Getting rid of cable TV, just thought I'd share my experience

[maddoggy00]

My wife and I are investigating getting rid of cable TV and going with an antenna + internet + Hulu. Just thought I'd share my experience so far.

I bought the Mohu Leaf indoor antenna for $35 on Amazon. It had stellar reviews. We were pretty impressed with ~21 channels since we live 15+ miles from Philly, but didn't get ABC. So we bought the Mohu Leaf Ultimate for $70. Somehow during that next week before the MLU arrived, our number of channels dropped down to 15 and NBC was coming in and out (snow related? dunno). The MLU's performance was exactly the same as the regular Mohu Leaf, 15 channels was the best it could do. Still didn't get ABC, and NBC was acting up, watchable but on an annoying level.

After moving it around to a million spots at different angles.... I decided to make my own.

Aluminum foil <$0.10
Scotch Tape <$0.10
Poster board = $1.75
Coaxial cable (spliced on the antenna end) = probably $3

Total cost: <$5 and 20 minutes while cooking dinner

Results: 21 channels (6 more than a $70 Mohu), NBC and ABC are perfectly clear in HD with no glitches for the 2 hours it was on tonight.

Future work: real materials already ordered to arrive on Thurs from Amazon for $20 to make two Gray-Hoverman Super Antennas, which should double to triple the range of our current setup, and possibly look like a modern "work of art" hanging in the corner. And obviously we're returning the Mohu Leafs.

[MOST PLAYED]

Might actually try that thanks

[EgoRaptor 2]

Theres other Minion+?

[HalfBajan]

Yeah but now you have a big piece of foil on your wall

[Poison]

where the fuck did you learn rocket science

[Ticherhaz]

wow.. so clever

[Pepsi Cola]

Pretty smart. But looks kinda messed up

[Aborted]

Theres other Minion+?

If you got out of General you'd know this Remm.


Pretty damn cool setup man, been thinking about doing something similar to save cash. I barely even watch TV, so I'm wasting over $100 a month on DirecTV and a DVR. So it's only a one time purchase, and you can pick up base channels with no extra costs, or is there a monthly fee of some kind involved?

[Scotia]

Ghetto as fuuuuuuck. I like it.

[maximon555]

Yeah but now you have a big piece of foil on your wall

Look at the bright side,at least he has enough tin foil to make new hats for everyone in the family.

[maddoggy00]

Pretty damn cool setup man, been thinking about doing something similar to save cash. I barely even watch TV, so I'm wasting over $100 a month on DirecTV and a DVR. So it's only a one time purchase, and you can pick up base channels with no extra costs, or is there a monthly fee of some kind involved?

Over the air (OTA) is free; all you need is an antenna.
If you have internet, you can use Hulu+ with either a Wii, computer, Xbox, PS4, Roku, or stream from your phone (to mention a few). Hulu has 1000s of TV shows, and a decent selection of movies. Hulu+ is $8/month. Also, if you're a student (or alumni with a .edu account like me) you can get a student Amazon Prime free for 6 months, and $40/year after that. You can stream a bunch of movies for free on Amazon Prime, or rent virtual copies for a $1 or something like RedBox, except you don't have to go back to the grocery store when you're done watching it.
The only thing those two don't cover is some live sports that don't show on the major networks (ABC, NBC, FOX etc.), like hockey. You can go to cbssports.com and stream for free from there, but you can't do that on a Roku or Wii (don't know about Xbox/PS4).
Summary: cost of internet and $8 per month with a flat fee of the cost of an antenna, and a streaming device, which most people already have, to get 10x as much stuff to watch than paying $100-200 for cable TV.

where the fuck did you learn rocket science

I'm a material scientist. I know pretty much nothing about radio receiving technology, but it really wasn't hard to figure out. You just want 2 pieces of foil 1/8" apart from each other to create a polarization gap. Pretty much all stations use both vertical and horizontal polarization, so you either want the gap to be perfectly horizontal, or straight up and down. Then just rotate it til you get the best signals for the channels you care most about.

Yeah but now you have a big piece of foil on your wall

Lol yea, but not on Thurs. This was just a prototype. Thurs it will just look like a white posterboard with a cool copper design on it (that will probably look like modern art to most people). Long-term plan though is to stick it in the attic and run it through the existing coaxial cables in the walls to feed to the whole house with one antenna.

[Express.]

Yeah but now you have a big piece of foil on your wall

This .

[drepik]

I don't like the foil on the wall :|

[maddoggy00]

I don't like the foil on the wall :|

This .

Read the whole post next time! It will eventually look like this:

except the wire dongle will be behind the board, so you won't see it, and I may get aluminum tape and make some sort of cool design.

Art.

[.REZ]

People have been doing this for a very long time, congrats.