How to get OTA TV and beat AT&T cable

Freedom!
When I say or think of the word ‘Freedom’ the first thing that comes to my mind is a picture of me enjoying myself in the open on a beautiful sunny day. When I think about it further I think freedom is of various kinds; freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of choice… wait a minute, I just said freedom of choice. That reminds me of my painful loss of freedom of choice at St. Marin/Karrington.

When I moved into St. Marin/Karrington, I was in for a rude shock when I learnt that I have no choice for cable, phone and internet; I had to go with AT&T. When there is no choice for these services it translates to ‘no competition’ and that in turn means poor service at exorbitant rates.

Today landline phones are a thing of the past. Everyone either has a cell phone as the primary phone or a VOIP (Voice Over IP) phone as a landline phone. Welcome to St. Marin you have to go with AT&T and get yourself a phone line so you could get DSL internet. And yes the cable too has to be from AT&T. You are now stuck with phone you did not want. You now have to pay so that your number is not listed; you have to pay for internal wire maintenance plan every month and of course in the age of nationwide free calling you are stuck with interstate and intrastate calling charges.


The TV cable is no great either. If you feel like saving money on cable pay a minimum of $40 and get some sloppy channels or pay a big price and get all the premium channels. Well you are lucky if your patio faces the south, you could get a dish antenna. But if your patio faces the north you are stuck.

That was when I thought enough of this AT&T BS and gave OTA (over the air) TV a try. Initially I thought I will not be able to get a good strong signal as I have a north facing patio. But then when I tried the antenna (details to follow soon) I was surprised at the signal strength I got. Now I can receive a total of 39 local channels. I receive all the local channels like FOX, NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, KERA and many more. There are a lot of other channels too. I will soon provide you the complete list.


Enough of marketing, let’s get down to the details of how to do it practically.
Here’s a list of things you will need to buy.









Antennas Direct - ClearStream 2 Long-Range HDTV Outdoor Antenna (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9119642&type=product&id=1218027044954)


This antenna is available from Best Buy at $99.00. If you are patient enough you could get it from Amazon for about $60.00




Basic indoor antenna from Philips or RCA (need not be amplified antenna). Available in Walmart for less than $11.00 (including tax)












Splitter. This is again available in Walmart for less than $3.00 Need not be of the same brand shown in picture.












One coaxial cable about 6ft should be enough. You may need longer depending on where you would want to place the antenna.





Insignia® - Digital-to-Analog Converter for Analog TVs with Analog Pass-Through

You will need this box only if you have an older TV (non HD)

Steps

1. Follow the instructions on both the antennas for their installation.
2. Don’t connect the antennas to the TV or the convertor box yet.
3. Connect the output from the antennas to the splitter where it says “OUT”.
4. Connect the convertor box (or your LCD TV to the splitter where it says “IN”)
5. Follow the instructions on the convertor box or your LCD TV manual to set up and watch OTA TV.
   

I know what some of you are thinking “Why do I need 2 antennas?”
Well the reason is there are two kinds of OTA signals- UHF (Ultra High Frequency) and VHF (Very High Frequency). Although most of the channels transmit on UHF there are some like ABC that are transmitted on VHF. VHF signal can only be best received with a rabbit ears antenna, i.e. the basic antenna.
For more information you may want to refer to http://www.antennaweb.org/ http://www.tvfool.com/. You will also get a complete channel lineup on these two sites.

Some interesting facts:

1. Almost all TV channels now transmit DTV (Digital TV) signals. With DTV you will no longer get fuzzy images when you use an antenna. You will get razor sharp HD picture or no picture at all if the signal is weak. If you have an old TV you will be surprised at the clarity that your old TV can produce.
2. Cable signals are scrambled to prevent theft, but when the signal is scrambled, it cannot be transmitted in HD as the bandwidth required to transmit compressed scrambled signal will be too much. If that was too technical for you to understand don’t worry, just remember that cable can never give you 100% HD signals. For watching 100% HD you have to have an antenna. Did you just hear $10/month jingle in your pocket? AT&T charges extra $10 a month if you want to receive HD signals. Now you know they can never give you full HD even if you pay them the extra $10 a month.
3. OTA signal is FREE. Yes you got it right, all this quality programming is out there FREE.
4. It does not matter if your patio faces north. You can place these antennas inside your house facing south.
5. It does not matter if you live on the first floor. Just place the antenna as high as you can on a south facing wall. No line of sight with the tower is required. That is, it is OK to place the antenna inside a room that has no open windows; this definitely works at St. Marin/Karrington as we are pretty close to most of the transmission towers.

If you do all the above and are successful you will save yourself a $480 a year or possibly even more. I heard you say that what about premium channels like HBO. Well folks for HBO give NetFlix a try, even if you enroll in their unlimited DVD plan you will still save money. And if you still have some channels you have to watch, try http://www.hulu.com/ or better yet try http://hubpages.com/hub/how-to-get-free-cable-tv and search for your favorite programs.

BEAT AT&T! Watch Over The Air TV. No one can take away our freedom of choice from us, not even the 30 year contract that St.Marin/Karrington has signed with AT&T. Did I hear someone say class action suit for blocking freedom of choice by a contract that we did not sign?