for us.  However, when selecting several antennaes from Home Depot, Radio Shack and Best Buy and Amazon.com, several of the products once taken out of the box seem little more than molded aluminum foil on a stand.  The lack of reception and completely paltry coax cable may be why I almost decided to take a break from this part of the project mission of improving our viewing experiences.  

We finally found a solution for at least one of the rooms with an indoor TV antennae.  You might be surprised with the best product results, which will be revealed in our next TV Antennae Update posting.   

Hair, Make-Up and Church Prophetesses
You know that your reception is even better than cable tv when someone like Jimmy Kimmel looks good on television, albeit with a TON of tan-ish makeup on his face. The clearer, crisper picture with digital HD broadcasting is far far superior to any cable coax output because there's no compression over the air.  Everyone looks 10 lbs thinner with less broadcast distortion.

So far, we're getting more than 24 channels over the air waves, which includes digital and analog broadcast.  I'm hoping to augment the number of channels we can view with a little patience and some minor adjustments to the rabbit ears on the indoor digital TV antennae.  In the meantime, I've got to share my surprise at the sheer number of church channels that we have in the current mix.  It's a lot and the broadcasting must be cheap and a good ROI when considering how many channels there are. I didn't know what a Prophetess is until tonight.

Compass Reading Makes a Fashion Comeback
Like upturned collars about to make a strong showing in fashion houses again, knowledge of magnetic North, and your Boy Scout / Girl Scout compass reading skills will make a roaring comeback in this portion of your cable free journey.  Oh, and let's not forget patience.  To wet your appetite for the next Antennae Update posting, you can explore signal strength for your home by checking out this US government site: http://www.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/maps/  If you can access more than 4 of the major TV broadcasters over the air, it might be worth a try.


I'll cover more specifics with you on which types of TV antennaes you may need to consider in the next post,  along with the different requirements for receiving different types of channels. Stay tuned.  Air tuned.

What Exactly Are We Cutting If We Cut the Cable Umbilical Cord

Subscribing to the ATT 200 channel level of service doesn’t make us mac-daddy channel watchers- yes, there are 300 and 400 channels to consider- but it’s certainly a lot of channels considering only one is watched at a time.  Many of the channels are available in both regular and high definition, or HD, programming.  The four major broadcasters (CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX) all offer both HD and non-HD programming  as do other broadcasters.  All in calculation for cable is about $5.50 per day, so as much as a venti-latte.  

Our issue:  we are tending to watch too much of the channel guide and not enough of the actual programming. 

Our challenge: to optimize what we’re watching and improve the viewing experience, while maintaining, or lowering, the cost per program watched.

Analyzing Television Channels We Actually Watch

I realize that this has been mentioned before, and I’m sure it also resonates with you: we end up surfing a ton of tv waves.  And, it just gets old.  Instead of surfing channels for hours where we end up watching nothing, we’re going to maximize the viewing.  This means the right amount of time for entertainment, information, pleasure, whatever.  A little analysis can go a long way in finding the right solution to this tv watching dilemma.  No more surfing tv waves, let’s ride a few waves of programming we want to watch.

Generally speaking, we’re into numerous sporting events, lifestyle programming, health and wellness programming, children’s programming (for the kiddies, of course), reality programming, documentaries and movies.

·         Television series

·         Lifestyle programming and reality programming- History Channel, Travel Channel, Bravo, Food Network, and then

·         Financial programming - including Bloomberg and CNBC

·         Documentaries – Current tv, History Channel, the 4 majors, Public Broadcasting

·         Movies from dramas, suspense and documentaries, comedy, you name it

·         Sports programming - including college football, golf, some basketball, baseball, and other major professional sporting events like the Super Bowl, World Cup, Stanley Cup (go Flyers!) and Tour de France, among others

Cable Channel Audit/Review

Over several weeks, we did an audit and wrote down all of the channels where a program was watched.  The 20 total channels of television programming for us came down to:

ABC	NBC	CBS	FOX	ESPN
CNBC	Bloomberg	Bravo	Public Broadcasting	Nick Jr
Travel Channel	History Channel	Food Network	Discover	CSS
Golf Channel	Nick Jr/Nickelodeon	CNBC	Current TV	TBS
A&E	TNT	Versus	CNN	BBC

Have to admit that it’s a little hard for me to believe at this point that MTV and VH1 are no longer on my list.  I guess it’s a rite of passage into real adulthood or should I say parenthood to see that Nickelodeon now makes the list, while MTV and VH1 have been relegated to the recycle bin.

Remote Control Surfing

It’s amazing that among 200 channels with hours of programming, we probably watch, on a regular basis, less than 15 channels fifteen in earnest, or less than 10% of the total channels we have in the cable plan.  In surfer’s lingo:  the rest of the channels operate as remote control wave riding until we find the ‘perfect wave’.

Researching Ways to Watch Individual TV Programming Channels

A quick online search on several websites shows that there is ample availability of each channel for our reviewing needs.  hulu.com currently has a deal to offer plenty of options for viewing both major broadcaster content and smaller, niche content creators.  In fact, search for some of the more obscure programming or content creators that you can think of through either Google or hulu and you’ll be surprised at what is available.  The basic viewing can be done on a computer, while premium services let consumers watch programs on your HDTV.  

Watching Movies Through Internet TV

One of the fastest growing markets is movie viewing through a broadband connection without the need for a cable connection.  Netflix, the clear leader in the US market for movie and premium channel viewing, lets users watch content through stand-alone boxes which does not require cable subscriptions.  If users want to keep their cable, Netflix acts as a supplement to what’s available there.

Viewer Options for Live Sports Programming

The one area that seems to be a hold out is live sporting events, which are dedicated to the four major broadcasting networks.  This could be because the bandwidth required to pipe in an HD game to millions of homes in real-time is intense.  There are two solutions though – one is ESPN3, which broadcasts games live.  Users would have to connect their computer directly to their television to watch the programming.  The other solution to the sporting dilemma is using an antennae because major broadcasters broadcast over the air in both traditional and HD.    

First Internet Only Device Review

We are going to dip our toe into the cable-free world and analyze the Roku box.  This is our first foray into the internet tv ready devices and we will keep our cable subscription live and going for comparative purposes.  Stay tuned.