How We Replaced Our Cable TV with an Over the Air Indoor Antenna to Save Money and Go High Def

Posted on 2014 02 04 by BetCrooks

Yes, this is another one of those stories about how you can save hundreds of dollars a year by cancelling cable and satellite TV and by using an OTA HD antenna instead. Of course this only works if you live where there are dozens of HD TV OTA signals waiting to be picked up: For many Canadians that just ain’t so. Still, here’s how replacing cable with a high definition indoor antenna went for us.

Why Did We Get Rid of Cable TV?

We got rid of cable because

Rogers kept raising the rate until it had reached over $40 a month for basic cable.
Cable costs became taxed with HST which at 13% made the cost seem even more ludicrous.
Our kids were never big TV watchers and had mostly stopped watching regular programs preferring movies and the internet.
None of us are major fans of watching league sports on TV.
I’d rather be prowling around the dark and foggy corridors of the internet than watching The Bachelor.
We live in an area where you can pick up most of the major networks over the air.
Friends within a few blocks of us had good success putting up an outdoor OTA HD antenna.

Should Everyone Get Rid of Cable or Satellite TV?

You can see if you compare those factors with your own life that not everyone should give up cable or satellite TV.

You may love specialty cable sports channels or cooking, home repair and gardening channels. They aren’t broadcast OTA.
You may live where the only OTA you can pick up is CBC in the other official language from the one you understand fluently.
Your kids or other family members may be addicted to TV.
Your cable rates may be reasonable. (Oh, come on, somewhere in the multiverse they must be reasonable, mustn’t they?)
You may live in a forest which equals terrible reception for OTA.

What Over the Air High Definition TV Antenna Did We Pick?

OK, this one is SquawkFox’s fault. Right around when my eldest bugged me about “Aren’t we ever getting that antenna you said we’d get?” I read her post that included an antenna available from Amazon. It turned out to be available only on Amazon.com but it got me poking around on Amazon.ca.

I found a listing for the Winegard FL5500A Amplified HD TV Indoor Antenna (Black/White)for $112.99 including taxes and free delivery. I read through many reviews for it online, including some of the 208 reviews on Amazon.com. I seethed a little about the fact it only costs $59.99 plus tax in the US.

Eventually I decided to give it a try. Unlike some of the other antennas, it was sold and shipped by Amazon.ca which should make returning it, if necessary, less objectionable.

And I knew I could buy it after clicking through to shop at Amazon.ca from the Swagbucks site and pickup a few points that way, too.

Why Not Buy a Proper Exterior Roof or Chimney Mounted OTA HD Antenna?

Originally I had planned to buy a full-size, full-strength outdoor over the air, high definition TV antenna. (Although I did keep flashing back to my childhood when everyone had these huge TV tower antennas because there was no cable available.)

But it’s like that poem about the nail and the horseshoe and the war. If I got a roof mount antenna, the logical place to put it would be on the chimney. But the chimney probably should be re-pointed if we’re up there anyway. But maybe we should replace the gas insert in the wood burning fireplace with a self-contained gas fireplace and take down the chimney since a huge amount of our home heating is going up and out the locked-open flue. But there’s an arched brick mantle on the fireplace which likely won’t be workable with a self-contained gas fireplace. And what if we want to be able to burn wood to stay alive during the next ice storm? After all with global warming and natural gas pipelines exploding and stuff we could have to become pioneers in our own home at any time.

A sheet-of-paper-sized antenna that I could suction cup to any window in the house suddenly seemed so simple.

So I ordered one.

How Do I Like the Winegard FL5500A Amplified Indoor HD TV Antenna?

Actually, I think it’s cute.

(All you techno-geeks go ahead and wince.)

It looks a great deal like one cover of a cheap flexible vinyl binder. Not the deluxe kind with cardboard in the middle. The really cheap kind that you hated because there was no way under the sun they would ever lie flat on a desk or stand up on a bookshelf. One side of the antenna is black, the other white.

Attached to the bottom of this piece of plastic is a very thin coax cable. Some reviewers disliked the light weight, low insulation cable but I suspect it’s to help keep the antenna from being pulled off the window by the weight of the cord.

There’s a little amplifier box on the cable and a short cord that can plug into the wall. You can also power the amplifier from a USB port if your TV/computer has one handy.

Is It Easy to Install this Indoor Winegard TV Antenna?

Uh, yes.

You plug the power cable into the wall. You attach the coax cable on the back of your TV. You hang the antenna in the window. Or set it on a table. Or the floor. Or wherever.

How did we attach the antenna? I’m moderately embarrassed to admit right now it’s attached to the curtains by a couple of clothes pins. We were experimenting with what we could pick up from various spots and left it there. I promise to attach it properly with the supplied sticky tape or with the not-supplied suction cup soon. If anyone notices. So far no one has.

What Can We Watch With our Indoor HD OTA Antenna?

Well, we get (no surprise!) the CBC. Actually we get

2 CBC channels, one in each official language
CTV
two types of PBS
TVO
a local non-affiliated channel that runs great news
a CTS channel (hey, who else still plays the Beverly Hillbillies?)
and several American channels

In other places in the house we can get all the usual American major networks.

Considering we were only replacing “regular” cable, we’re getting essentially everything we had before, plus a few new ones.

Will This Antenna Work for Me, Too?

Well to be honest it might not. We have a family room that looks out the back of our house and a living room that looks out the front. We can get lots of channels from the living room and none from the family room.

Our best reception is in an upstairs bedroom but we have no interest in having a TV there.

This is a light weight antenna meant to pick up strong local signals. If you aren’t fairly close to a transmission tower or a repeater tower you might get nothing at all.

Does It Really Provide High Definition TV?

Yes, actually the picture is extremely crisp and clear. I read somewhere that cable TV providers compress the HD signals to fit more of them down the line and that OTA HD is actually better. I have no idea whether that’s true or not, but the picture is very good.

It’s important to know that we weren’t paying for a HD box for our cable, so we can’t really make a great comparison.

Would I Recommend You Switch to an Antenna?

I have no idea what you like to watch, where you live and what would work for you.

I would suggest if you’re considering this route that you think about getting an OTA antenna and testing it BEFORE you cancel your cable or satellite service. It’s just a matter of attaching a coax cable to the back of your TV.

Related Reading

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Do you use an antenna or are you a cable or satellite TV fan? Please share your views with a comment.

Testing the Best Buy Reserve Online Pick Up In Store Option for a Sony Smart TV

Posted on 2014 01 28 by BetCrooks

I’ll share the moral of the story at the top: Never try to buy a TV on New Year’s Eve or January 2. We did and we ended up testing the Best Buy “Reserve Online Pick Up In-Store” system with mixed results.

Why Were We Buying a TV on New Year’s Eve?

OK, I still think this is SquawkFox’s fault. When I write up my review of our cable alternative antenna I’ll explain why. In the meantime:

My husband like most engineers who are professionals doesn’t get much time off. Sure he gets lots of vacation, he just doesn’t get to take it, nor get to carry it forward, nor get to be paid in cash in lieu of taking it. So when he had a chance to take off December 31, he did.

Immediately, I recognized that meant my strong husband who loves electronics would be available to buy and carry a TV. (I didn’t realize TVs aren’t heavy anymore. Our most recent one weighs over 75 lbs for a 24-inch screen, which isn’t much until you start counting the stairs and the fact it’s a very awkward shape for one person to carry.)

And I’d just done some math and realized I could get a TV essentially for free using some of our mountain of Petro-Points. I wanted to use the Best Buy e-Gift cards but I wanted to spend them almost as soon as they were printed because they say they won’t replace them if they get lost or stolen.

So I printed out the e-Gift cards, and blithely sent him out to Best Buy to get the Sony Smart TV that was on sale that week in the Boxing Week flyer.

Bad mistake. I figure I owe him at least one more Shabu-Shabu and a chocolate cake in recompense.

He ended up back home over an hour later, after visiting 2 Best Buy’s, with some dubious advice and no TV. He said he’d been told we should use the “Reserve Online Pick Up In-Store” option to get the TV. So we did.

How Do You Use the Best Buy Reserve Online System?

It’s a very simple system. You basically just look for the TV online and click on the Reserve In Store button. Then you choose the store you want to shop at. It will advise you of the availability and the total price. You confirm that it’s ok and enter your email address. When they’ve received the order, they will send you a confirmation email saying it’s ready to be picked up. You print off that notice and take it to the store. At our store, they have a separate desk near the front to pickup online orders. You line up, show your order, and pay for your TV.

Of course, by the time we placed our order it was too late in the day to get the confirmation email and get to the store. Everything was closing early for New Year’s Eve, as it should. We did get an email, though, after the store closed saying the TV was ready for pickup. Of course, that meant we would have to wait till January 2 when my husband would be back at work. Fortunately for me, LED TVs are a lot lighter than cathode ray tube ones.

So far our test was proceeding fine. Unfortunately, the next part wasn’t so great.

Picking Up Our TV at Best Buy After Receiving our Reserve Online Confirmation Was Eventful

Exactly 2 minutes after the store opened on January 2, I arrived to pick up our TV. There were 3 people in line ahead of me and there was no sign of a clerk.

After 7 minutes, the clerk arrived back. He spoke to the first customer and explained that
although she had received an email confirmation that her item was ready to be picked up, it wasn’t. In fact there wasn’t even one of those items in the entire store or the warehouse. He promised to phone her when one came in, and she left, understandably not thrilled.

Uneasily, I watched the exact same thing happen, over the next 15 minutes, to the next customer in line. Sorry, despite the email your item is not here.

Needless to say I was becoming unsettled.

The next Gentleman stepped up to the desk. And he was a true Gentleman and very kind and gracious and I will always be thankful to him.

Because he said he had not pre-ordered anything but he would like to BUY MY TV. Ok, he just wanted the exact same TV I wanted. He was asking to place an order for one as there were none on the floor.

The clerk checked a few things and said he couldn’t order one because they were no longer on the online system. Then he said “But wait a sec, I think there’s one back here.”

Darn right, I was thinking. MINE IS.

He brought it out of the back room, and I had to speak up. I asked, as politely as I could, considering I had been waiting for over 20 minutes, “Are you sure that’s not MY TV?!”

There was no reservation code or name on it.

The clerk said his system said there was one more “in the warehouse.”

I was as polite as I could, again, but pushed by asking twice if he was sure.

Fortunately, the Gentleman ahead of me said: “Maybe you could check the warehouse BEFORE I buy this one.”

Off went the clerk. During the 7 minute gap, we inspected the TV, discussed its specs and so on. The Gentleman said he had considered going to the Sony store nearby and asking for a price match to Best Buy.

When the clerk came back, you guessed it, there was NOT another TV in stock.
That’s when the Gentleman really earned my respect. He said he was perfectly willing to put in an order and wait three days for it to come in. He had only planned to do that when he lined up.

And so, I got my TV. But it was thanks to the Gentleman ahead of me, not because of the Reserve Online system.

I think what might have happened is that they picked my order based on the Online request but forgot to label it. It was New Year’s Eve, after all. That would explain why it was at the front pickup counter, not in the warehouse.

Why Did I Pick the Wrong Day to Review the Best Buy Reserve Online System?

My test would have been fairer to Best Buy if I hadn’t placed a reserve online order on what is quite possibly one of their most busy sales weeks of the year. Placing the order on New Year’s Eve was probably even more inconsiderate. Still, Best Buy could have removed the option from its website during Boxing Week if they thought it would become unmanageable.

We used the system on this particular day because that was the recommendation of the sales clerk at one of the two Best Buy stores my husband visited. Both stores had shown the TVs as “in stock” when he checked before driving over.

Apparently, the “in stock” number shown online before you visit the store includes the items that are available through the Reserve Online system. Those items are not necessarily allowed to be sold directly off the store floor.

So while at the store, a clerk told my husband that if he placed a Reserve Online order he could probably get the TV we wanted even though he couldn’t get it by simply visiting the store without a Reserve Online filled order.

Was the clerk correct? I don’t have any way to know. Perhaps a Best Buy retailer will read this and chime in with further information.

For us, it was worth a try. And, in a roundabout way, it worked.

Would I Use the Best But Reserve Online Pick Up In-Store Option Again?

Yes. While the system is only as good as the people receiving the orders, picking them, labeling them and putting them where they are expected until pickup, it could be a good system.

It’s no worse than driving to the store and finding the item is not on the shelf. And if it’s working properly, it could be a whole lot better.

How Is Our Sony Smart TV?

So far, it’s excellent. Of course when you’re comparing to a 21-inch cathode-ray-tube TV from 1986 or one from 1974 that’s only started to colour shift a bit into the red spectrum, your judgment may be different than that of someone who upgrades their TV every 6 months.

I do wonder, though, whether it would have been simpler to just buy another monitor. So far it’s been used 90% of the time to watch YouTube (Captain Sparklez anyone?!) or to watch DVDs. (Downton Abbey Season 3. Yes, we know Matthew dies.) I did mention way back when we decided to cut cable https://financialcrooks.com/why-im-pulling-plug-rogers-cable-tv-cancellation-policy-seems-illegal/ that we don’t really watch much TV.

What Else Do I Have to Worry About: Is my Sony Smart TV the Stupidest Purchase I Could Have Made?

Now, of course, I am brooding about whether my Smart TV will lead me to ruin at the hands of hackers intent on taking over the western world through our appliances. I thought I was so smart having a stupid fridge https://financialcrooks.com/my-stupid-fridge-thwarts-hackers-better-than-smart-fridge/ but perhaps I’m just as mentally-stunted as that Kenmore. Time to start keeping an eye on our internet account, I guess.

The fact that 95% of the time the TV is unplugged (because I refuse to pay electric bills to keep a TV on standby) may help a bit.