First of all I Like Direct TV just fine especiall?y the box's allowing for recording of our favorite shows thus Allowing us to zip past commercials . Its the Ever increasing bill and the service contract IF you call in to get your bill reduced in any way.

My 4 adult children all run off of Hulu, netflix and Amazon prime... they have No Broadcast TV, their bills are a fourth of my Wife's and mine... but I'm probably not if I quit direct tv- going to like not having Broadcast channels.

Questions I have are Do Digital Antennas sold for like under $20 at Wal mart really work and What other options besides Cable companies does a guy have?

I get a 10-15 channels with my cheapo digital antenna, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, a few PBS and some others we don't really watch. Depends on the signal strength in your area though. We pay about $50/month for internet and use Netflix and Amazon prime.

Call Direct TV ask for accounting. Tell them you are switching if they can't lower your bill. Then negotiate lower if it's not low enough. I changed back to cable about a year ago from Direct. They called me on the phone and said I should have asked for accounting, NOT customer service. They will probably lower the price substantially.

Had direct it was a constant rise in the bill like clock work if you complain the tell you to take $10 for the next 6 months then raise the price again soon after that. If a storm rolled in it was useless my cable is more reliable then Direct TV ever was.

Once the put in the cable lines we dropped Direct!

Our Internet will not support much... even the bundle with Direct TV and DVR upgrades do not allow us to do any streaming or on demand programming because of a Century link 1.5 MB speed (only one in our area) we pay $49.72 for that 1.5 speed.

They did say they'd lower the bill by $16 a month for the next 12 months... but that comes with a Contract... if I quit them in those 12 months I would get a Charge on Each of our Two DVR box's for early termination. I told them keep the discount I did not want to enter in to another contract.

Roku. After having Dish Network for almost 20 years and $160 a month for landline and t.v,we went to Roku and you have access to about 500,000 channels,movies,series,etc.You can pick and choose what fits you best.I believe we pay for Netflix and Hulu at around $17 a month,everything else we watch is free.Still get NBC,ABC,History,all that stuff.

https://www.roku.com/index

I bought an antenna from denny's antennas its called a HD STACKER with a amplifier for our camp in the mountains. Not the best area for an antenna. I put it inside under the roof and i get about 24-30 channels. I am putting up a tower and rotary this summer. I was very pleased with denny's service. There website walks you thru checking what the reception would be for your area using your zip code and street address. I would check with them for stations you could get at your home doesn't cost anything. My setup without the rotary or tower was $140.00

Search here or the individual broadcaster sites themselves - https://www.antennasdirect.com/transmitter-locator.html

Get the receiver needed. I wouldn't buy the $20 one but you certainly don't have to spend $100 to get a good one.

I ditched cable 2 yrs ago and haven't looked back. I use chrome-cast. Fire TV is good though too. Fire lets you subscribe to individual channels if you feel you're missing out. The basic channels I get from the receiver plus netflix suit my needs fine.

centurylink for internet..ours isnt super high speed but netflix doesnt need too much to run. then we have netflix, hulu, and amazon prime. total internet and services is about $100 a month. our minimum dish bill was 250 or more. Only thing is we dont get football games or any of that, dont really care about any of that anyway. Will never go back to satellite service, way too expensive. And dont ever consider satellite internet with dish, had a data limit and it was slow and expensive. With the netflix and such, they have most of the shows we used to watch but sometimes you may be behind from when they play on tv. i watch netflix alot more than hulu. There is always something worth watching.

Just dumped cable last month went to sling tv through roku .. Works pretty good .. But sometimes it buffers but that's the internet..

Spending about 30 bucks a months compared to $110 with cable

Our local phone coop makes you keep a landline to get their service so TV, internet and landline is about $160 with a recorder included in the price. Still looking for something cheaper and easier.

So I pulled the Direct TV plug called them and turned it off as of the 26th- coming up here. We have two DVR boxs one in the bedroom and one in the living room. So I Honestly will miss Direct TV but cannot continue to justify $98 dollars a month for just TV. We will have to adjust.

Our daughter bought us a Roku and we have Amazon prime account... we can use Netflix from the same daughters account I guess. I will be looking into the Tower/Antenna's Thank You for the Ideas and Advice so far!

Depends on. Your area whether an antenna will pick up your local stations. I was tired of the cable bill so I went to Walmart and asked what antenna would pick up local stations. The guy in the electronics department told me to buy and try if it didn't work return and try another. I found a middle of the road priced model that mounts outdoors and has an in line amplifier that worked. Took me 3 tries but was well worth it. I can now get ABC, NBC, CBS AND FOX and quite a few other channels that have movies and older shows. Also plenty of kids programming if needed. I used to pay 129 a month for cable and now I pay nothing to watch TV. That 35 dollars has saved me a ton of money.

I bought antenna good for60 miles.i get 35 channels and 3 learning channels for my 3 yr old son and doesnt cost a thing..my antenna and rotor cost me like 60 bucks...all stations are 40 miles away...we dont watch too much tv..we have been snaring this winter...he snared first dog @ 3

They are no different than the front end of the antenna you used to have, the UHF part with usually a Y of short bars. The digital decoding is part of your TV, the antenna is basically a piece of wire.
Whether or not it works depends entirely on how strong your local broadcast is and how far away you are and whether or not mountains are in the way.
When the change over was taking place and before station strength was reduced I was receiving six channels from about a hundred and thirty miles away. After the power reduction I can get one channel about thirty five miles away. A whole industry of mini antennas was created by peoples misunderstanding of what digital broad cast meant. If you still have the old antenna in place, hook it up and see if the local is powerful enough. We are on Roku now over the DSL connection.

What you get with an antenna is going to depend a lot on where your tv stations are. We got a $20 one and I picked up ABC, NBC, FOX, PBS and a couple others but could not pick up CBS to save my life, lol. If all your local stations are broadcast from cities within 50 miles or so of you, you should be able to pick them up good.

We are about 70 miles away from the Twin Cities Mpls, ST. Paul give or take a couple miles and Zero Mountains between us. Haha

I shut cable off in 1997 , never had any satellite tv ...........I've saved thousands in the last 20 years.

I have a digital antenna and get by just fine with about 8 channels

I FINALLY had enough of direct TV. Was on the phone every month about some hidden charge. Always the same answer: We:ll fix it...no problem. On your next bill. Next month I had to call again...angry.

Best thing I've ever done in the TV world was to buy a new TV and a Roku box. I pay $8.56 per month for Netflix and have better TV than I ever did with Direct TV...and zero commercials. What I can't find on Netflix, I can find on youtube. Only regret is I didn't do it earlier.

Pull the plug on em. You'll be glad you did.