Home › Forums › Open Discussion › Limited Basic TV scrambling soon, got an antenna and more channels!
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September 23, 2013 at 12:56 am #609183
trickycooljParticipantGot notified in my Comcast bill last week that limited basic is going up to $18. It was $13 when I subscribed 5 years ago! It’s gotten to the point where it’s nearly a dollar a channel and most are shopping and religious. What I noticed is the internet prices aren’t changing so the surcharge for not bundling with TV is $13 and the cheapest TV package is now $18 so I can now save by canceling TV. I went to Costco and got the Flatwave HD antenna for $48, and just got 41 channels in High Point! Obviously YMMV, but if you’re annoyed that limited basic is going to require equipment rental starting 11/5 (also in last month’s bill) consider going antenna for the locals, the HD quality on the football games today was unmatched!
September 23, 2013 at 2:21 am #797800
MercyMoiParticipantThanks for sharing this. Perhaps a dumb question, and I can check it out at Costco for myself, but is the antenna something you mount outside the home or do you put it on your TV, or what? We just canceled our cable and phone last week (keeping the internet) and we’re kicking ourselves for not doing it sooner. We have a “smart TV” with which we stream movies and shows from Netflix, Vudu, and Hulu. We only miss the news, really. My biggest beef with Comcast TV is how much we pay and then still have to sit through commercials. Such a racket. Most streaming cuts that ish out.
Anyway, it definitely feels good to unplug cable. If we miss TV well get an antenna – $48 seems like an easy investment!
Any other suggestion out there in WSB Land?
September 23, 2013 at 3:23 am #797801
HomerParticipantANY antenna will work, got mine at Radio Shack for maybe $20 and it’s great. Can sit on a piece of furniture under the TV or above it. Kind of an eye sore though but……I have my coax running from the tv, up our defunct chimney to the attic and that’s where I placed the antenna. Out of sight and works like a charm, no issues.
September 23, 2013 at 4:41 am #797802
trickycooljParticipantThis is the antenna I found at Costco: http://www.winegard.com/get-free-tv/hdtv-antenna/flatwave-amped/
It’s flat like a sheet of paper and you just hang it inside with included 3M strips. The Costco version is also transparent so it blends right in with the wall. I found that at my cable junction box hidden in my master bedroom closet, Comcast put the TVs on a separate splitter from the internet outlet so I can theoretically put the antenna there and hook it into all of my TVs at once. (Except that 15 year old 12″ analog set.) I was pleasantly surprised with all the channels I received and the HD is so much nicer looking than what Comcast was sending! One caveat with that particular antenna is that it also needs power either via a USB port on your TV or a wall outlet. I actually only got 2 more channels with it and I think both were Spanish so you could also get the cheaper non amplified antenna. Good luck!
September 23, 2013 at 4:45 am #797803
hammerheadParticipant@Tricky
Ok please forgive me, but in english please. YMMV what does that mean? You were ONLY paying 13.00 and it went up to 18.00? for what? I don’t care about football. You don’t even want to know what I pay for cable and internet.
Do you have internet? Is it fast? Mind you I do see a difference between phone and comcast.
Sorry for asking dumb questions.
September 23, 2013 at 6:12 am #797804
trickycooljParticipant@hammerhead– no worries!
Ymmv= your mileage may vary
Yes, in 2007 when I signed on as a Comcast customer, limited basic cable was about $13 for channels 2-29. Through subsequent rate hikes on 10/1 it will be $17.90. It’s basically barebones local channels with some shopping channels, Discovery and Northwest Cable News. And it’s almost $1 per channel now. I grew up on it and got used to network TV I don’t care about all the fancy channels and only watch sports when they’re on local channels.
I also have “blast!” speed internet from Comcast about 50 Mbps (I use a lot of Netflix, Hulu and Xbox and PC online gaming). That’s about $74 per month.
If you don’t take TV or phone service with your internet, the internet costs $13 more as a penalty for not bundling. In the past that meant you basically got “limited basic” TV for free. It was a wash. Now as of 10/1 “Limited Basic” TV is $17.90, it costs more than the penalty fee for not having TV with my internet package. Sneaky.
In addition to yet another rate hike, Comcast is encrypting local channels. That means they’re going to scramble KOMO, KING, KIRO etc which requires a cable box. The boxes will only be free for 2 years, 5 years for Medicare recipients (either way more fees are coming). Additionally, as this happened about 6 months ago to my mom in Thurston County, the cable box they provide for free is SD (standard definition) so if you have a wide screen TV the picture has black bars on the left and right, or you can stretch the picture and watch “fat people TV” as my mom called it. If you want HD so it’s widescreen it’s another $10 HD fee plus the cost of an HD receiver. So your $17 just shoots up to somewhere around $30… Or the cost of the entry level digital cable. The FCC requires that cable companies provide local channels unscrambled in the same way they broadcast over the air, but Comcast seems to be an exception so they can “open up” their lines for more internet speed. My response? How about I don’t bother with the TV part and just get internet.
I do not subscribe to any home telephone service and have no need to, so triple play packages do not appeal to me. And friends who have taken triple play never plugged in the phones because when they did the Seattle Times called non-stop selling subscriptions.
Anyway I hate Comcast with a passion. There’s no fast enough internet alternative. Clear is unreliable and DSL is too slow for gaming.
September 23, 2013 at 6:39 am #797805
HMC RichParticipantDo most of you guys know why your Comcast bill is so high? Well, for every channel on a Cable, Dish, Directv system, that channel gets anywhere from a few pennies to $5.00 depending on what the cable company and network negotiate.
Sports and News channels raise the cost of your bill more so than most of the other channels. Some Cable TV channels make bank on the monthly subscriber revenues if they are on enough cable companies lineups. The advertising revenues from commercials and sponsors is icing on top of the cake. Whereas local stations have to generate their revenues through their sales staffs. Cable channels have it easy compared to the Over The Air Local Broadcast channels.
There are other costs associated with your bills but Comcast has to pay all those channels and make a profit too.
I dropped Satellite and cable for three years. Needed the Internet and watch most of my programming on the web. Then Xfinity offered Internet and a Basic Standard Def package for less money than the stand alone high speed internet price. So I have some channels that I could not get through Hulu, Netflix, etc, but I think I watch “cable” tv about 2% of the time.
If you want ten million channels of cable, you have to pay for it.
It is a shame we can’t have a la carte service from them instead of packages and bundles, but someday we will.
PS – My indoor antenna works pretty good too!!
September 23, 2013 at 8:37 am #797806
JanSParticipantand that’s the reason DirecTV customers here can’t see Husky games on the Pac-12 network, because they can’t come to an agreement as to what will be the amount paid for that channel :(
September 23, 2013 at 12:39 pm #797807
kayoParticipantThanks for the tip on the antenna! We ditched cable/satellite years ago and have never looked back, but our funky metal rabbit ear antenna is definitely an eyesore. That one is much less obstrusive and probably works better. I have to move ours around so it sits on various piles of books on top of cabinets to gain enough elevation to get a good signal. Congratulations for cutting the cord on cable tv!
September 23, 2013 at 1:15 pm #797808
SueParticipantThanks for the info on this thread, as it’s very helpful. We have limited basic, but as I’m getting ready to move I was looking at my options as to whether I wanted to bother with cable tv or not.
September 23, 2013 at 2:38 pm #797809
miwsParticipantSue, if you choose to by an antenna, make absolutely sure that you can return it, hopefully for a full refund, and just keep in mind that you may need some non-antenna option, depending what I’d mostly consider luck.
If you find a potential place, and ask the manager or another tenant about antenna reception, keep in mind that, well, YMMV.
In my last apartment, on the second floor of a building on California Av living room facing California, I was fortunate enough to get several local stations, although pre-digital some of them were iffy or crappy reception at times. Post digital with the same 1999 vintage TV and a converter, great reception on all the locals, plus their sub-channels.
However, a buddy across the hall tried to go without cable, and could only get one or two channels. He tried again when he moved directly upstairs to the third floor, with basically the same results, except maybe a difference in which one or two stations came in.
I’m fortunate right now, to be able to afford cable in my “new” place, but I have a hunch that because, to the east of me is below street level, I may not be so lucky with an antenna here, although to the west I’m at street (alley) level.
In the previous apartment my living room faced the east, the neighbor buddy’s faced the west.
Mike
September 23, 2013 at 4:51 pm #797810
mattswaParticipantI haven’t had cable for years. Currently, I have rabbit ears in the attic with a coax cable run to an outlet behind the TV. Has worked well and the HD looks great. If you are curious about reception in you area and what channels you can expect you may want to explore this website:
It will tell you where broadcast antennas are located and what channels are transmitted from each antenna.
Matt
September 23, 2013 at 6:41 pm #797811
trickycooljParticipantThe maps on http://www.tvfool.com are great too. There’s definitely some spots in West Seattle with less coverage that get shadowed by the hills. My “worst” two channels are coming from Tiger Mountain and I’m just on the wrong side of High Point, plugged in the amplifier and they came in much stronger.
September 23, 2013 at 9:04 pm #797812
B-squaredParticipantI’m in Seaview and have had no luck using a standalone antenna – borrowed one to try and nothing. Does anyone know if lath and plaster construction would prevent the antenna from working when placed in the living area of the house? it seems like the metal mesh used behind the plaster might interfere with the signal like a faraday cage.
September 23, 2013 at 9:44 pm #797813
trickycooljParticipant@B-Squared – that’s very possible. I know in some of the Amazon reviews I read about the antenna I purchased several people from the Southwest were complaining about no signal in their stucco houses. That brand has a very slim outdoor antenna that might work, but you’d need a way to route the coaxial cable into the house but if you have attic/crawlspace access it’s fairly easy to drop it up/down the wall and poke it out behind the TV.
September 24, 2013 at 12:23 am #797814
Genesee HillParticipantInteresting stuff. Thank you for all the information.
September 25, 2013 at 4:48 am #797815
goodgracesParticipantYeah, this is a great thread. Thanks to all who’ve offered their experiences and advice. I was curious if anyone knows if there’s a “cable-free” alternative for folks like us who like (no, need!) to watch every Sounders game that’s on TV? Sometimes there’s no local broadcast (only local radio) when national channels carry the game — ESPN, etc. Without cable, are there any ways to see these games? Cable sux, but it’s still cheaper than season tickets! ;-)
September 25, 2013 at 6:03 am #797816
trickycooljParticipantUnfortunately that’s the one thing I haven’t figured out. ESPN 3 is often blacked out if it’s a local team too. When there’s a must see game for me, one of my friends usually will host a group to watch. One guy has a full Comcast package and gets PAC-12 for some of the Husky games. The guys with DirecTV fill in the other channels and I offer to host when it’s on network TV with the caveat that I don’t have DVR so no pause/rewind and they better be on time or they’ll miss kickoff. :)
September 25, 2013 at 2:40 pm #797817
ghar72ParticipantGoodgraces, We have a Roku. Just looked at their channel selection and it says you can purchase ML Soccer. Never done it, but worth checking out. http://www.roku.com/now-playing
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