Electronics

[bargainsgirl]

Time to quit Spectrum.  My bill just went up $24.65!!!!!!!!  Outrageous!!

Looking into antennas and Amazon Fire Stick. Any better antennas out there?  

[roxxy1]

@bargainsgirl  All I know is the cost of internet, tv and phone is 

[JYWilliams]

I bought a RCA attenna at Walmart. I got a 50 mile radiance one. I'm in the process of getting a Fire Stick.

[gardenman]

As is often the case, the best antenna depends on where you live. Here in the Philly market the engineers at channel 6 (WPVI) decided to keep their signal in the low VHF range rather than UHF.  That means you pretty much need an old style antenna with the long dipoles to consistently receive it. Even then it was largely hit and miss. I would go from a 98 (out of a hundred) signal strength to nothing and back for no apparent reason. I even added a special low VHF antenna just for channels 2-6 and it didn't help a lot. Recently one of our neighborhood vultures tried to land on the antenna and bent one of the longest dipoles down, and for whatever reason I now get a solid signal all the time on channel 6. If your area only has UHF signals (and most areas do) you can get by with a much simpler setup. Nearly every station nationwide moved to the UHF band when they switched to digital. (They may still call it a lower number, but they're broadcasting in UHF.) If you still have stations broadcasting in the low VHF range, you need a different antenna than most people, so you first have to figure out what bands the stations you want to receive are using. Antennaweb.net can give you a lot of guidance.

[Kachina624]

We've had many discussions yon this subject here.  Do a search on "cutting the cord" and you'll find a plethora of useful information.

[ValuSkr]

Mohu Leaf antennas are good.  There are different models; the more expensive ones can pick up signals from a greater distance.  Their website helps you figure it out.

[Nightowlz]

@bargainsgirl

Check out the site cord cutting dot com

If you click on Cord Cutting Guide at the top you can find info about which antenna to use in your area plus lots more info.

[Mz iMac]

To check for the strongest to weakest antenna signals in your "zip code:" Copy/paste link-->fcc.gov/media/engineering/dtvmaps

[Lilysmom]

I went to an over the air antenna several years ago.  I bought mine at Costco and it works very well.  I am in Canada.  Do what @Mz iMac says and go to the site  that tells you how many stations you will get.  Good luck.  I cut my cable bill by more than 50%.  After a year and a half of refusing all offers, our provider gave us a deal which was essentially the same cost as internet alone.  I agreed to take it so DH could watch his hockey games which are hard to stream.  If it goes back up, I’m gone again.  

Our cable and cell bills are much higher than in the US.  People are leaving cable in droves here.  The cable companies are starting to get the message.  I can easily live without cable.  Internet, no but cable no problem.

Good luck!  LM

[Tyak]

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@bargainsgirl wrote:

Time to quit Spectrum.  My bill just went up $24.65!!!!!!!!  Outrageous!!

Looking into antennas and Amazon Fire Stick. Any better antennas out there?  

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Give them a call about the increase and they'll probably lower it back to where it was.  We go through this nonsense every year with our cable company.  We call, they back off with their increase.