Not since I lived in a remote location, and didnt have option for cable, have I had pay-tv. Its just so easy to suck it up and pay the bill and let the family enjoy their tv. The providers also now make every attempt to not show you the bill, hoping you won’t realize what you are doing.
Recently, while trying to reset my password, I actually found one of my bills and looked at the details. Of my 206$ cable bill, about 75$ was 200megabit of internet, as 135$ was for cable tv. 135$ a month for nothing special cable. Yea, no thanks.
My first solution was to cancel all tv, but then I decided to try out the Spectrum App on a roku device. They make it really hard to find, and you almost have to know exactly what you want, but you can, for 20$, get SOME basic channels. Not of the major networks, but video and noise will come out of the tv.
if you’re willing to spend 40ish dollars, you can upgrade and have some more interesting channels. But you’re half way back to where I started, so that wasnt what I wanted.
Hitting the way back machine, I rememeber my days in a rural area, with a tv antenna where I was able to get 60+ channels, and I was happy with it. Figgured it was time to try that again.
First attempt was with a couple used antennas I had laying around, with some level of success, but just not content.
After a few days of reading, I opted to try the Antennas Direct Clearstream 4Max TV Antenna, 70+ Mile Range
Initially in the attic, since it was easy, but ultimately to the peak of the rear of the house, about 25 feet up.
For easy distribution, I’m using a Silicon Dust HD Home Run that I’ve had for quite a long time, but under utilized. Its a dual turner, to IP, with LOTS of app options to view it. iPhone, windows, Roku, etc. In my case, I spun up a dedicated Ubuntu Virtual Machine running a Plex Server doing only this task
Through out the house, I deployed Roku boxes, either the Roku Ultra (2020)
or the Roku Express4K+ (2021) as well as an appleTV and a FireTVcube. Every platform supports the plex client so I have a lot of flexibility.
Of the 95 Channels I started with, I deleted the church channels and alternative language channels that I don’t speak.
Starting Channel list:
Channels (95)
2.1 WESH
2.2 MeTV
2.3 WESH-DT
2.4 Me TV
6.1 WKMG-DT
6.2 DABL
6.3 Cozi
6.4 Start
6.5 Decades
8.1 WOFT-LD
8.2 WOFTLD2
8.3 WOFTLD3
8.4 WOFTLD4
8.5 WOFTLD5
8.6 WOFTLD6
9.1 WFTV
9.2 Laff
9.3 Mystery
14.1 WDYB-CD
14.2 WDYB-CD
14.3 WDYB-CD
14.4 WDYB-CD
15.1 WDSC-HD
15.2 WDSC-ED
15.3 WDSC-WV
18.1 WKCF
18.2 TCrime
18.3 Estrell
24.1 WUCF-HD
24.2 Create
24.3 Kids
24.4 NHK
26.1 UniMas
26.2 LATV
26.3 Comet
26.4 Charge
26.5 CourtTV
26.6 WNUE-FM
27.1 WRDQ
27.2 CourtTV
27.4 This
29.1 WRCF-CD
31.2 WTMO-SD
35.1 WOFL
35.2 Buzzr
43.1 WVEN-TV
43.2 GetTV
43.3 Bounce
43.4 Mystery
43.5 Quest
43.6 Twist
45.1 WTGL-DT
50.1 WFEF-LD
50.2 WFEF-LD
50.3 WFEF-LD
50.4 WFEF-LD
50.5 WFEF-LD
50.6 WFEF-LD
50.7 WFEF-LD
52.1 TBN HD
52.2 Hillsng
52.3 SMILE
52.4 Enlace
52.5 POSITIV
55.1 WACX-D1
55.2 WACX-D2
55.3 WACX-D3
55.4 WACX-D4
55.5 WACX-D5
55.6 WACX-D6
55.7 WACX-D7
55.8 WACX-D8
55.9 WACX-D9
55.1 WACXD10
55.11 WACXD11
56.1 ION
56.2 Bounce
56.3 Mystery
56.4 Grit
56.5 Defy TV
56.6 TruReal
65.1 WRBW
65.2 Movies.
65.3 H&I
65.4 Grio.
68.1 WEFS-HD
68.2 WEFS-CL
68.3 WEFS-NS
68.4 WEFS-FL
Summary
So far so good, with the total cost of this project being about 250$ (I already had extra quad shield coax) It will take just 2 months to pay for itself.
Problems along the way.
About a year ago I purchased an Amazon Recast 4 tuner HD DVR box, and it works quite well, EXCEPT – It ONLY supports amazon fireTV devices as clients. IE, no appleTV, no Roku, etc. FireTV does NOT support the SpectrumTV app. I left this behind, but may return to it later.
Future plans.
About all I can think of is that I may upgrade my dual tuner HD Home Run Box for a newer 4 tuner box, with support for ATSC3. So far it has not been a problem, but I could see the potential. I’ll just wait for a good deal to show up for those. Most likely replacement is currently a SiliconDust HDHomeRun Flex 4K ATSC 3.0 NextGen TV: 2/4 Tuners HDFX-4K
Special thanks to:
Chad, who pushed me to finally do this, and then to come over and force me to do it right.
Facebook OTA antenna group https://www.facebook.com/groups/1576273552698216
Rabbitears.info site map https://www.rabbitears.info/searchmap.php
