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June 9, 2013 at 12:05 am #607834
Schmitz Park DadParticipantWe are motivated to cut the cable and start accessing TV through a digital antenna. Has anyone in West Seattle had success with this?
We live in the Genesee neighborhood at the top of a ridge, so we were thinking we would have a great shot at the digital signals. We purchased a Flat Wave amplified antenna at Costco and hooked it up in our highest floor with west facing windows. We were able to receive 31 channels, about half of which were Spanish and Vietnamese stations. We were not able to get a signal for the three major stations (NBC, CBS & ABC), which are the primary channels we were interested in.
Wondering if anyone in West Seattle has been successful in cutting the cable and going with a digital antenna? If so, type or brand of antenna has worked for you?
Thanks
June 9, 2013 at 1:35 am #791504
FranciParticipantI have a $20.00 digital rabbit ears from Radio Shack. Get about 15 stations, includes the local 4, 5, & 7. I’m located in the Gatewood Area.
June 9, 2013 at 12:51 pm #791505
kayoParticipantWe live in N. Delridge and we get about that many channels with a very inexpensive antenna. (no idea of brand, but probably purchased at Radio Shack.). We got rid of cable 6 years ago and haven’t regretted it at all. We use Netflix or Xbox to watch other programming. Saved lots of money doing this over the years!
June 9, 2013 at 4:20 pm #791506
trickycooljParticipantI know it’s the opposite of what you’re hoping but if you find you don’t have luck getting the major networks in your area with an antenna Comcast has an unadvertised package called “Limited Basic” they’ve been raising the price as of late but it’s currently $16. You get channels 2-29. You must insist on it and resist all the up selling. Since I’m pretty stuck with them for Internet, and the Intenet price oddly is $16 higher if you don’t take TV service. I figure its probably easier than trying to figure out how to wire an antenna into the entire house.
June 9, 2013 at 8:50 pm #791507
Schmitz Park DadParticipantThanks all. Great info. Will go into Radio Shack and talk to them about a possible antenna for picking up the local channels.
Good info on Comcast. We are paying much more than that, which created our motivation to cut the cable.
June 10, 2013 at 12:21 am #791508
Schmitz Park DadParticipantJust went to Radio Shack and purchased (and returned) a different amplified HD antenna. This time we got 20 channels instead of 31. Lost most of the Spanish and Vietnamese channels, but was able to pick up 2 King channels. No Kiro or Komo.
Question. Has anyone “west facing” had success picking up digital HD signals and cutting the cable. We are west-facing (facing away from the TV towers that are downtown). If you are west facing and have had success with a digital antenna, please let us know what type of antenna has worked for you. Thanks
June 10, 2013 at 4:41 am #791509
tkParticipantThis is from several years ago, but we found a website http://www.antennaweb.org to be very helpful. You can map your house (exact location) and they show what channels you should receive and which way your antennae should be oriented to receive a specific channel.
Keep trying different antennae’s. In some locations in our house (basement vs. back rooms) different antennae’s work better (surprisingly, sometimes the cheaper non-powered ones have worked better)
Good luck- free TV is great!
June 10, 2013 at 5:35 am #791510
AdmiralJanewayParticipantWe are west facing in the Admiral District, and the unpowered Mohu Leaf antenna works for us. It gets over 20 channels including the major network channels. I agree that different locations in the house work better than others.
We used the amplified Terk antenna in the past. It picked up a couple more channels (ION and KBTC), but it tips easily. It stopped working after falling off our mantle.
June 10, 2013 at 2:10 pm #791511
rockhillsMemberI moved from Alaska Junction, where I used the basic Radio Shack antenna with full reception, to Highland Park. I’m on the West side of the ridge and had to switch to the Mohu Leaf. I get to pick whether I want Channel 4 OR Channel 13 depending on antenna placement, but all of the other local channels come in consistently. Mohu does sell an amplified antenna, but I haven’t felt the need to go there.
June 10, 2013 at 11:54 pm #791512
rhiwiParticipantWe are on genesee hill and dumped Comcast two years ago. We keep the cable plugged into the TV as it works as an antenna. We get komo, king, kiro, pbs, fox, ion, and several others but they are digital numbers like 7-1 (Kiro) or 74-3 (ion). We used the search on our remote to pick up and program each channel. We use Clear for our wireless service and subscribe to HuluPlus and Netflix which we stream through our Roku. Total monthly cost about $66 and more to watch than we could ever keep up with. We had been paying comcast almost $150/Mo and they wanted us to sign a 2 yr contract… No way!
June 19, 2013 at 11:57 pm #791513
Schmitz Park DadParticipantWe did it! We finally cut the cable. I went to McLendon’s today and purchased an HD antenna for $70 and set it up in our attic. I connected it to our cable feed and disconnected Comcast and all of their silly cable converter boxes. After some tinkering to find the perfect angle to point the antenna (northeast), we now get 43 channels—FREE! And the picture quality is amazing. My understanding is that in order for the cable companies to push hundreds of channels through the coaxial cables, they need to dumb-down quality.
Who would have ever thought that the “free” signal would result in higher quality with more channels? This $70 antenna will save us about $300 a year by firing the cable company.
June 20, 2013 at 1:03 am #791514
Myr-myrParticipantI love my Leaf antenna!
June 20, 2013 at 2:54 am #791515
trickycooljParticipantAwesome!! You’re not still using Comcast for Internet though right? I’ve been wondering if I can plug an attic antenna into my whole house and still keep the cable Internet somehow, but I haven’t quite figured out how to do it.
June 20, 2013 at 3:30 am #791516
HunterGParticipantWe got rid of Comcast cable over a year ago. We have AppleTv and I highly recommend it. At first, it’s difficult, but we stream Netflix and Hulu Plus.
PROS:
You watch things you may not have watched before.
You don’t spend a crap load of time looking for something to watch.
You can purchase full seasons of shows you love like Dr. Who, Dexter, etc…
You find other things to do…like experience life.
You don’t have a giant cable bill. (Ours was up to $250+ for cable and internet.)
After a year off the cable teet, you get AMAZING deals. we got it back temporarily so we could watch Game of Thrones. Basic plus and internet was a third of what we were paying before.
CONS:
Premium shows like game of thrones are unavailable through Apple TV to purchase the season.
Other than that………um. not much
June 20, 2013 at 7:04 pm #791517
HomerParticipantNice Hunter, with your great deals, how much is your basic tv and internet (what speed too?)? Tempted by this but curious to see what deals Comcast gives when trying to get a customer back.
June 20, 2013 at 8:20 pm #791518
trickycooljParticipantI think I’m paying around $70-80 for Blast internet (50 Mbps) and limited basic cable (ch 2-29) but I do get the HD channels in the mix, I presume the TV is picking them up OTA. Unfortunately I don’t really want to give up the internet speed as it does make Apple TV run so smoothly (Netflix, Hulu+ and YouTube) as well as XBox Live for gaming. A few of my friends locally went with Dish/Qwest DSL and were really disappointed with the DSL performance on gaming so I bite the bullet and give Comcast some money.
June 20, 2013 at 9:18 pm #791519
Schmitz Park DadParticipantTrickycoolj – we are keeping our Internet through Comcast, but shopping Internet rates to see if it makes sense to switch.
Our cable line splits to a cable TV feed and an Internet feed. We disconnected the cable feet to our TV signal splitter and then connected our antenna to that splitter. We get excellent picture quality in every room. I think what pushed us over the edge was that Comcast charged us a monthly fee for service, then made us rent numerous converter boxed to use their service. That did not sit well with us, so we fired them. The antenna is working wonderfully.
June 20, 2013 at 10:32 pm #791520
Driez206Memberanyone have a solution for watching live sports, minus going to a bar?
June 21, 2013 at 1:14 am #791521
HunterGParticipantWe are paying roughly $100 a month for limited basic AND blast. Good for one year, this was after one year off Comcast and was the deal offered to get us back.
Totally worth it.
December 17, 2013 at 6:47 am #791522
singularnameParticipantCut the insane $230/month Comcast cable/Internet end of November. Now on the Digital Economy + Blast + Streampix package. $79/mo
Could not be happier. Could totally live without any of the TV part, but it’s the same price if I just got Blast alone (and I’m dependent on the net to make the mortgage). Anyhoo … thought it worthwhile to join the folks above with the reinforcement we won’t die without Real Housewives and Brady Bunch reruns. :-)
December 17, 2013 at 4:16 pm #791523
SarahScootParticipantWe were already doing the package singularname mentioned, but the price kept going up after the promo period ended. I canceled cable TV entirely and signed up as a new customer to get cable internet for $30/month for six months. Once that’s up in April, we’ll evaluate other options, but $30 is pretty decent. We have a Winegard flat antenna to receive basic channels, an LG smart TV with integrated Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime interfaces, and my husband *occasionally* downloads current TV shows and loads to a USB drive that can be plugged directly into our TV. This setup works great for us and is so much more streamlined than having a cable box, DVD player, Roku, etc. Bonus is there’s less tempting equipment for our young toddler to reach for. ;-)
Total monthly cost: $30 Internet + $8 Netflix + $6.67 Amazon Prime ($80 amortized over a year; of course the shipping benefits are part of the value, too)=~$45 for pretty much all the content we want.
Edit: Oh, and the antenna was $30 from Costco… but it went out of stock pretty much right after I bought it, and I haven’t seen it since.
December 17, 2013 at 4:19 pm #791524
pattileaParticipantWe got rid of cable TV, and it is great! We use two antennas, one for each floor. We get several channels, and use hulu netflix. I don’t feel we are missing anything except the large bill!
December 17, 2013 at 6:19 pm #791525
gmabettyParticipantRecently had cable Digital Starter for about $96. They offered cable, phone and internet for $99, of comes to $135 a month for 1yr. Then is to be $114 but know it’ll come to more. Will eventually change to antenna when promo is done. Have friends in our building using antenna and like it but would lose some favorite channels but at same time all the many channels I never watch. I don’t do soaps and very little sports. Tired of many rerun ch. Free Internet is in our building but my location is very poor for reception , drove me crazy always stopping or not accessing it. We can’t do Dish in our building.
Good luck with your choice.
December 17, 2013 at 6:38 pm #791526
trickycooljParticipantI ditched the limited basic too and got the same Winegard antenna at Costco. They recently got them in again but they were going fast! I get 41 channels now up in High Point for free and in great HD. I was even able to rig the cable splitters in my house to isolate the TVs from the cable modem so that I could plug the antenna into the wall and feed the signal to both of my TVs without causing signal noise on the cable modem. I kept standard blast internet and my bill is $79 instead of $86 with limited basic TV added on. I also use an AppleTV box for Netflix and Hulu+. I’m doing a 30-day trial of Amazon Prime, lots of duplicates on the streaming offerings but I’ve really liked the fast shipping! I also use an Xbox coupled with a program on my PC called PlayOn that can stream Hulu shows from the PC to the Xbox that are labeled “PC Only.” For new release movies, I’ll check out the nearby Redbox but not that often.
For sports, I really only watch Football and Soccer. Seahawks are always on a local channel even if it’s Thurs/Mon. Huskies when not on a local channel I have other friends who will rotate hosting a watching party and I invite them for the games I get. Sounders more often than not are on a local channel. Recently when a friend was over he signed into his Comcast account on the ESPN streaming app so I can stream ESPN for now too.
Growing up we always only had limited basic/local channels so I never got used to having so many channels. For a while in a previous apartment they didn’t filter my limited basic service so I got all the extra channels for free and I found myself watching a ton of garbage on TLC and the like and later wondered, and what did this really do for me? I certainly don’t miss the Duggers or Kate+h8 LOL!
December 22, 2013 at 11:15 pm #791527
Born on AlkiParticipantWe “fired” Comcast about three years ago and are glad we did. So far we have saved about $3600 bucks. We also live in the Genesee area and use a rooftop antenna pointed roughly NE. Get about 30 channels crystal clear, including all local channels. The antenna cable is wired directly into the existing splitter in the Comcast box outside, plus we use a antenna amplifier that branches out to four sets. The HD quality blows Comcasts HD away. Also use a Boxeebox and have tons of apps including netflix, pandora, Ted tv, etc. about 275 apps with better quality than anything cable offered. Comcast does not want anyone to know about this, but they just keep charging more and more. The final straw was when they scrambled their channels and charged 5 bucks monthly for each converter box required, so they charge extra to watch channels you already pay to watch, plus monthly charge increases. Dump em, you’ll be happier for it.
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