checking back in from the cable/satellite free world
In April, we abandoned the world of overpriced satellite TV. To say that we’re over the incident would mean that Mr. M would no longer engage DirecTV employees at local Best Buy and Costco stores in a fierce verbal battle of “so what is good customer service?” … and since that still happens, well, we might still be a little raw over the whole thing.
BUT… I’m not here to wax poetic about missing the $100+ TV bills, but instead to share some wonderful news about digital TV and our new digital antennae.
Specifically this one:
We happened upon this $30 Winegard FlatWave HDTV Indoor Digital Flat Antenna
So we took it home, plugged it into the back of the TV and I simply laid it on the middle of our entertainment unit (I refused to resort to placement trickery in the window unless it needed it).
And guess what? It worked perfectly!
No worries about climbing up and mounting an antennae on the roof… we have ourselves all the major networks with crystal clear reception and then some random channels to boot! I mean… I never knew I needed 3 PBS variants of one channel, but I’ll take them for free?
So friends… we now get award shows (not going to lie… I wanted to try this out before the Tonys snuck up on us!) and major sporting events on cable networks (hello Olympics!).
And as for you ESPN fanatics? Did you hear the news out of E3 yesterday? You might want to invest in an XBox360 – since you can now stream ESPN through the box! Monday Night Football, holler!
Things are getting pretty nifty here in cable-free land…
8 Comments
Heidi
That’s awesome! The last time you mentioned ditching the cable connection I was highly skeptical that we wouldn’t be able to pull it off, but now I’m inching my way closer to that line.
Thanks for the update!
Jen
Ahhh!! I need to look for that antenna at our local Costco ASAP!! Costco is the best for returning so it’s perfect!
We’ve been doing relatively ok cable free. Except on days where I get home late from work and just want to turn the TV on and watch anything without having to find it. That’s a bit frustrating.
We just bought a wireless keyboard with built in mousepad. We’re hoping that that will ease things as well since it is a bit of a pain to get up and change things on the computer if we want to “change the station”.
Thanks so much for the update!
Laura
Glad to see your update! My husband is a huge sports fan and loosing those sports channels would be the #1 reason that he wouldn’t want to give up cable. You are giving me a compelling argument!
michelle
When the lockout was announced we cancelled all trad cable and just used our roku and veebeam and i didn’t miss a single thing (including the super high bills!) BUT once the season started we couldn’t live w/o tnt, etc. so we added a basic package. we’ve already decided we’ll be cutting it in a few weeks after we WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP (staying super positive over here…)
haven’t seen that antenna at the co yet but will keep our eyes peeled (we had the bigger one and i just couldn’t get on board w/the size)
Amanda
Wow – that’s awesome! We’ve been toying around with the idea of going cable free but there have been a few things stopping us. Sounds like we might be able to do it someday soon, though!
talda
I was wondering how your no cable experiment was going. Glad to know it’s possible, especially with the sports. But do you need a cable subscription to stream ESPN?
Kate
So glad it worked!
sp
thanks for the update!
question: when you subscribe to the channels on roku, are you locked into a 12 month contract?