It was driving me nuts. Maybe even a bit insane. It was time to act...
Over the years, I've reduced my TV watching habits from a show or two a night, to 4-6 a week, then two a week and now, none. During this time period, I also would watch a very high percentage of Red Sox games (pretty much all but the dreaded West Coast trips) and every New England Patriot game.
Even my wife has reduced her sickening reality TV addiction from one a night down to two a week. My kids were only allowed one half hour show per night, time permitting, to relax.
Given the above habits, even subscribing to the cheapest high definition (HD) package available from Comcast, our monthly bill was costing our family about $10 (or more) per show or even more scary - about $800 a year. At that rate, I'd rather purchase whole season DVDs of those shows and have them accessible at a whim and still have a significant savings.
One problem: I live in The Boondocks. Well, by some peoples' standards; I grew up outside of Bangor, Maine and to me, even that didn't feel like The Boondocks. According to major broadcast networks, however, I am about 100 miles from anywhere of value. Let me be more exact: I'm 5 miles from the largest city in New Hampshire (population 100k) and about 60 miles from Boston but that doesn't seem to warrant real TV broadcast antennas. Well, other than one ABC station and a Telemundo.
So, even installing a consumer HDTV antenna in my attic wasn't going to help according to AntennaWeb. This is not good. I'd have dumped TV entirely - in favor of internet content and streaming services such as Hulu, Netflix and video on demand such as Apple's - but my wife insisted she needed "local" news (Boston stations count).
So what was I to do? Continue paying the cable tax? I called the professionals. New England Antenna is a family owned business that installs all types of antennas for a living. They had experience installing real antennas, not the consumer grade stuff sold on Amazon and installed by weekend hacks like me.
They quoted me a reasonable price for equipment and installation and could do the install the following Monday. After sending the poor installer up on top of my McMansion, I had an HDTV feeding my house (wired for 8 drops of cable) with the real, raw, uncompressed HD streams being broadcast from Boston. My TV detected a total of 35 channels and sub-channels. Even better than I had expected!
I now receive: ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, NH PBS, MA PBS, TV 38 and 56 (old school Boston channels) and it is more than we need. Granted, I miss MythBusters and NESN (Red Sox) but I break even on this installation in less than ten months and from then on, I save a considerable sum of money per month with equipment that is mine forever. I highly recommend this experience to anyone.
Check back tomorrow to find out how I got rid of my landline phone...
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| I was Muppet crazy |
Even my wife has reduced her sickening reality TV addiction from one a night down to two a week. My kids were only allowed one half hour show per night, time permitting, to relax.
Given the above habits, even subscribing to the cheapest high definition (HD) package available from Comcast, our monthly bill was costing our family about $10 (or more) per show or even more scary - about $800 a year. At that rate, I'd rather purchase whole season DVDs of those shows and have them accessible at a whim and still have a significant savings.
One problem: I live in The Boondocks. Well, by some peoples' standards; I grew up outside of Bangor, Maine and to me, even that didn't feel like The Boondocks. According to major broadcast networks, however, I am about 100 miles from anywhere of value. Let me be more exact: I'm 5 miles from the largest city in New Hampshire (population 100k) and about 60 miles from Boston but that doesn't seem to warrant real TV broadcast antennas. Well, other than one ABC station and a Telemundo.
So, even installing a consumer HDTV antenna in my attic wasn't going to help according to AntennaWeb. This is not good. I'd have dumped TV entirely - in favor of internet content and streaming services such as Hulu, Netflix and video on demand such as Apple's - but my wife insisted she needed "local" news (Boston stations count).
 |
| My antenna without mounting mast. |
They quoted me a reasonable price for equipment and installation and could do the install the following Monday. After sending the poor installer up on top of my McMansion, I had an HDTV feeding my house (wired for 8 drops of cable) with the real, raw, uncompressed HD streams being broadcast from Boston. My TV detected a total of 35 channels and sub-channels. Even better than I had expected!
I now receive: ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, NH PBS, MA PBS, TV 38 and 56 (old school Boston channels) and it is more than we need. Granted, I miss MythBusters and NESN (Red Sox) but I break even on this installation in less than ten months and from then on, I save a considerable sum of money per month with equipment that is mine forever. I highly recommend this experience to anyone.
Check back tomorrow to find out how I got rid of my landline phone...
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