It is a lot easier than you realize to get all your local TV stations over-the-air in high definition! All you need to do is attach a new “digital” antenna to your TV. In fact, the TV signal that you get over the air is usually higher quality (1080i) than you get via cable or satellite (720p).
Plus, it is totally FREE – just like listening to FM radio.
You can do this in 5 steps.
1. Make Sure This Is What You and Your Family Want
Everyone loves to save a buck, especially when it comes to outrageous cable monthly bills. But before you cut the cable, it is important that everyone in the house is on-board and understands what you will and will not be getting.
Just to be clear, OTA broadcasting brings in local network channels. If you are reasonably close to a broadcast tower, should have no problem getting NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and other over-the-air broadcasters. Plus, you’ll be getting an extra $100 or so in your pocket each month.
What you will not be getting, however, is cable programming. So don’t expect to find specialty or all-sports channels free over-the-air. You shouldn’t have much problem replacing your home, current affairs, travel, food, monster truck or other specialty shows with the various online streaming services. Sports, however, is another matter. In fact, I’d say sports are the main weakness of this approach. If your household has heavy watchers of TV sports, and you don’t get those sports on the main networks, then you might not be ready to cut the cable just yet.
But even heavy viewing of live sports doesn’t have to be a deal breaker. MLB, the NBA and the NHL all offer seasons passes and pay-per-game offers that you can access through a TV media player to watch on your TV. Plus, more and more sports are available online everyday through pay-per-view options. As one example, to watch the Tour de France cycling race, you used to have to have a cable subscription that included access to the Versus channel. Now, you can buy HD online access to the full Tour de France coverage for about $30.
There are lots of great online options for replacing your “must-watch” cable shows — just make sure you try those out and get them working BEFORE you cut the cable.
2. Determine If Over-The-Air Will Work For You
If you live in a town or city, chances are good that you will be able get free local OTA programming. The networks still broadcast their TV signals over-the-air, and if you are reasonably close to the broadcast tower and if you have the right antenna, you will be able to bring in those signals.
It is simple to determine if you are a good candidate for OTA programming. Simply, go to tvfool.com, follow the link to “Check Your Address for Free TV”, enter your address and read the report they give back to you:
Let’s go through an example so that you can see how it looks and understand how to read the reports. Imagine you live at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC 20500. You would type that address into the website as seen in the image below. You can leave the height field blank.
Once you have entered your address, you will get back a report that looks like this.
Now this is a report that only an engineer could love, and it is a little intimidating to view at first, but here is what you need to know. If your report is showing a lot of “green” channels, then you should be able to pull in these stations with a simple set top antenna. If you are also getting “yellow” channels, then you should get an antenna, which can be mounted either on your roof or even in your attic, completely out of site. If you are only getting “grey” stations, then you will need to mount your antenna on your roof, and broadcast quality could be variable.
As you can see, the lucky inhabitants of this home, could get about 10 channels over-the-air in HD for free with a simple set-top antenna, including ABC, CBS, Fox and PBS. With a roof or attic antenna, they could bring in even more channels.
That’s an important point. Just because you get a whole bunch of green channels, this does not mean that you have to go with a set-top antenna. You will always get better reception the higher you go and the less obstruction there is from walls – so you might want to consider an attic or roof-mounted antenna nonetheless.
The other important thing about this report is that it tells you the location of the different broadcast towers relative to where you are. You will want to point your antenna to either the broadcast tower with your favorite channels, or to a far-away tower with channels that you especially want to bring in. You should be able to pick up signals from towers that are close to home regardless of where you point your antenna.
3. Choose An Antenna
Your TV Fool analysis will tell you whether you can get by with a set top antenna, or whether you should go with an antenna on your roof or in your attic.
Set-Top Antenna
If you can manage with an indoor set top model, then one antenna you should consider is the RCA ANT 1650R. The 1650R, the top-selling TV antenna on Amazon.com, is a flat antenna that you could mount on a wall (and even paint over it). It gets a 3.5-star rating on Amazon, made up of a lot of 4 and 5 star ratings from happy customers, along with a smaller number of 1 star ratings from people who just can’t get it working. What I like about buying from Amazon is that their $42 price tag is $38 cheaper than the $80 you would pay purchasing this directly from RCA. Plus, if you end up as one of those “1 star” customers who can’t get it working, then you can easily return the product for a full refund.
Attic or Roof-Top Antenna
If you are going with an attic or roof-top antenna, then I can provide a first hand recommendation for 2 different antennas. In the city, we live about 10 miles from either of two local broadcasting towers. This is close enough to get a bunch of green channels, but I wanted an antenna that I could hide away from sight in the attic. I ended up with the Channel Master 4228 HD. This is a fairly large antenna, but one designed for long range.
4. Mount Your Antenna & Connect To The TV
If you can get by with an indoor set top antenna, then either hang it on the wall beside your TV or it can sit flat on your entertainment unit. Either way, all you need to do is connect a coaxial cable (the standard “cable TV” cable) from the antenna to the UHF/VHF input on your TV.
If you choose an outdoor antenna for use on your roof or in your attic, then it is a little more challenging to connect the feed to your TV. Remember that we need to connect that antenna to the TV via a coaxial cable. If you have mounted your antenna on the roof, you need to bring a cable down from that antenna and somehow feed it into the house. For some people, this would be a pleasant weekend activity. But for others, mounting an antenna on the roof and feeding a cable into the house would be a daunting prospect. If you fall into that second camp – and you are by no means alone – and cannot get by with just an indoor antenna, then consider hiring an independent cable/satellite installer to mount your antenna for you. You should be able to find an installer who can do this work for a one-time fee of $100-200. A Google search of “cable installers” should help you find an independent contractor near you.
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TIP: Free TV Throughout Your House
5. Scan Your TV For Digital Channels
Once you have connected your antenna to your TV, or to your cable splitter, you are almost finished. What we need to do now is instruct the TV to scan for channels. Every TV is different, but you’ll basically go into your TV Setup menu and go to the “find channels” options. This will take a few minutes during which time your TV will scan for all the available channels. Once it is finished scanning, your ready to start watching!
Again, if you fiddle around long enough with your TV Setup menu, you’ll find the option to measure TV channel signal strength. If you do have a weak signal, you can use a pre-amplifier, such as the Channel Master CM7777 to boost the signal to a viewable level.