Y'all are ditching cable and here I am so far out in BFE I can't even get cable. LOL
I have a satellite dish and still get Internet via DSL UGH!
If I try an antenna the only thing I'll get is lightning strikes.
@Pikaboo-icu wrote:Y'all are ditching cable and here I am so far out in BFE I can't even get cable. LOL
I have a satellite dish and still get Internet via DSL UGH!
If I try an antenna the only thing I'll get is lightning strikes.
So you don't totally feel left out, I reside near the edge of the Superior National Forest and there is virtually nothing on the "free air waves" ... as to lighting strikes GADS! Do have access to several options and reading this thread, I may just have more. Should offer and all expense paid trip to my part of the world and one of you that has the grasp on all this can educate me and set me up. It is overwhelming. 
@Anonymous wrote:
@Pikaboo-icu wrote:Y'all are ditching cable and here I am so far out in BFE I can't even get cable. LOL
I have a satellite dish and still get Internet via DSL UGH!
If I try an antenna the only thing I'll get is lightning strikes.
So you don't totally feel left out, I reside near the edge of the Superior National Forest and there is virtually nothing on the "free air waves" ... as to lighting strikes GADS! Do have access to several options and reading this thread, I may just have more. Should offer and all expense paid trip to my part of the world and one of you that has the grasp on all this can educate me and set me up. It is overwhelming.
Nice!
We are geography pals. LOL
I'm on the edge of the Gifford Pinchot, smack dab in the middle of the Mt Saint Helen's forest area. Right in the foothills, fairly decent elevation.
They keep saying they're gonna get cable to us in two years but that two years has come & gone 3 times. LOL
I love feeding/watching all the birds, squirrels, raccoons, deer, rabbits, coyotes (grrr), heck we had a pair of peacocks hanging high in the trees for several weeks.
But the lack of choices for both TV and Internet is a drag.
We often lose our Internet in the winter, once for 5 days..
@Pikaboo-icu wrote:Y'all are ditching cable and here I am so far out in BFE I can't even get cable. LOL
I have a satellite dish and still get Internet via DSL UGH!
If I try an antenna the only thing I'll get is lightning strikes.
Yeah, I'm so far out in the boonies there's no cable. There is a landline, literally the last mile of service from a town 30 miles away. When I first moved here in 2005 I tried a 56k dialup modem over the landline - the line quality was so bad the best I got 20k, and believe me you do not want to do internet over 20k dialup! Satellite internet came around a year later and that's when I ditched the landline, but Satellite internet is always your last resort - lag time response as your click goes 50k miles out in space, processed by the sat, sent back 50k miles to an access point on earth and then to the internet backbone, then reverse process. And satellite internet has strict data limits, go over a gig or so a month and they restrict you to dialup speed. Wi-max, long range wireless finally came around in 2010 and that's what I've had since. It's OK, but I pay $55/mo. for "up to 5mbps" down - maybe for one second in the middle of the night, speedtest.net say I average around 3mbps. So that limits streaming, the video quality is pretty poor. I do a month sub to SlingTV Dec.-Jan to catch the college football bowl games on ESPN and then cancel.
Over the air broadcast TV is fantastic. With the digital broadcast you either get great quality or nothing at all. I had DirecTV for a 2 year contract and hated it. I only watch a couple hours of TV per day, and that's primarily PBS and network channels. DirecTV kept raising my rates to the point I said Enough! and canceled. Before I did I used AntennaWeb.org to see what I could get by antenna, TVfool.com is another great source. I'm just over 50 miles SE of Tucson and AntennaWeb.org indicated with a good sized outdoor antenna and pre-amp I could get over a dozen channels. Lightening Smightening! I put my antenna, 6' wide & 6' long, on top of a 20' pole alongside the house. I have trees & power lines taller than that which are more of a target, but to be safe just ground your antenna, a heavy 10 gauge wire connected to a copper rod pound into the ground.
So, my cord cutter expenses:
- TV: Free broadcast TV by antenna, 1 month of SlingTV streaming ($25) for college bowl games locked up on ESPN
- Internet: $55/mo for the only decent choice in my area, long rage Wi-max wireless
- Phone: Cellular only, LG Android smartphone. But I'm not a big talker so Tracfone pre-paid works for me, plus no HP for a contract service. $20 buys me 3 months service with 80 minutes talk time & 80mb data. I sometimes supplement that with more talk minutes and/or data bought from their website, but the best deal to supplement that: Google Voice!!! Free phone # in your area code and free unlimited minutes, plus free Android app. I give out my Tracfone # for incoming calls, but always use the Google Voice app for free outgoing calls. I liked so much that I bought a Obi VOIP adaptor so I can connect my Google Voice to my old wireless "home phone" set to also make & receive free calls from that.
