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Bozley0621

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 25, 2009
383
118
Check the website I mentioned. It will list the channels you should be able to receive. Should only take a minute, free.

If you have multiple TVs, it is nice to have only one antenna to cope with, otherwise you'll need another for every room. You can often hook it to the cable lines everyone has always run through homes. Maybe you can even accomplish this with the Leaf in one room.

A higher antenna (roof, presumably) will have more consistent signal over all weather conditions. Of course, you said San Diego, so maybe that's not a worry. :) What you described in MD probably would have benefited from an outside antenna.

I've consulted antenna web, but prefer TV fool. I get all of the English speaking channels except for CW within 60 miles. My signal hasn't waivered from the two afternoons of bad weather or the military planes flying over head. We do have very nice weather here, but I'm already missing north eastern fall.:rolleyes:
 

mentaluproar

macrumors 68000
May 25, 2010
1,759
209
Ohio, USA
I never liked cable. Their boxes are glitchy and unreliable. Even when they work properly, they are a bitch to use. The service is overpriced and image quality is atrocious. I have never signed up for cable TV since I moved out.

I once had roommates with cable TV and even they hardly ever used it. Why they insisted on having it, I will never know. They pretty much lived on netflix.

My mother has AT&T Uverse and netflix on her appleTV. She uses netflix and rents movies from itunes, as well as plays back all her old DVDs ripped on to her computer in the office though the appleTV more than she uses the cable service. The only time it is used is for sports and news, and even that is looking less likely, since my step dad hates the picture quality.

I stopped watching TV for a long time, then ripping like everyone else and sorting things in XBMC just the way I like it. I decided on a whim to try hulu again. (If my mother get this much use out of her appleTV, I should be able to do it too.)

AppleTV's interface is clunkier than XBMC is with my rips, but simple and fast. The picture quality is great and the selection is surprisingly good. I even found a few Logo shows, and Hulu has some of their own content now (rev looks fun). Most important, it's SIMPLE! All that's missing is Dexter.

I tried the free week and ended up burning through Eureka Seven. The only downside was being told at each commercial break that Romney is our savior and I'm a bad person if I don't vote for him. (I'm paraphrasing, but you get the idea.)
 

Bozley0621

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 25, 2009
383
118
I never liked cable. Their boxes are glitchy and unreliable. Even when they work properly, they are a bitch to use.

I forgot to add this extremely good point too. I hate cable boxes. The interfaces are so clunky! I don't understand why the cable companies can't at least come to an agreement with Roku or Apple TV or other set top box manufacturer to enable these boxes to work with cable. Even the Roku interface would be better.

There are so many directions forward that a cable company could move to improve their service 10-fold without wasting money on old equipment.
 

SuperMatt

Suspended
Mar 28, 2002
1,569
8,281
I had DirecTV - I was one of the first people to buy their HD box. Well, at first it had about 12 HD channels. After 2 years, they added more channels, but I couldn't receive them. I called and they said they'd changed their HD format, and I needed not only a new box, but a new dish too! The cost was going to be a lot, so I just canceled it all together. I went to OTA via antenna, and the HD picture was great. I haven't looked back.
 

CrickettGrrrl

macrumors 6502a
Feb 10, 2012
985
274
B'more or Less
I've consulted antenna web, but prefer TV fool. I get all of the English speaking channels except for CW within 60 miles. My signal hasn't waivered from the two afternoons of bad weather or the military planes flying over head. We do have very nice weather here, but I'm already missing north eastern fall.:rolleyes:

I ordered a Leaf for my parents after reading about it in your post. I'm glad to hear that the planes don't interfere as my parents live between an airport and a base. Can't wait to try it out, the plus is that it doesn't require power, although I guess I could get an amp if necessary.

Re original thread question: no cable for us, have been using OTA for quite a while now. My parents do have a satellite dish for free European TV (the image quality really sucks), and I got them an Apple TV2 almost two years ago which they use occasionally for movies. They're elderly and don't max out the possibilities. :rolleyes:
 

Bozley0621

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 25, 2009
383
118
I ordered a Leaf for my parents after reading about it in your post. I'm glad to hear that the planes don't interfere as my parents live between an airport and a base. Can't wait to try it out, the plus is that it doesn't require power, although I guess I could get an amp if necessary.

Re original thread question: no cable for us, have been using OTA for quite a while now. My parents do have a satellite dish for free European TV (the image quality really sucks), and I got them an Apple TV2 almost two years ago which they use occasionally for movies. They're elderly and don't max out the possibilities. :rolleyes:

I ordered the one with amplifier and one without an amplifier to try. The non-amplified worked in the living room but not as well in the bedroom. This was odd considering the living room LEAF is above the mantle with a thick chimney to receive a signal through. The window in on the perpendicular wall. The amplified LEAF in the bedroom is beside a door on the same wall as the living room. I hope it works for your parents. When I lived in DC/MD, I don't think there as an indoor antenna on the market that worked.
 

duncanapple

macrumors 6502
Jun 12, 2008
472
12
I ditched cable/sat back in 2005. I realized in my first year living on my own after college that most of what I was watching and recording was regular network/prime time shows. So I cancelled my dish and I put up an outdoor terk antenna; I haven't been back to cable since.

For those of you considering switching, don't forget about OTA and TiVo. I don't even really see the point in hulu if you are after the network channels. I just record my shows with TiVo and I can skip commercials as well as get a better picture than any cable/sat or streaming service can offer. Including an antenna into your cord cutting will also get you a lot of sports and live events though admittedly if you are a huge fan and need all the games (not counting football) of your local team or just any team, you may not be able to get away with this. While I like to play sports or attend them live, I could care less about watching them on TV unless its something big like superbowl or the world series.

The key to an antenna is selecting the right one (the above links will help with that), plus making sure you have the right equipment (ie preamps on long cable runs, powered splitters for certain cases, good connections on the cables, etc).

I don't know anyone that watches even a fraction of the content/junk the cable companies push on us. I have saved over $7000 in the 8 years I have not had cable. That is a pretty serious chunk of change for something that took little to no sacrifice.
 

a.jfred

macrumors 6502
May 28, 2010
467
111
Austin, TX
I cut the cord a year & a half ago. I had been toying with the idea, and had wandered into Fry's to look at setting up a PC or Mac Mini to use ... and found a PC (*gasp* I know, I know; everything else in my household is Apple/Mac) that had a 1TB hard drive and an HDMI-out on the video card for a whopping $350. Since I can run iTunes, Hulu, and Netflix all off of it, I bit the bullet and cancelled my cable. They do NOT make it easy to cut the cord (Time Warner won't let you do it online, you have to take your cable box back to a service center, AND they charged a disconnect fee - as someone who'd been with TWC for 7+ years, I was *livid* about the fee).

The thing I've missed most about the cable box? The clock that was on the front of it. Seriously - I had to buy a clock because I was so used to looking up at the DVR to know what time it was (we'll ignore the fact that it was also on the corner of my laptop screen, and the laptop was almost always in front of me - it's habit!). ;)

I'm not a sports person, and most of the local news I can get online - I don't miss commercials, I certainly haven't missed the political mud-slinging this season, and I've actually dropped quite a few shows I was on the fence about. I do wish HBO would offer a stand-alone service (ie, not tied to the cable companies) so I didn't have to wait to watch Game of Thrones, but I'll live.
 

CrickettGrrrl

macrumors 6502a
Feb 10, 2012
985
274
B'more or Less
I ordered the one with amplifier and one without an amplifier to try. The non-amplified worked in the living room but not as well in the bedroom. This was odd considering the living room LEAF is above the mantle with a thick chimney to receive a signal through. The window in on the perpendicular wall. The amplified LEAF in the bedroom is beside a door on the same wall as the living room. I hope it works for your parents. When I lived in DC/MD, I don't think there as an indoor antenna on the market that worked.

(Ha! Yeah, DC/MD area too. Obviously quite a lot of air traffic.)

Good to know about the chimney wall too. A brick chimney takes up entire wall in family room. That's been a problem with the "rabbit ears" kind of antenna. But I'll test the Leaf in there too on the unused side of a french door in the same corner.

I wish I could set up an antenna in the attic for them --and I don't mind (too much) crawling up there and dealing with the insulation. I just don't know how to route the cable down through the walls to the right places. Aren't there fire stops and sole plates between the floors and between the studs? :confused:
 

mic j

macrumors 68030
Mar 15, 2012
2,663
156
(Ha! Yeah, DC/MD area too. Obviously quite a lot of air traffic.)

Good to know about the chimney wall too. A brick chimney takes up entire wall in family room. That's been a problem with the "rabbit ears" kind of antenna. But I'll test the Leaf in there too on the unused side of a french door in the same corner.

I wish I could set up an antenna in the attic for them --and I don't mind (too much) crawling up there and dealing with the insulation. I just don't know how to route the cable down through the walls to the right places. Aren't there fire stops and sole plates between the floors and between the studs? :confused:

I have an unamplified Leaf. Works really good, as the antenna websites all indicated I need a large external antenna, but the Leaf picks up local stations anyway. Albeit on the weak side. I am going to try the amplified version to see if I can get just a little more stable signal. One think I found out, is that it is very sensitive to positioning when you are on the edge of signal. Just a few inches one way or the other on a wall and the signal changes a lot. So you may want to get their longer coax to allow more flexible positioning.
 

Ic3y

macrumors newbie
Feb 25, 2012
10
0
I'm a big NFL, NBA sports fan and cutting cable has been an adjustment. NFL GamePass isn't available for US customers.

What I did was pay a friend $10 a month to use his Comcast account to stream ESPN HD on my TV either via AirPlay or an HTPC connected to my TV since some games ESPN won't allow you to watch on the iPhone.

Wiziwig is for every other live sports show.
 

JAT

macrumors 603
Dec 31, 2001
6,473
124
Mpls, MN
I ordered a Leaf for my parents after reading about it in your post. I'm glad to hear that the planes don't interfere as my parents live between an airport and a base. Can't wait to try it out, the plus is that it doesn't require power, although I guess I could get an amp if necessary.
People get misled by antenna amps. They do not increase the signal quality that you can receive. You still have to position the antenna well to receive signal.

Amps are for keeping the signal strong inside your house, to get it to your TVs. If you have 4 TVs with wire split and run all over your house, you need to keep the power up, and an amp can do that. Settop antennas with amps have always been pointless, because you usually have 6' or less of cable before it gets to one TV, there's very little chance for appreciable signal loss. But they sure have sold lots of them.

The Leaf is fine, but it's just the latest in a very long line of "new, improved" antenna design. And it hasn't improved anything, just like none of the previous "latest, greatest" antennas did not. I installed one for a friend, works great. She bought it because another friend recommended it. But her old antenna worked great, too. Somehow she thinks this one is better, but it is in essentially the same location, doing just as well as the old one. I gave up, let someone spend $30 to give a nice placebo.
 

pavelbure

macrumors 6502a
Feb 22, 2007
779
562
People get misled by antenna amps. They do not increase the signal quality that you can receive. You still have to position the antenna well to receive signal.

Amps are for keeping the signal strong inside your house, to get it to your TVs. If you have 4 TVs with wire split and run all over your house, you need to keep the power up, and an amp can do that. Settop antennas with amps have always been pointless, because you usually have 6' or less of cable before it gets to one TV, there's very little chance for appreciable signal loss. But they sure have sold lots of them.

The Leaf is fine, but it's just the latest in a very long line of "new, improved" antenna design. And it hasn't improved anything, just like none of the previous "latest, greatest" antennas did not. I installed one for a friend, works great. She bought it because another friend recommended it. But her old antenna worked great, too. Somehow she thinks this one is better, but it is in essentially the same location, doing just as well as the old one. I gave up, let someone spend $30 to give a nice placebo.

My leaf only gets 1 channel when it's not plugged in. If I plug the amp in I get a whole bunch more. It is very directional, if I have it on 1 wall and flip it to the other side of the wall it gets better signal strength. Overall I'm very happy with it. Mine ended up hanging in the kitchen for the best signal.
 

CrickettGrrrl

macrumors 6502a
Feb 10, 2012
985
274
B'more or Less
People get misled by antenna amps. They do not increase the signal quality that you can receive. You still have to position the antenna well to receive signal.

Amps are for keeping the signal strong inside your house, to get it to your TVs. If you have 4 TVs with wire split and run all over your house, you need to keep the power up, and an amp can do that. Settop antennas with amps have always been pointless, because you usually have 6' or less of cable before it gets to one TV, there's very little chance for appreciable signal loss. But they sure have sold lots of them.

The Leaf is fine, but it's just the latest in a very long line of "new, improved" antenna design. And it hasn't improved anything, just like none of the previous "latest, greatest" antennas did not. I installed one for a friend, works great. She bought it because another friend recommended it. But her old antenna worked great, too. Somehow she thinks this one is better, but it is in essentially the same location, doing just as well as the old one. I gave up, let someone spend $30 to give a nice placebo.

Yes, correct. I may need an amp if I connect both tvs downstairs to the one Leaf. It was delivered and I haven't had time to test it out for my parents yet on even just ONE tv, unfortunately. I like that it's flat and can be taped to a window or wall or ceiling. Their current antennas are bulky and of course can't sit on top of the thin tv, so a small table or some other piece of furniture has to be used. Even if this Leaf doesn't work better than what they have now, it'll be an improvement space-wise & visually. Looking forward to trying it out.
 

pavelbure

macrumors 6502a
Feb 22, 2007
779
562
Yes, correct. I may need an amp if I connect both tvs downstairs to the one Leaf. It was delivered and I haven't had time to test it out for my parents yet on even just ONE tv, unfortunately. I like that it's flat and can be taped to a window or wall or ceiling. Their current antennas are bulky and of course can't sit on top of the thin tv, so a small table or some other piece of furniture has to be used. Even if this Leaf doesn't work better than what they have now, it'll be an improvement space-wise & visually. Looking forward to trying it out.

I used Velcro for mine. No ugly tape.
 

mic j

macrumors 68030
Mar 15, 2012
2,663
156
Yes, correct. I may need an amp if I connect both tvs downstairs to the one Leaf. It was delivered and I haven't had time to test it out for my parents yet on even just ONE tv, unfortunately. I like that it's flat and can be taped to a window or wall or ceiling. Their current antennas are bulky and of course can't sit on top of the thin tv, so a small table or some other piece of furniture has to be used. Even if this Leaf doesn't work better than what they have now, it'll be an improvement space-wise & visually. Looking forward to trying it out.

Mine came with velcro discs that can be put on the wall to hold it. So no tape require.

As for antennas, I tried 2 other brands of indoor antennas. Neither of them, picked up even 1 station (I'm 40 miles from the towers). The Leaf picked up all 5 local stations. So something must be different. Also, I have to use a radio signal amplifier for my stereo (sitting right next to it) to pick up FM stations from that same 40 mile distance. Without the amplifier, I get nothing. So I have to disagree with the statement that amplification is only good for enhancing distribution over longer distances within the house. It allows me to listen to stations I otherwise would not be able to get without a roof mount antenna (which I am not alllowed to have).
 

scat999999

macrumors regular
Oct 8, 2003
116
0
I cut the cable a year ago and couldn't be happier, especially since my local CBS affiliate just spent $1 million upgrading their OTA signal. I have monthly subscriptions to Hulu+ and Netlfix, so my recurring bill is $16. For cable stuff we like, like Mad Men, I just buy it on iTunes. TV ala carte, the way it should be. Apple TV is a great add to my system, as I can also use AirPlay to stream from my phone or iPad.

The Leaf works great for me. We have aluminum siding which plays havoc on RF signals, and the Leaf is hanging at the top of a window and gives me all my local OTA channels.
 

brianbunge

macrumors 6502
Aug 11, 2011
386
38
Kennesaw, GA
I'm thinking about doing this with 3 of the TiVo $149 boxes in my home. How are you guys connecting multiple TV's/STB's to a single antenna? Are you using some sort of splitter or do some antennas have multiple connections? It's been years since I looked at any type of antenna.
 

Bozley0621

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 25, 2009
383
118
I'm thinking about doing this with 3 of the TiVo $149 boxes in my home. How are you guys connecting multiple TV's/STB's to a single antenna? Are you using some sort of splitter or do some antennas have multiple connections? It's been years since I looked at any type of antenna.

I have 2 LEAF antennas, but were I to hook up an outdoor antenna, it works the same way as your cable or satellite: a splitter to the cabling in the various rooms. I know a lot of folks simply disconnect their cable or satellite and connect the antenna to the same cable to send the signal throughout the home.
 

slu

macrumors 68000
Sep 15, 2004
1,636
107
Buffalo
I haven't had cable for almost three years. Don't miss it one bit. I have Netflix and an AppleTV that I use.

Sports is tough. I have a slingbox that I put at my parents house, but I know that is not possible for everyone.
 

slothrob

macrumors 6502
Jun 12, 2007
443
0
I cut the cable a year ago and couldn't be happier, especially since my local CBS affiliate just spent $1 million upgrading their OTA signal. I have monthly subscriptions to Hulu+ and Netlfix, so my recurring bill is $16.
$16/month sounds great, but the high speed internet needed to make Hulu or Netflix worthwhile costs $40+/month around here.
 

CrickettGrrrl

macrumors 6502a
Feb 10, 2012
985
274
B'more or Less
:)I tested the Leaf antenna (unpowered) at my parents' today and am impressed. Because it's flat, I could put it all the way up against the ceiling, certainly can't do that with the existing rabbit ear antennas. Both tvs received several more stations than the powered antennas, including a few DC stations which are just over the 35 mile limit. My Dad and I connected 50 ft of coax cable and taped the Leaf to the wall on the second floor, his tv went from 26 channels to 42, basically everything available from the surrounding 3 cities. Now we have to figure a more elegant way to route the cable through the house and maybe up to the attic. But I'm impressed that this unpowered antenna worked over the 56 foot length. No preamps or whatsits.
 
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StinDaWg

macrumors 6502
Apr 5, 2012
295
0
I would love to do that, but here are my main concerns.

1) Sports. When there are 500 football games on ESPN, is there any option to see these? ESPN 3 blacks out a bunch of stuff and/or delays it. Plus you've got other stuff on Fox Sports networks.

2) Recording shows OTA. I could probably find an OTA antenna, but what should I use to record? My Dish Network DVR is pretty nice. I have a $1300 TV, so I don't really want to watch crappy quality stuff on it.

3) Original programming on cable channels. Aside from buying this stuff on iTunes, is there a way to get a lot of this stuff? I'm thinking Deadliest Catch, Whale Wars, etc. I guess for a lot of it you can wait for Netflix rentals, but some of these shows are about three seasons behind.

I really wish there was a great way to cut the cord on so many channels I never use. I maybe watch 15 or 20 total. Plus for some reason I don't get the CW in HD. Arrgh.

1. Use a friend or families login to WatchESPN. OTA for weekend network sports, FirstRowSports for everything else.

2. HTPC with Windows Media Center. No monthly dvr fee and the best interface in the business.

3. Torrents.
 

JAT

macrumors 603
Dec 31, 2001
6,473
124
Mpls, MN
$16/month sounds great, but the high speed internet needed to make Hulu or Netflix worthwhile costs $40+/month around here.
I was paying $70 for low-end broadband + phone, plus $95 for sat, plus Netflix. I dropped the phone, kept the broadband at $70 but with high-end speed, dropped the sat. Net win.
 
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