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.

We run firestick streaming off the internet. Netflix also. You can stream dish anywhere through firestick if you know someone with a dish network account that will let you. My parents 5 miles away have dish and I stream the anywhere app at my house which is nice. Streaming/internet t.v seems the way of the future Dish and Direct I'd say are hurting..

Maybe something like this one? Says it does 150 miles. https://www.walmart.com/ip/HDTV-1080p-Ou...65834#read-more

I just turned mine off. All of it. Came home one day and my bride had it back on. Some fights aint worth winning. So not only do I not watch TV I don't look at the bill either.

We turned in our directv equipment December 21 and have not missed it. I get my news from radio and internet. I decided I really didn't care who won any of the ballgames i watched, and I'm sure my blood pressure is better by not watching liberal news castors. Now I watch trapping on YouTube and read trappers every night. Also get some good reading done. I believe my time is better spent now.

I am 40+ miles from a TV station. I have a large antenna in my attic and get several HD channels for free. Netflix is my only monthly bill

No cable or direct tv bills is great!!

I live 50+ miles from the nearest station, because of surrounding hill/mountains, only a dish will work. Have to have a dish for internet and tv. No cable available. Years ago someone put an antenna on top of the hill across the creek with a lone wire coming all the way down and was told they could get, kinda 1 and a half channels. I'm getting tired of the high bills as well. Don't know how much it would cost to upgrade satellite internet to make it fast enough for Hulu or something?

It was hard getting Direct TV to understand on the phone that no means no, no 12 month offer with a reduced price or a crappier low end package. Just Turn me off before my next bill.

Scott I dropped them a couple years ago for the same reason and I am still getting letters from them to come back. They use plain envelopes to trick you into opening them. Like that is going to work. Lol

I want the small black and white small tv back with the rabbit ear antennae. My grand kids can do what I had to do and stand by the tv holding the Reynolds wrap on the ears. Lol

Kodi. A lot of free stuff but you do need internet to use it.

Dishnet

Century Link's service... or Lack of service (1.5Mb) for us, Is next on the chopping block. They say there isn't a decent alternative to century link in our area Unless you go to a Data rate program, and that can get costly and still slow down when there is Demand.

Drop TV like the bad habit it is....

Is firestick better than roku?
Which has more tv channels?

ATT available there? We have had their home cellular service for a couple of years and just added cellular internet to the package. Cable isn't offered in our area and we've never had satellite. We put up an old style antenna on a pole and pull in 10+ over the air channels. We also have amazon prime and a roku. It's enough viewing options for our family and much cheaper then the dish options.

check out the channel master DVR too. Love mine with my channel master antenna int he attic. Slick setup with no monthly cost.

I called and complained a couple months ago. Told them I could get dish Network for a lot less than I was paying. They knocked $60/month off my bill for 12 months

Looking into an antenna for local TV channels. I currently have DirecTV. Using a locator program I find the transmitter directions in degrees (magnetic north) for ABC and CBS is 308 while NBC is 159. ABC & CBS transmitters are 18 miles away. NBC is 26.5 miles. So they are pretty close but direction-wise they are 149 degrees apart. I see there is a LAVA brand Omni-direction antenna, but its reviews are marginal. Using 2 antennas and splitting signal to 3 TVs looks complicated. Any suggestions?

We have Roku and love it.

Go trap

Awesome. Besides streaming things like Hulu and Netflix does it have tv channels like discovery? I couldn't find specific channels/ networks

I dropped Directv about 2 years ago now, was with them for over 15 years and as a parting gift they stuck me
with a $200 early termination fee!!

Needless to say I told them where they could shove it!

All I have is Hulu, Netflix and a Blue ray player. That's enough for me. If I want news, I'll look it up on the internet.

Every year, I threaten to quit direct TV and they end up giving me a year at $16.99 and throw in some free channels. Then they slow turn the screws throughout the year until it's back over $20 by the end of the year. But last year they added Fox Sports and Big 10 network at no charge. I'll probably get rid of Direct TV after this last round.

I don't know anything about this internet TV, amazon, roku, etc. Not even sure if my current TV will support them. How do I tell? I do have Amazon Prime and fiber internet. I'm looking for suggestions.

I mostly watch:
Some hunting and fishing
Sports, especially college basketball.
A small number of reality shows such as Oak Island
My wife would be very disappointed if she didn't have the hallmark channel

I do not watch movies. At all.
I do not watch the news at all.
Sometimes in the summer we don't even turn the TV on for weeks at a time.

We have a second TV in the bedroom which we hardly ever use, It's only hooked up to a DVD player at the moment, but by wife would probably watch something on it while I'm using the other TV. It's not a smart TV is all I know but I don't really know what a smart TV is. My son in law says he will give us a password for his Apple TV if we want it.

What might be a good choice for me? Someone care to take the time to educate me about all this?

I hear ya Bernie. I went to Best Buy and just started asking questions. I'm a technological moron.

But in the end, We about all have someone that helps us with out computers once in awhile. Mine comes to my house. He went to my Dads and set all his TV needs up (for a fee of course) but he's still saving a bunch of money in the long run....and he's happy.

I have Comcast here in western pa., Bill just came $203.00, gotta change. Internet from them is $100.00, now I will say there internet service is great. Not sure what to do, will check out Roku.