So I want to cancel my cable/satellite. Anyone else done it yet?

No. Apparently not.

 

I'm sorry for being an idiot not reading enough. I'm trying to do two things at the same time. LOL

 

Thinking of putting this one outside on my old DTV pole. I might extend it to about 8 feet.

LINK

 

It doesn't look like that mount will accept a mast pipe? Looks like you need to bolt that down to something.



Edit: I just looked at the manual and I stand corrected. It does come with the mast clamps.

 

Yeah you don't have to use the provided pole.

 

Just wondering what makes you want to not go with a traditional aluminum antenna like this?

 

the one I linked looks cooler?

 

Ok.

I'm just some dude on the internet. But I've kinda a nerd when it comes to this stuff and I even was a Ham radio operator back some time ago so I know a thing or two about antennas. The one you have selected may very well work. But it is known as a gimmick antenna. It isn't going to give better performance in a smaller package. They basically make antennas look "cool" or modern and slap a 50+ mile range claim on there and tell you they invented something new when they really have not.

The best performance per size is going to be your traditional aluminum beam antenna.

Now if you told me that don't want that ugly a$$ thing up or you have some covenants you have to try and get around that is a different story. Just understand you are not getting a high performance antenna in a small package.

 

I have no covenants, just a wife that likes pretty things.

You seem to know more than me about this, so tell me what antenna to buy. The longest range I need is 34.1 miles. All the stations are in the same general direction. I cannot (or don't want to) put anything on my roof or in my attic. I just want to be able to put something on the already existing pole and hook it up to the already ran coax cables. I don't want to have to rerun cables under my house or through walls.

Yes, I'm lazy.

 

PM me your address. I want to look at your signal analysis.


And I will want to know if your house is a two story or one story? Lots of trees or other obstructions to the NE? How high will the antenna be off the ground about? Is the existing mast in a location where the antennas will be clear to the NE without your house peak in the way?

 

After reading a lot of reviews, I think I might go with the one Justin linked a few pages back. I guess I could mount it near the top of my roof and just run the coax cable down the house. It will be on the side, so no one would see it.

Although it does claim to only have a 40 mile range, but it does have great reviews.

 

THis bad boy is on the way to me. Hoss!

 

Think I've decided what to do about recording my OTA channels. First, I'll install my antenna and see how many channels I receive. If that looks good, I'm thinking about going with a Tivo Roamio. The base model is the only one that records OTA so forget the Plus and Pro versions.

Tivo Roamio

TiVo Roamio HD Digital Video Recorder and Streaming Media Player (TCD846500): Streaming Media Players: Amazon.com

-Has 4 tuners so it can record 4 shows at once
-75 hours storage (500 GB)
-Pause, rewind, FF, etc
-WiFi
-Acts as a streaming device (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon)
-about $175 on Amazon.com
-Costs $15 per month or $500 lifetime subscription. I think I read that the lifetime subscription is non-transferrable to another tivo DVR though.

There's another option I found. Actually, there's several options for recording OTA but I'm only interested in Plug N Play type devices. I don't want the hassle of hooking to a PC or whatever.

Some DVR's out there are "dumb devices" and only know to record time slots on whichever channel you choose. I want a device that knows I want to record a certain show especially if the preceeding show runs over.

Channelmaster DVR+

Products | Channel Master+

-No subscription fees
-2 tuners not 4
-Ethernet connection but no Wifi (can ge Wifi adapter)
-16GB of storage so an external HD would be needed
-$250



Although the Channelmaster DVR+ is appealing, I think I'm going with the Tivo. Whats $15 a month when I was paying $100+? It just seems like a better device but I could definitely get by with the channelmaster. I might have left out some features but I'm no techie and the features listed are most important to me.