I started at this website, http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/Address.aspx and entered our address. It will confirm your address on a map and scroll down and select "continue". You are then brought to a screen that looks like this:
A lot of its greek to me, however the main part is for most of the channels to be the same color in this case YELLOW. Means you ideally only really need 1 (one) multi directional antenna. From my research if you want to guarantee to get other channels you have to get more than one antenna and point them in the directions it says on this chart (using the compass heading) but I pick up more than I thought with just my one antenna.
antennaweb.org has some great info so take a look around that site to answer more questions.
We got this antenna, after reading up on them we thought this would be the best one for our location. Its range is 30 miles, we needed to go only 17miles (it tells you how far you need to go on the website above). Free shipping from Amazon if you have prime membership.
We are living in the dark ages and dont have newer tvs, so we did need to get a digital converter box for tvs.
We got this one for the boys TV and a little bigger model at Radio Shack for our TV in the living room that has an on screen tv guide on it.
So now at this point you can get all those channels (above) for free. Well not counting the amount put into the antenna (and converter box if needed) but remember those are one time purchases. We get our local channels now live, and if we had HD TV it would be in HD for free, cant beat that. James was able to connect the antenna directly into our cable for the house and so we just plug our cable tvs into the wall like you would normally with cable compants. NOTE: we dont even have our antenna on the roof. we have it on the side of the house at ground level to protect it from the elements. For us this works fine, but you may need to mount in a crawl space, your garage rafters, the roof. Its easy to mount and install.
Now like most people we watch more than just our local channels and we have become very dependent on DVR (like Tivo) so we could record and watch later our favorite shows. With the antenna you have to watch live, but really who is able to sit down anymore (man we have come a long way havent we lol) at the exact time a show is on. So we took it a step further, to get more content and content on demand we looked into http://www.roku.com/ a little (very little) box that streams off our internet feed....brings shows right to our TV whenever we want. Thus eliminating the need for a tivo or dvr. While we are then ready to drop our cable I wasn't ready to get rid of Internet so this was a easy choice if I was going to have internet we decided to get rid of our cable and home phone and price out internet with a local phone company and we switched (we were offered a 6 month special rate) so for now we have that, just internet which you must have to use Roku.
We purchased this Roku box from Amazon (there are three diffrent kinds, check out the roku website for more info on which one is best for you) and again free shipping for Prime members of course. and hooked it up. Now right out of the box, once hooked up to the internet you get access to Roku Channels most of them free. (hook up which was easy to do but I wont go through the steps here it walks you through it) We did it wireless, but you can plug right into the box instead of going wireless also. Here is a list of Roku Channels http://www.roku.com/roku-channel-store but companys have figured out they have a prime market here and have offered extra services for Roku. Hulu is one of them and for $7.99 a month you get "Hulu Plus gives you exclusive access to every episode, all season long, of Glee, Modern Family, House, and dozens of other popular shows - some featuring full series runs - from ABC, Fox, NBC, and more." pretty much you dont have to wait as long for the content to become available is what I gather. I watch shows that aired the night before. Also Netflix.com they offer instant streaming over the Roku box for $7.99 a month. So now we are at $16 a month for access to almost everything we want to watch.
Two down sides we have noticed so far.
1) kids content is not as GREAT as with your cable provider. They are working on this but for now we have PBS we watch live from our anntena. We also stree tv shows and movies for the kids from Netflix. All there favorites, Dora, Caillou, Sesame Street, Backyardigans and the list goes on and on. Pretty much most of the shows they watch are on Netflix or live on PBS. On the flip side we have more access to movies, classics and new ones for the kids so thats a good trade off for loosing a *few* (disney tv shows mostly) shows.
2) A few of our favorite shows from CBS are not available on Hulu. While entering this new realm of streaming from the internet we did find one snaffu with shows we watch from CBS mostly Warner Brothers Television ones....if they are owned or produced by Warner Brothers they are not avilable online, some are some are coming and some are NOT.So the Mentalist, one of my husbands favorites shows are not and a few others. Some can only be found on the cbs.com website. Which is ok with me I stream them on my computer then if I cant catch them live (like Big Bang) but so far that has been the only noticeable issue.
Over all "Breaking Up" ;) with our cable provider has been refreshing, not only do we have one less bill to pay each month, thus saving us money. But the content we now have at our finger tips is greater than before, all on demand all ready when we want to watch. Other than the exceptions above its far more superior to what we had before with cable, and at a cost that cant be beat.
A quick fun note, if you wanted to watch a series before but never got into in time to make it worth wile, or did halfway through this is a fun way to go back and start at the beginning, we have so many new shows at our fingertips, or ones that are not longer on air we can enjoy again anytime.
Well I think thats it! :) Let me know if you have questions or want me to send you a link for a month free of Netflix, Hulu PLUS (general Hulu content is free) is also offering a free 2 week trial.
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