I want to screw the cable company

[SJ76]

Might have to give that antenna a try. Cut the cable right after the SB. The antenna I have works, but has random break up due to interference. Maybe this antenna can correct that.

I found a guy in Dallas and this is all he does. Seems pretty busy too. But that is the antenna he recommended. Ran cable line From antenna in attic to outside main line and all are clear as day with no scrambling. He got rid of a few splitters too.

That guy is really sticking it to the cable companies. Lol

 

[HaroldSeattle]

I found a guy in Dallas and this is all he does. Seems pretty busy too. But that is the antenna he recommended. Ran cable line From antenna in attic to outside main line and all are clear as day with no scrambling. He got rid of a few splitters too.

That guy is really sticking it to the cable companies. Lol

Outside mainline?

 

[SJ76]

Outside mainline?

Basically where a satellite was hooked up at one time on the backside of garage. I believe it starts at the main power box on the back side of my property then the cable runs under ground to back of my garage (cable box) then runs into the attic where the antenna is.

 

[NU_FTW]

Might have to give that antenna a try. Cut the cable right after the SB. The antenna I have works, but has random break up due to interference. Maybe this antenna can correct that.

do you have a pre-amp on your antenna? i have found that to be the most useful for me and when i had to help my father who lives in a different city but get our stations it was a must before he got them consistently through the day.

 

[NU_FTW]

I found a guy in Dallas and this is all he does. Seems pretty busy too. But that is the antenna he recommended. Ran cable line From antenna in attic to outside main line and all are clear as day with no scrambling. He got rid of a few splitters too.

That guy is really sticking it to the cable companies. Lol

getting rid of splitters helps remove attenuation. (another thing i had to teach my father about )

 

[HaroldSeattle]

do you have a pre-amp on your antenna? i have found that to be the most useful for me and when i had to help my father who lives in a different city but get our stations it was a must before he got them consistently through the day.

Nope, but guess I should get one then.

 

[NU_FTW]

Nope, but guess I should get one then.

Yea the big black thing he has in the picture of the antenna he has is the pre-amp. It boosts the signal closest to the source so it has the purest boost ( you dont wana boost a heavily attenuated signal, amplifying static is only goina make louder static) every single barrel and splitter you put on will attenuate the signal strength. Also if you distribute the cable (splitter) to multiple rooms a amped distributor will also reduce attenuation

 

[HaroldSeattle]

Yea the big black thing he has in the picture of the antenna he has is the pre-amp. It boosts the signal closest to the source so it has the purest boost ( you dont wana boost a heavily attenuated signal, amplifying static is only goina make louder static) every single barrel and splitter you put on will attenuate the signal strength. Also if you distribute the cable (splitter) to multiple rooms a amped distributor will also reduce attenuation

Good info.

 

[NU_FTW]

Good info.

Yea the pre-amp goes right next to the antenna so it basically boosts it before it has a chance to attenuate (the longer the cable the more attenuation, think ohms law here)

 

[DJ]

I am still slinging. Will never go back to cable/sat.

Do you invite neighbors moms over like in the commercial?

 

[Mondo Jay]

Do you invite neighbors moms over like in the commercial?

Of course.

 

[abby02]

You should cut the cable and give a try to Amazon Fire TV Stick.

 

[Old Lion]

You should cut the cable and give a try to Amazon Fire TV Stick.

Actually you are probably better off with Android boxes. They are so much better then they were a couple years ago when all there was were cheap boxes out of China. Now the new ones are way better then anything Amazon has. Nvidia Shields are very popular but expensive. There are some boxes that have 1gig ethernet and Octo-core processors with 4 gig of DDR4 RAM and a ton of ROM.

 

[NU_FTW]

Actually you are probably better off with Android boxes. They are so much better then they were a couple years ago when all there was were cheap boxes out of China. Now the new ones are way better then anything Amazon has. Nvidia Shields are very popular but expensive. There are some boxes that have 1gig ethernet and Octo-core processors with 4 gig of DDR4 RAM and a ton of ROM.

The shield is the only Android device better than a fire TV box and I'm taking gen 2 with Ethernet port. Google had the Nexus player I have three of those they were better for a short time, I still use them, but fire TV is more reliable.

I read nothing good about the mi boxes, the other official Android TV box.

To be honest my fav has been a Roku TV apps almost never crash and no pissing contest between Amazon and Google, though that is over now.
I
hate that the newest fire TV s require a dongle to get Ethernet. No reason to put wireless burden on router

Sticks are for chumps

 

[R.J. MacReady]

The shield is the only Android device better than a fire TV box and I'm taking gen 2 with Ethernet port. Google had the Nexus player I have three of those they were better for a short time, I still use them, but fire TV is more reliable.

I read nothing good about the mi boxes, the other official Android TV box.

To be honest my fav has been a Roku TV apps almost never crash and no pissing contest between Amazon and Google, though that is over now.
I
hate that the newest fire TV s require a dongle to get Ethernet. No reason to put wireless burden on router

Sticks are for chumps

They got rid of the Ethernet port? ...what are they nuts?

When I had my house gutted we put in cat 6 everywhere. ...I knew I wanted nothing to do with wifi connections to all my fire TV boxes. (or anything else for that matter.)

 

[NU_FTW]

They got rid of the Ethernet port? ...what are they nuts?

When I had my house gutted we put in cat 6 everywhere. ...I knew I wanted nothing to do with wifi connections to all my fire TV boxes. (or anything else for that matter.)

Yeah now it is a separate accessory like it's been on a handful of the official Android TV box. Thank God these fire TV are stable work horses I love my Alexa ecosystem

 

[Used 2 B Hu]

We have a roku but my kids are asking for a firestick. We have old/dumb TVs so I'm not even sure the newest one will work. Also, I think we probably would still need the HD antenna for regular network tv?

 

[NU_FTW]

We have a roku but my kids are asking for a firestick. We have old/dumb TVs so I'm not even sure the newest one will work. Also, I think we probably would still need the HD antenna for regular network tv?

I mean if you want something cheap a fire stick will work but they are clunky by comparison to a fire tv box (you dont need the huge one that is made to DVR OTA TV) If you have an HDMI port either should work though with the stick i remember reading in some AV forums that there was issue with depth of the jack vs the body of the stick not allowing for full insertion "just the tip"

I mean a neat thing with the android/fire tv devices is you CAN play games (ours were playing minecraft on them for a while but it was more of a PITA than it was worth so we just got a 2nd xbox and a 2nd 50" to go side by side behind the PJ Screen)

Roku has just about everything you can want for it and the newest os's have mpeg-2 since that went out of patent (some models have been slow on the update or just not getting it)

Depends on what you want for the kids, i like alexa because i can use my phone or an echo to control what is on the tv i can pick up the fire tv app and use the voice part to launch nick jr or put on something else without having to go into the kids room. Like i said depends what you are looking for. Roku has some Alexa skills but not nearly as integrated as a Fire TV is (all the stations are callable via voice, the kids watch Philo mostly and it is fully integrated into voice commands, cant wait for Youtube TV to get added i think it is just waiting on getting full voice integration before it gets on the Amazon store)

 

[Used 2 B Hu]

I mean if you want something cheap a fire stick will work but they are clunky by comparison to a fire tv box (you dont need the huge one that is made to DVR OTA TV) If you have an HDMI port either should work though with the stick i remember reading in some AV forums that there was issue with depth of the jack vs the body of the stick not allowing for full insertion "just the tip"

I mean a neat thing with the android/fire tv devices is you CAN play games (ours were playing minecraft on them for a while but it was more of a PITA than it was worth so we just got a 2nd xbox and a 2nd 50" to go side by side behind the PJ Screen)

Roku has just about everything you can want for it and the newest os's have mpeg-2 since that went out of patent (some models have been slow on the update or just not getting it)

Depends on what you want for the kids, i like alexa because i can use my phone or an echo to control what is on the tv i can pick up the fire tv app and use the voice part to launch nick jr or put on something else without having to go into the kids room. Like i said depends what you are looking for. Roku has some Alexa skills but not nearly as integrated as a Fire TV is (all the stations are callable via voice, the kids watch Philo mostly and it is fully integrated into voice commands, cant wait for Youtube TV to get added i think it is just waiting on getting full voice integration before it gets on the Amazon store)

Thanks for the info.

My kids have a PS4 and computers/tablets for their gaming. We use the Roku (2nd Gen!) for netflix, hulu and Prime, So I keep telling them we don't actually need the Firestick, since we can access the Prime catalog already. My main thing is not wanting to lose the four networks, since that's where I get most of my football.

 

[Old Lion]

We have a roku but my kids are asking for a firestick. We have old/dumb TVs so I'm not even sure the newest one will work. Also, I think we probably would still need the HD antenna for regular network tv?

It depends why they want it. Keep in mind though that Amazon sucks with third party apps. Sometimes they cant even be installed (Same with Roku). If all they want is Netflix and Hulu and Amazon then that is probably the best route. If they want third party apps for movies and tv shows which are free and have 10 times what you would get through the pay apps then you might struggle. Also most free sports apps are android as well and dont always work on Amazon. You wont get your locals anywhere else but on the antenna unless you live in a major metro area.