Bye bye cable tv

I've had cable TV for the past 19 years. I never thought this day would come. Today is our first day without cable TV. I dropped digital cable but kept Internet and phone. Here are the products I used:

An RCA ANT751 antenna I purchased from Amazon:
A Rocketfish RF-G1179 signal amplifier I purchased from BestBuy:

An Apex DT502 DTV converter also purchased from BestBuy:


The installation took about 2 hours which includes unboxing, mounting, and all cables exterior and interior.

1. I mounted the antenna to a rafter in our attic. I chose to do this because I read on Amazon that it worked for other people and being in the attic, the antenna is away from the elements.
2. I added a signal amplifier because we are at the fringe of the antenna's range (40mi.), the antenna is in the attic behind wood & siding and our other TV with a built-in ATSC tuner probably has an 80+ ft run from the antenna.
3. I installed a 10ft run of RG6 from the antenna to the amplifier. This was necessary to get the amplifier close to the nearest outlet.
4. I moved the two cables from the existing splitter to the Rocketfish splitter.
5. I changed the setup on our bedroom TV with the ATSC tuner and started a channel scan.
6. While the bedroom TV was scanning, I connected the DTV converter to the TV in our living room and started a channel scan.

After the scans completed, both TV's have about 23 channels with crystal clear reception. The Apex DTV converter doesn't receive two channels that our bedroom TV does. I'm not impressed with the Apex, however it was free. I purchased it with BestBuy gift cards I received from my employer.

BayNews9? Now I've got channel 10's and 13's all day news channels and they're free! There's Qubo and channel 16kids for our 2yo.

I also have three Roku digital video players with a Netflix subscription ($8/month). I plan on purchasing a fourth Roku soon for a TV in one of my daughters' rooms. I really enjoy the Roku's with Netflix. I know Netflix doesn't have all their collection available to stream, but their business model is going away from DVD by mail, so I'll just be patient while they convert their remaining collection. I also know that the film studios don't want movies available to stream at the same time the disc is released, but I can wait. Besides, the studios would be foolish to keep movies from stream indefinitely because they know people will just rip and steal (I don't do that, but I know people that do). Besides, their flagship Bluray's AACS encryption was cracked in 2007 and we all know that CSS has been cracked since 1999. Therefore, it's in the studios' best interests to make their product available like the public wants. Don't take this as me condoning stealing, which is pirating. Even though the goods are not physical, pirating results in the content owner not receiving restitution for their work. You wouldn't expect to walk into a local movie theater and watch a movie for free, so how is it that people expect they can pirate?

Now if only Hulu+ had better content. I think that too will change as the broadcasting companies realize they can cut out the middle men cable providers from the TV distribution picture. I feel sorry for the cable companies because if they don't innovate to keep their customers, others (like me) can follow suite by dropping some of their services.