What do you mean the days of antennas on roofs are over? If you own your property, remember that according to FCC regulations, no Homeowner's association can prohibit you from having a rooftop antenna. But close into town, you can get a "small" rooftop antenna, and simply put it in your attic or in a closet, and you'll get reception just fine, more reliable than rabbit ears. and the picture quality is TONS better, like the difference between VHS and DVD. And for those who live in basement apartments and such, there's other cable providers to switch to.

I can only tell you the way it used to be, huge antennas on the roof of every apartment building with wires running down into apartments. Then occasionally you would get some rotten kids cutting the wires. We are talking NYC here, so not everyone has an attic. Millions live in apartment buildings where you are not allowed satellites, not allowed to ruin the exterior by running wires to the roof, and all the metal in the building blocks reception. I remember growing up we used to have a hole drilled into the wall so the antenna wire from 10 stories higher could come in under the air conditioner.

Also, cablevision and Time/Warner have virtual monopolies in their designated areas. Where Cablevision is in Brooklyn and Queens, Time/Warner does not exist. Same for Manhattan where you have T/W and Cablevision does not exist. It isn't as easy as you think. I live in a co-op in Manhattan and I am officially not allowed to get DirectTV by decree of the building. No dishes defacing our exterior.

When we realized that most of the cable shows we watch are readily available online, we ditched the cable (but kept the internet) and bought a converter box and high powered antenna. It feels the same. Except on Saturdays and Sundays when you're stuck in the house and you miss marathoning those VH1 countdown shows.

what do you mean by converter box, converter for what? Also, can you get live streams of news (CNN and so on) online?

God forbid Barbara would reccommend using an antenna.

that kinda defeats the purpose of what she was trying to do, which was naming an alternative provider for people to go to as a way of pressuring Cablevision not to drop the channel

what do you mean by converter box, converter for what? Also, can you get live streams of news (CNN and so on) online?

SFK means the converter box than enables you to use your old analog TV to recieve the digital over the air signal. If one has a newer TV (Less than 2 or 3 years old) then that converter box isn't necessary. There are amplified antennas as well, that can work well indoors, heck there is homemade one you can see directions for on youtube that you can make with a 2X4, wire coat hangers, and some pennies. it's flat, and many people hide them behind their couches, or fastens them to the wall of a closet (I hear they work VERY well). High rise apartments are tough... but if you have a balcony, you CAN have an outdoor antenna on it, and your complex has NOTHING to say, legally about it, as long as you don't mount it on the building (Many people mount it on a small pole sunk into a bucket of plaster of paris) Out here where I live, a rooftop antenna is all you got, no cable companies here.... so for us it's a way of life. I was GLAD for the digital conversion, all our stations went to UHF only, so my rooftop antenna went from 16 feet long to 8 feet long. It looks MUCH better!

that kinda defeats the purpose of what she was trying to do, which was naming an alternative provider for people to go to as a way of pressuring Cablevision not to drop the channel

Oh.. I get it.

Edited March 4, 201015 yr by alphanguy74

Thanks for explaining alphanguy24! Yes, newer flat screen TVs have the digital antenna built-in, we have an older big ol' bulky thing.

quartermainefan, the converter box ($40 at CVS, I got it for $10 with the government coupon I requested online, it is free to all regardless of income, limit two per household) looks like one of those simple three button illegal cable boxes they used to sell back in the day (not that I know ANYthing about that ). Attached to it is a $60 indoor/outdoor antenna (ours is indoors on our entertainment center) that is basically a 4x9" rectangular dish.

Like with a new TV, you do a "Channel Search" with the converter box and it loads all of the channels the antenna picks up (we have somewhere between 30-40). For us, NBC and ABC each have a second supplementary channel that airs ticker tape news and weather as well as news and lifestyle programming, et cetera. We also get Channel 13, CW, My9, and some other PBS and lifestyle channels, as well as an ARRAY of Spanish language channels (presumably serving the large population of South and Central American folks who are new to the tristate area and less likely to have cable).

As for cable, we mostly watched A&E and VH1 and we watch those shows online now, we can live with being anywhere from a day to a week behind the rest of the world. We also have a Roku where we watch TV shows and movies from our Netflix and Amazon Video accounts right on our TV.

I'm not trying to convince anyone to ditch their cable btw, just sharing our situation. Do I miss cable, no, not really, but would I mind having it back if someone else was footing the bill, absolutely not! Oh, and like you said quartermainefan, we weren't even able to get Time Warner in our area, it was Cablevision or the dish.

Edited March 4, 201015 yr by SFK