Digital Antennas

After a year of research, our household recently disconnected from DirecTV and have gone back to antenna for local channels.

We have signed up with Netflix and HuluPlus. Netflix has better selection of movies, and HuluPlus has better tv shows.

Here are the two antennas that we purchased:

Radio Shack HDTV antenna

We started with this inexpensive antenna because several reviews we read said it was one of the best. It did not work well with our Samsung Smart TV in the living room, so we moved it to the bedroom, where it worked much better.

RCA Ant1450BR Amplified Digital Antenna

We bought this one (or similar one)  for our living room Smart television since it was also one of the top rated digital antennas. It took a long while to find the right spot where we could get most of the local channels (still have trouble getting channel 7), which we found during this time that it actually does work best lying flat as suggested. We had to buy a longer cable as well to allow us the option of moving around a fairly large room.

Let me remind you that with indoor antennas there is going to be some interference from time to time. Also, it took many tries on the bedroom antenna to get it as good as I could. It started out on top of my dresser mirror (which has a flat top), but for some odd reason it stopped giving a good picture. So I moved it around until I found a better spot; but still worked on it a long time before I could get most of the channels I like to watch. I still cannot get channel 7 and 9, but I have HuluPlus, so it is not a big deal. And even though I get a number of channels now, there are times when I have to twist the dial or move the ear to tweak the picture.

Truthfully, with HuluPlus, I'm not missing the cable/satellite company at all. And if at any time I find myself missing a show that is not available on any of the above (i.e., Fox & Friends, FX), I remind myself of the yearly savings by not having a provider.