"It's them."

From 1950 until WQAD came on the air in 1963, we had two TV stations. Before that, both WHBF and WOC had secondary affiliations with ABC to carry that network's flagship programs (i.e. Ozzie and Harriet, Disney, The Mickey Mouse Club, Lone Ranger), although I don't remember which station carried which. If you wanted to watch other ABC programming you needed a good aerial or rooftop antenna to pick up WCRG in Cedar Rapids.

Random things I remember about TV in that era:

Each network sounded a tone at the top of the hour. CBS's sounded like a ding, and NBC's sounded like a beep. NBC's was about 5 seconds behind CBS's, so if nobody else was watching TV, I'd listen to CBS's tone and then quickly switch to NBC to hear theirs. It didn't take much to amuse me back then.

The Phantom Channel: Channels 2, 3, and 7 through 13 all showed "snow," as there was no receivable programming then. Station 5 was the phantom channel, which showed a snowy version of channel 6. At the time, I didn't understand why that didn't work for channel 3 showing the same thing for channel 4.

Before television went digital, you could get the audio for channel 6 on the far left (87.5) of the FM dial.

TV stations didn't stay on 24/7 then. In the late 1960's, most TV started at about 6 a.m. with the farm reports and ended at about 1:00 a.m. with a movie or variety show. WHBF was usually off the air first, followed by NBC and then ABC. One weekend night, I remember watching the late movie on WHBF, followed by the religious segment, the technical and legal disclosures (accompanied by The Television Seal of Good Practice) and of course, the National Anthem. When the anthem had ended, I tuned to WOC, only to see the last four bars of the National Anthem again, followed by snow. Bored, I tuned to WQAD --- and AGAIN saw the last four bars of the National Anthem. The stations had managed to go off the air within a minute of each other. It was scary to say the least.

Prior to transistorization, TV's in that day operated on vacuum tubes. These were connected to sockets in the set. When one went bad, the picture would be dim, weak, or non-existent. At that point, Dad would change to another channel. If the other channel was working correctly, he'd say "It's them," and nothing more would be done. If all of the channels were bad, he'd say: "It's us," remove the back of the set, and start pulling the tubes. We'd go to the Schlegel's store, where there was a big podium-like contraption with lots of sockets. Dad would plug each tube in, read the analog dial with the red, yellow, and green zones, and go looking in the drawers of the podium device for replacement tubes. This usually solved the problem.

Sometimes that didn't help, or no tubes were bad, If fooling with the horizontal and vertical controls didn't help, then, after a long argument with Mom about how Dad was NOT going to fool around inside the back of the set (even an unplugged set carried a lot of nasty voltage), Mom would call the TV repairman, which wasn't cheap even back then. On one such occasion, the man, who was a member o our church, spent about 3 minutes looking at the insides of the set, proclaimed: "Here's the problem! This wire came loose. He took a screwdriver to tighten the wire and tried the set. It worked fine. "That'll be 15 dollars" (about $110 in today's money), he announced.

"$15?" Dad repeated, annoyed. "For one minute of work?"

"Well, Frank," the repairman told Dad, "it's three bucks for the service call."

"Okay," Dad nodded.

"And I'm charging you two bucks to tighten the wire," the man continued.

"That's reasonable," Dad admitted.

"I'm charging you ten bucks," the man concluded, "for knowing WHICH wire to tighten."

The $10 Channelmaster Flatenna: As good as or better than those costing much more

In my building, we're not allowed to have an outdoor antenna, so I'm limited to indoor models.   This isn't a big problem where I'm at, because the transmitters for all of the channels I want are all within 35 miles.   Luckily, I'm on the third floor of a building on a small knoll (hill) relatively far above ground level for the area.  The downside is that all of my windows are on the north side of the building, and all of the transmitter towers are to the general south.

The current rage for indoor antennas is the flat variety: a typical one looks like a piece of thin cardboard or plastic in the shape of a rectangle.  Inside the plastic casing is an array of metal which serves to pick up the signals from transmitters.

There are 7 stations broadcasting in my area, and a total of 17 channels on those stations. The tower for one is within 5 miles, another is 34 miles away, and the other five are about 18 miles away.  Almost any antenna will get the stations within 17 miles; the slightly tough one is the station whose transmitter is 34 miles away.  35-40 miles is generally the outer limit of what an indoor antenna can pull in.

With that in mind, when I decided to get rid of cable TV, I found the Channelmaster Flatenna on Channelmaster's site for $10, with free shipping.   Here's the URL:

http://www.channelmaster.com/flatenna_s/346.htm

I ordered this, and it arrived four days later.  the antenna is paper-thin with about an 8 foot cord.  This wasn't long enough to reach from my TV to a wall/window, but I had plenty of coaxial cable from Mediacom to use.  I connected it and began searching for the ideal spot.

Contrary to popular belief, the best spot is not necessarily a window.  An Over the Air (OTA) TV signal goes through solid walls.  As a general rule, you want the antenna to be as high up as possible, because TV signals don't bend around the curve of the earth or bounce off of the ionosphere like some radio signals do: TV signals are straight-line.  Since the earth curves, the higher up the antenna is, the better the chance to pull in a distant station.   It wasn't surprising that the best spot for me was nearest the wall to outside as high up as I could put it.   The Flatenna comes with two adhesive squares to hold it firmly to a wall, but the position I had it in was high enough up that the coaxial cable (and its added weight) pulled on the cord and eventually pulled the antenna from the wall. resting the end of the cable against a wall (to take the weight off of the antenna's cable) and three strips of masking tape on the antenna itself fixed the problem.

HDTV isn't like the old analog was.  An analog station could be clear and sharp if close by, and a bit snowy if further away.  Digital TV is yes or no, hit or miss, on or off.  You either get the station or you don't.  If it's a borderline case, it will be spotchy, as the station's signal is caught, then missed, caught and missed.  Generally, a signal strength of 45 to 50 is watchable, and anything above 50 will mostly work.  Ideally, the signal should be in the 60s or higher.

The result was that the Flatenna pulled in all seven stations clearly, although as will be the case with any OTA broadcasting, there was some rare pixelation and splotchiness when interference existed (such as a storm).  The five stations that were all in the same mile-radius of each other all pulled in signals of 72.  Not oddly, the station that was closest only pulled in a 55; the station itself is relatively low-wattage, but it worked.  The station that is 35 miles away draws a signal of 56 to 60.  In addition to those seven stations, the Flatenna also pulled in a religious station that was about 50 miles away with a signal strength of 48.

With that as a base, I then went out to various stores and bought the most-touted alternatives.  Here are the results, vs the Flatenna:

Mohu Leaf $40 non ampled, $70 with amplifier):  The Leaf pulled in the same stations with similar readings.  Using the amplifier did not help the stations that were 35 and 50 miles away, but it did hurt the stations that were closer.  That's not a surprise; an amplifier is meant to boost weak signals.  If the station is already coming in clearly, the amplifier will probably make the signal too strong, which will ruin its quality.   Amplifiers are mainly for those who live farther (40 to 60- miles) from the towers, and from what I've read, that doesn't always help.

Wineguard Flatwave ($40) The Flatwave pulled in the same stations at the same strength.

Terk Triniity Trimodal ($40): The supposed technology that the Terk is supposed to have was useless: the five stations were in the 60-65 range, and the 35 and 50 mile stations didn't come in at all.  It also had problems with the station that's 5 miles away.

RCA ($7 to $35):  I tried three versions of their antennas: two flat and one that looked like the old "rabbit ears".  All got the closer stations; none got the distant stations.


THE VERDICT: The Flatenna was as good or better than all of them, and it was cheaper than all but the RCA pseudo "rabbit ears" model.

As an experiment, I bought a 1byone amplifier and attached it to my Flantenna.  It had the same effect as the amplifier on the Leaf: it made the closer channels worse and only boosted the distant channels by a negligible amount.

Be aware that most of these indoor antennas don't have the circuitry to get VHF-band stations.  You can tell if a station si VHF by going to TVFool, entering your location, and looking at the report.  The stations whose "real" channel are from 2 to 12 are VHF.  Some of the indoor antennas pull in the high-VHF frequency (channels 7 to 13), but very few will do well on the low-VHF frequencies (2 to 6).  Fortunately, most stations have moved to the higher UHF band.  If you have a low-frequency VHF station that you want to watch, and the Flatenna won't pull it in, you may want to look into a roof or attic-mounted outdoor antenna.  The Flatwave did well in getting the low-VHF station in my area, pulling in a signal of 40 to 45, which is spotchy, but better than the others I tested.  Fortunately, this station also broadcasts on UHF 47, which gets an acceptable signal.

SLING TV

Sling TV comes to us from the folks who run Dish Network: it's Dish's farsighted offering to the 12 million or so households (in the United States) that don't have cable (satellite, etc.).  Sling offers a small subset of channels that can only be found on Pay TV.

Like cable or OTA, Sling delivers live TV channels.  There are two main differences between Sling's content and that of the cable company. The first is that Sling delivers their content over the internet: like Netflix and other streaming companies do.  The second difference is the price: Sling costs only $20 per month for its basic package; you can add more packages for $5 per month each.  There's no contract with Sling: you can cancel whenever you want with no penalty.

Here is Sling's current offering of basic channels

ESPN and ESPN 2.  The two main sports channels come bundled into the main package.

CNN:   The well-known news network also has a live feed.

TBS and TNT:  In addition to their regular programming, you also get all of the sports events that are only found on these two channels.

More channels offered include: History and History 2, A&E, Disney, Food, HGTV, the Travel channel, ABC Family, Cartoon Network, Lifetime, and Bloomberg, among others.

Here is a full list:  https://www.sling.com/package

On the same page, you'll also find 9 optional packages, each costing $5 per month.  Obviously all aren't for everybody.  There's a sports package, a movies package, three extensive Spanish-language packages, a world-based news package, a kids package, and lifestyle package.  For $15 a month you can get HBO, although you only get one channel of HBO that I know of.

To help you decide what you want, you can find the complete current Sling lineup, both basic and extras, here:

http://slingtvguide.com/

Sling also appears on TitanTV, covered in a previous post as an "Over the Top" provider.
http://www.titantv.com.   You can combine Sling and OTA into one lineup, which I'll cover in a later post about TitanTV.


THE GOOD:  Sling is obviously much cheaper than cable.  While you can't record it, some channels allow you to play content from the last 1 to 7 days.  You can also watch Sling from a PC or laptop or from your smart phone or tablet.

THE BAD: As stated, you can't record it yet.  Several channels don't allow you to play previous programs or to rewind.  Being a streaming service, there is sometimes a pause of a few seconds while content buffers.  This is only a minor annoyance, except to those who have the patience of a gnat.  And you can only have one stream running per account; you can't send this to every TV in the house simultaneously, although any TV that is hooked up can use it at any one time. For that reason, Sling isn't a good option for households with multiple TVs running at the same time, if all of the TVs want to access Sling's content at the same time.  Of course, you can purchase multiple accounts of Sling to cover that.

Overall, Sling is a good deal for $20, but as they say on TV: "Wait, there's more!"

THE FREE ROKU 2:

If you prepay 3 months of sling ($60 plus tax), they'll ship you a free Roku 2 to use it on.    The Roku 2 was the subject of an earlier post.  Since the Roku 2 generally sells for about $60, this is a good way to either get a free Roku 2, or to buy the Roku 2 and get free Sling TV for three months, depending on how you want to look at it.

SUPPLEMENTS TO BROADCAST TV

While there is plenty to watch on broadcast TV nowadays, it isn't as much as there is on cable.   The things that you find on cable that you can't find on broadcast TV include:

1) Sports events.  For die-hard fans who absolutely want to see every sport from every league or college conference, cable (and satellite, etc.) has plenty to offer that broadcast TV does not.   For example ESPN and its many channels aren't offered over the air, and several college conferences (the Big 10 and SEC being two notable examples) have their own networks.

Fortunately, there's a way to get much of this, which I'll cover later on.

2) Movies.  While there are movies on broadcast TV, it's limited to a few stations a few times per day and to what the stations want to show.

There are several ways to get around this, covered shortly.

3) Specific genres.   Interested in Golf?  There's a golf channel on cable.  Shopping?  There are several shopping channels. Health?  Several of those exist.  Travel, history, old-time TV shows, kids' shows, family programming, adult programming, news from all parts of the globe, Spanish-language programming, do-it-yourself, tech, business channels:  all of these and many more are found on cable.  And as said often, Fox News live and many other networks can only be found on Pay TV.

4) Recording: Cable service usually comes with the option, via a DVR, to record shows for later or repeat viewing.  There's a way to get this for broadcast TV as well, and I'll touch upon that in a later post.

The good news is that  you can also find many of these on streaming services.

REQUIREMENTS FOR USING STREAMING SERVICES WITH TV:

ROUTER: You're going to need a router.  You probably already have one, especially if you have a mobile device.  You'll need it because you're going to have to connect your modem to both the computer and to the streaming devices.

BANDWIDTH: While it's possible to watch Standard Definition (lower video quality) on as little as a 500 Kb/s connection, a bare minimum of 3 MB/s is recommended, and 15 MB/s or higher is probably best to have.  If you're going to be doing heavy downloading or uploading on your computer, if you have several devices connected to your router, or if it's busy on the internet in other ways, you might want to have speeds of at least 50 MB/s.  Most service providers have these capabilities.

DATA ALLOWANCE:  If your Internet Service Provider (ISP) has a data usage cap (and most do), make sure it's at least 250 Gigabytes if you plan on doing serious streaming, and more is better.

WHAT ARE STREAMING SERVICES?

Broadcast, cable, and satellite TV are essentially audio and video via the airwaves or digital lines.  A streaming service is also audio and/or video, except that it's delivered via the internet.    There's a small to large difference in quality, depending on how fast your internet connection is and how good the streaming service's network is.  Many people can't tell the difference.

It's no longer necessary to stream video to your computer. There are several streaming devices that will stream directly from the internet to your television.  Many TVs (commonly known as "Smart TVs") come with such services built-in.  There are also many standalone devices that work with a TV.  Some of the more popular are Roku, Chromecast, Amazon Fire, and Apple TV.    The one I use, which is also the one I recommend and will discuss, is Roku.

THE ROKU: THOUSANDS OF CHANNELS.

By "Channels," I don't mean TV stations or networks, although some are exactly that.  "Channels" in Roku-speak means an application that's loaded into the Roku and which performs a function.  Some of those are elaborate, some are very specific in nature.   While other streaming "boxes" (devices) also have their own following, the Roku is far and away the most diverse of these, and it isn't close to second place.

The Roku comes in four generations: Roku, Roku 2, Roku 3 and Roku 4.  Don't bother with the original Roku.  It doesn't have enough features for a cord cutter who wants to stream.  Each succeeding generation of Roku is faster and/or has more features to offer. They range in price from $45 to $120. For our purposes the Roku 2 --- and that's the Roku 2 that Roku currently makes, not the original one from a few years ago --- will suffice.  This device typically sells for $60.  In the next post, I'm going to show you how to get one for free.

Setting up the Roku and finding the many channels it has to offer is beyond the scope of this post and will be covered later.  Such information can also be found elsewhere.   The Roku is the device that I recommend, partly because it's the only one that currently supports Sling TV (covered in next post) that can be viewed on a TV (unless you want to jump through technical hoops to do it another way, and if you do, these articles are probably too primitive for you in the first place).

When you have your Roku or other device up and running, here are three of the streaming services you'll probably want to have:

NETFLIX: This is practically a must-have for any cord-cutter who wants to watch movies or binge-watch TV series.  For $8 per month, Netflix offers tens of thousands of movies and episodes of TV shows, as well as its own original programming.  The amount of content is mind-boggling, and no other streaming service has as much that's included in the monthly price.  Also there are no commercials.

If you haven't ever used Netflix before, you can try it for one month for free.  Note that they will auto-bill your card thereafter unless you cancel.

http://www.netflix.com


HULU PLUS: This is another popular service.  While Hulu Plus has some of the same content as Netflix, it also carries current-season TV programming right up to the episode that aired the day before.  The service costs $7.99 per month. The downside is that there ARE commercials, however you can subscribe to a commercial-free version for another $4 per month ($12 total).

Hulu is more geared towards TV than movies; they have much content and much more current content than Netflix does.  The tradeoff is the commercials or added price to get rid of the commercials.

AMAZON (PRIME): You can't actually buy Amazon Prime video itself.  It comes bundled into the regular Amazon Prime service, which costs $99 per year.   If you already subscribe to Amazon Prime,  you also have Prime Video.  If not, the other main selling point of Amazon Prime is that it offers free two-day shipping on all orders that include products with the "Prime" classification, which means most things sold on Amazon.

Prime video is also commercial-free.  While they don't have nearly as much content as the above two, they do have some content that others don't.  Amazon also offers the option to rent (watch; sort of a "Blockbuster" for the internet) or buy (via download) several movies, TV show episodes, and even TV show seasons, that aren't included in their free Prime video service.

Except for Hulu's recent-TV shows option, most of the things offered on these services aren't recent-run.  But they're great for those who want to binge-watch a TV series or a set of movies involving a certain actor, movie sequel, or time period.  They also don't need to be recorded; whatever they have can be watched whenever you want.  They're available.  One caveat is that certain production companies tend to withdraw their movies and shows when contracts expire, so what's on a service today might not be on that service in a month.

In the next post, I'll show you how to get back some of your cable TV channels --- at a fraction of the cost.  It's known as Sling TV.

RECORDING SHOWS OVER THE AIR

As always, when I refer to "cable," it means cable, satellite, U-Verse, etc.

Unless you bought your own TIVO with Over the Air (OTA) tuners, when you turn in your cable TV equipment, you also turn in your DVR and, supposedly, the option to record shows.  Until recently, there were few viable options for recording OTA shows.  Now there's a good one, and it's not that expensive.

THE TIVO ROAMIO OTA:  TIVO, in it's wisdom to serve all consumers, has produced  a budget version that only records OTA programs.  The Roamio OTA costs $50 if purchased from Best Buy, with free shipping.  

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/tivo-roamio-ota-digital-video-recorder-black/8758098.p?id=1219364357147&skuId=8758098

While being budget in price, it's not budget in features: it has four built-in tuners to record up to 3 shows while watching another and it has all of TIVOs well known features, which are too numerous for the scope of this article.  There are two catches to this model. The first is that there's no cable card or option for a cable card.  This will record OTA programming only, and nothing else. The second is that TIVO charges $15 per month to use the service, and there's no "one time" (lifetime) price as there is on other TIVO models.  That's only fair, since TIVO isn't making any money off of the device by selling it so cheaply: similar DVRs with cable ability start at $199 and go up rapidly thereafter.

What you get for your $15 per month is TIVOs well-known programming guide, a "suggestion" service that automatically records what TIVO thinks you'd like to watch, integration with several of the most popular streaming services (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, YouTube, etc.) and of course the ability to record shows at any time of day or night.  Again, there are more features than can be covered here, and there are many places to learn about all of TIVO's good (and bad) features.  The main point for cable cutters is that we can still record shows if we aren't around, or even if we are.

While TIVO does allow you to use the most popular streaming services, there's a much better device that has far more options.  I'll cover that in my next post.

ALTERNATIVES TO CABLE TV PART 1: WHAT'S ON THE AIR?

Again, by "cable," I mean cable, satellite, U-Verse, etc.

There are several sources for alternatives to cable TV.   The three major sources are:

Broadcast (free, OTA) TV.
Streaming TV.
"Over the Top" streaming services.

WHAT'S ON THE AIR?

The first stop to cutting cable is to find out what you can watch on freely-available OTA (broadcast) TV.    To start with go here:

TITAN TV: http://www.titantv.com

There are other service providers, but TitanTV has the most robust user interface (GUI) and also is the only major TV listing service that currently offers Sling TV listings, which you may want to add down the road.

Make an account -- it's free,  and it will allow you to keep your settings. TitanTV won't sell your email address or bug you with sponsor offers.  Now create a new channel lineup. Choose "Broadcast" and enter your zip code.  Sometimes there will be more than one city/area listed; choose the one that applies to you.  You'll then get a grid of stations in  your area that are freely available.  In major urban areas that could be over 50 stations --- yes, 50 free stations.   In smaller areas, it might be less than a dozen.  In my medium-sized area, I get 18 stations.

TV is different nowadays than it used to be.  The digital conversion means that your local network station can offer more than just its affiliated network (i.e. NBC).  Through substations, it can -- and probably does -- offer other networks.  Some of these include: ME-TV, Antenna TV, Cozi, MyNet, ION, THIS, GetTV, MyNet, Retro TV, etc.  Many of these offer what's known as "vintage" programming: movies and TV series from the 1950s, through 1990s.

After  you've seen what stations are available, the next step is to decide what stations you actually want to watch.  For example, I have no use for Home & Garden TV (HDTV), the Food Netword (FOOD) or the many many shopping channels.   TitanTV has an edit feature that allows you to "hide" channels that you won't be watching.  You can also have multiple lineups; one can list every channel, while another can list only the channels you want.

WHAT STATIONS CAN I ACTUALLY RECEIVE?

Once you see what stations are nearby, and you've determined which you actually may want to watch.  the next step is to see which of the desired stations you can actually receive.  That's usually not the same thing as what's actually in the area.  It will depend on how good of an antenna setup you have, the terrain where you live, how far above level ground you are, the frequencies/bands that the channels operate on, and other things.  But fear not: there's a way to get a good idea of what will be available BEFORE you plug in your antenna or go out to find one.

Before deciding on an antenna, you should first go to this site:

http://www.tvfool.com

Again, there are similar sites; I prefer this one, because it explains everything without trying to sell you anything else.    Once there, click on "TV Signal Locator" on the left.  On the next page, fill in your information.  Enter the physical address (you don't need to put the unit or apartment number in) and the zip code.  This is desired, because TV Fool needs to geolocate your position in order to give you the most accurate information.  Don't worry; they won't keep your address on file, nor is it listed on the report that's generated.  Don't put in a value for Antenna height yet; leave that blank.    After you click on "Find Local Channels, a report will generate.  Before reading it, you should bookmark that page so you can return to it later when needed.

On the report that's generated, skip down to the graphic that lists the columns, station call signs and many numbers.  Don't be afraid: I'll explain how to use them.

The stations are sorted by a column called NM(/Db).  Put simply, that's the strength of the signal from that station that you'll receive.  Note that only --.1 is shown for the virtual channel (the one you'll be entering on your remote control; this is also known as a "re map").  That's the base station.  The other stations will have the same transmitter and same signal strength: for example, if you can get 4.1, you'll also get 4.2, 4.3, etc. if they're offered.

What you're looking for under NM/Db is a number at least 35 or higher.  Sometimes a lower number will work, and sometimgs a higher one won't, but as a rule of thumb, you'll want 35 or higher. These are colored green.  If all of the stations that you want are in the "green zone," then you can probably get by with a good indoor antenna.  If any are in the yellow zone,  you may want to use or buy a good attic or outdoor antenna. Channels in the "red zone" are probably not going to be available without a strong antenna.  Note that many channels that you find in the lower yellow and the red zones may be redundant, meaning that their equivalent channels can be found higher up in the graph.

If everything you want to watch is in the "green zone," then the next step is to determine if any of these channels are on the VHF frequency.  There are three major frequencies used in digital televsion: Low-VHF, High-VHF, and UHF.  Most stations, including those that used to operate on VHF in the analog days, have moved to the UHF frequency, although for familiarity's sake they use the same virtual channel, i.e. channel 4 would use 4.1, 4.2, etc., even though it may be moved to frequency band 38.   This is relevant to you if any of the stations you want are on frequency bands 2 to 6 (low VHF) or 7 to 13 (high VHF).   The way to find this is to go to your TVFool report and look at the second column, titled "Real".  That's the band the station operates on.  As you'll see most are 14 or higher.

If all the stations you want are on band 14  or higher, you can get by with a simple indoor antenna.  I've tested several, and the one that does as well as any of the others on the UHF (14+)  and High VHF (7 - 13) bands is the Channel Master Flatenna.  This costs a mere $10 , with free shipping, from the Channelmaster site.  You can find it at:

http://www.channelmaster.com

As a bonus, the Flatenna also supports bands 7 to 13 (High VHF).

Low VHF (bands 2 to 6) is where almost all indoor antennas fail.  Only about 2% of all stations still operate on this spectrum.   If one of the stations you must have is on band 2 through 6, then you'll probably want an outdoor antenna.  If an outdoor antenna is out of the question you can buy the Flatenna, an inexpensive set of "rabbit ears," and a splitter (these can be bought at many stores such as Radio Shack or Home Depot).

Even though your stations are in the "green zone," that doesn't mean you'll always get all of those stations.   Unfortunately, the only way to be sure is to plug  antenna and try it.  Trial and error will tell you what position is best for the antenna.  Since the Flatenna only comes with a short cord, you may want to buy a coaxial cable  (again, Home Depot and Radio Shack sell these); a 15 foot one will cost about $7.

When your antenna arrives, the next step is to position it so that it pulls in as many stations as it can.  The best place is usually right near a window, and if you have the option, it's a good idea to have it facing the broadcast towers.  You can find out where they are from the TVFool report, with north being 0 and 360 degrees, south being 180 degrees, etc.    Positioning the antenna is a matter of trial and error.  If the antenna doesn't get the channels you want, you may need a stronger one.  There are several websites that discuss antennas in detail.

Once you know what channels you can get on broadcast TV, and what programming those channels will give you, it's time to check out other options, which are covered in subsequent posts.

SHOULD YOU CUT THE CORD?

The first question you need to ask yourself is what cable (or satellite; for simplicity, I refer to all such as "cable") channels do you watch on a regular basis?    Some channels are very proprietary: for example Fox News has its own brand of programming and targets a certain audience.  You can't get Fox News live without being subscribed to cable or knowing somebody who is so you can use the online stream through their cable ID (Edit: You can get Fox through Playstation Vue's service).   Fox does offer clips of some of their shows for free online at various places, but a free live stream is cable only.   CNN is another proprietary news network, but it can be streamed on Sling, which costs considerably less than cable.  CBS News Live is a 24/7 news network that you can get for free on Roku.

Live sports are another stumbling block. While much of ESPN is now available through Sling (more on them later) without a cable subscription. many regional networks are only available on cable systems, and many cost extra.    If you're a sports junkie who needs every sports option available, you're probably not going to be happy without cable TV.

Most cable networks offer TV programming that isn't proprietary to them.  For example, Warner (WE) shows a lot of CSI and "Law and Order".  In fact, that's about all they show besides infomercials.  But CSI and Law and Order are not proprietary to WE: you can find both elsewhere, such as CSI on broadcast (free, OTA) TV and on streaming services; Law and Order can be seen on MyTV (broadcast network), TNT, and streaming services.

Once you know what proprietary networks you want and what shows you want to continue to watch, it's time to look for alternate sources.  Understand that you may not be able to completely "cut the cord"; internet access is required for streaming services.  Since most people who have cable also have internet access, this won't be a problem.  While it's possible to stream on a 3 Mb/s connection, you're realistically going to want a 15 Mb/s connection, and if you stream extensively, you'll want an account with a high enough data allowance (the total amount of data you can consume in a month without paying extra).

The steps to take to determine whether you can replace cable with something else is covered in the next post.