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We just cut the satellite out.

Q

quadraphonic

We just cut the satellite out about ten minutes ago.
While I was still on the phone with the guy, exchanging pleasantries, I could hear in the other room from the four kids [age 12 and under] "Oh man what's wrong with the channels? Where did this go? Where did that go? The guide's all red."

They'd already downgraded us to shopping channels, mostly. I was wondering if I'd miss some channels, but we've only had satellite for 2 years, so I'll manage.

Then one good thing happened two minutes later. After we hooked up the little inside Terk antenna and it scanned up to 13 channels [now I have a science project for them to do ;D ], they were saying "Man I like this better!" because their PBS kids shows are in the 720 the tv was made to handle.
 
Might I suggest, if you've a little extra cash on hand:

http://www.gosatellite.com/satellite-tv-free-to-air/Pansat-9200-HD_2/Pansat-9200-HD_3
http://www.gosatellite.com/satellite-accessories/satellite-dishes_2/DishNET-1000-2-Satellite-Dish (this is a K-band dish, and is not very reliable for C-band RX, but it's better than nothing. I live in an apartment, and the manager would probably have a fit if I put up a big ugly dish!)
http://www.gosatellite.com/satellite-accessories/LNB-LNB-Holders/EMP-Centauri-DSS-Dual-LNB (for "service monitoring" on Echostar; I also used to use it for listening to Muzak when it was still going out FTA [and for a little while longer when it wasn't..... ;o)])

I'd post a link to the Winegard quad-band linear LNB that I have, but they don't make them any more.

The Pansat also has an ATSC and QAM section. But from experience, you need to be living relatively close to the transmitter as this is NOT a good box to use for DX reception! But for the local channels in a metro area, it seems to work quite well. Supposedly it also has ITFS/BRS, but I think I am too far away from the closest ITFS tower to get anything. (Unless Oregon WIN is going out in some non-standard digital format...or any analogue format......)
 
After three chances going after DirecTV for offering free HD for life to newcomers and screwing people who had them for a long time (for me it was 6 years) I gladly told them to cram it. They asked what could they do to keep me as a customer and I told them give me free HD for life like their new customers. They said the best they could offer was a $10/month credit - at my first pre-cancellation inquiry they only offered it for 12 months and at my second pre-cancellation inquiry they offered the credit for $24 months.

These people have no business sense. If they had offered me free HD for life by basically knocking off the extra $10/month I would have stuck with them. With their arrogant attitude it was all too easy to cancel, which was a favor! Between my free-to-air dish and over the air reception (which isn't great pickin's in my area) I get by. Stuff on the net helps fill in the void and I have a $70/months savings. Of course dividing up $70 by the number of channels I actually watched showed me what a rotten deal their service really was!

Mind you, if you have a credit coming to your account check it carefully and stay on them like flies on stink. They tried to screw me on the credit due me until I emailed them that if it wasn't rectified within the business day I was ready to take it to my state's Attorney General. I've done that before so I knew all the hoops to go through.

It's a sad day when Dish Network and even Comcast have a "C" rating from the Better Business Bureau while DirecTV has a "F" for all their claims of great customer service.
 
They worked me down the line from the $40 package we had, to something for $30, $14.99 and finally for $9.99, and for the $9.99 package I was looking at the internet right then and it said that package "starting at $5.99 a month," so I think I talked to the same people you talked to Bill. :)
 
I applaud you for "pulling the plug". It's not really so bad to rely solely on OTA unless it just isn't feasible in ones particular area (i.e.- like out in B.F.E.). Those that have towers nearby are doing themselves a disservice by not at least trying to see what comes in via the 'ol bunny ears. More often than not as the OP's kids have discovered, the PQ on an OTA broadcast is exceptionally better than cable or satellite can ever dream to offer their paying customers. Not to mention you maybe missing out on many of the subchannels out there that your cable provider can't be arsed to include because they need that bandwidth to provide you 18 shop at home channels.

In this drain circling economy where people are taking pay cuts or worse getting laid off/fired, cable entertainment with it's ballooning rates is becoming a luxury many can live without. I still get a chuckle going over to friends houses and rolling through their seemingly endless array of channels only to find that there is still nothing on.
 
I recently also became the proud owner of a DTV box... but only because I switched cable/Internet providers, and I only decided to hook the one set in the main room up, because I knew the television in another room would not be watched as much. Think of all the money I'll save. (Shove it, Flo. :D )
 
Be sure to get yourself an outside antenna, preferably a traditional one. Rabbit ears and those funny looking square or round antennas just won't cut it unless you get it a mile up in the air. From my experience rabbit ears and "digital" antennas are good for 20-25 miles indoors, anything over that you get drop outs. If you live near an airport or a busy highway passing trucks and planes can also cause drop-outs. so a good outside antenna will be necessary. You'd be surprised how many people have asked me what kind of cable I have when they see my picture, surprised that is from an antenna. I've heard that the majority of HDTV owners are still watching standard definiton on their new sets with it in stretch mode, completely unaware that they can get full HD for free over the air. plus subchannels.
 
"If you live near an airport or a busy highway passing trucks and planes can also cause drop-outs. so a good outside antenna will be necessary."

I can say from experience, living not only near the approach path of a major commercial airport, but also near the confluence of a state highway and an interstate freeway, that ATSC signals will drop out even WITH an outside aerial.

Now, being as I am up on a hill (elevated somewhat from highway reflections) passing trucks don't seem to affect reception as badly as passing jets every 5-10 minutes. Your reception may vary!

The strong locals (KATU, KGW, KOAP, KOIN etc.) don't suffer as badly as the weaker ones (KPXG, KRCA, KPTV, KPDX, KNMT [as little as I, a dedicated atheist, even pay attention to that one], and KORS. Of those, KPXG, KPTV and KORS are the absolute worst in terms of signal to silence.) That's also as I receive them on my Digitalstream box, not the Pansat. I'm doing good if I can get the latter six on the Pansat at all, planes overhead or not.
 
We are doing all right with the inside antenna so far, because we get PBS, Ion, ABC, CBS, and sometimes NBC but it drops out waaay more,
and the important subchannels for the ones who watch most anyway: qubo, PBS Kids, and PBS is kids shows half the day. :)
And no shopping channels to flip by. It's rained here a foot or so for the last few days, too, and no loss of service. :)

The only annoyance I've found is that our TV doesn't have an "EZ Add" feature when you rescan channels, so every time the antenna moves, or you want to see what else it will pick up because it's night or different weather or whatever, you have to rescan the whole thing all over. Our converter box for the other TV let you just add the channels you were missing before, that was nice. And the remote channel-up button doesn't seem to work [we didn't use it with the Dish, it was always on channel 3, and it's just out of the one-year warranty :'( ] but there's always a work-around that won't kill anyone.

We're in a city that's about 60-70 miles from the towers in Raleigh-Durham and Myrtle Beach-Florence [we're included in Raleigh-Durham, but all that's within 20 miles are an Ion station and a Univision station]. We get channels that aren't even on the "you should get these" lists at antennaweb and the fcc, and we don't get others that are on the lists, so I'm going to have to work out a [cost-effective 8) ] plan for which antenna to try first for the long range and different direction receptions we'll need.

Dish Network had added a couple of the subchannels to the [Raleigh-Durham] locals package in the last few months, so we only gained a few "new" channels [from Myrtle Beach]. Still, it's nice to think about not paying $40 a month for something that was "125 channel options" and in reality was "possible 75 options" without duplicates, and "10 we actually watched." I am starting to hate being lied to more and more the older I get and the more I think about it. ;D
 
Do you have a cable line coming into your house? You might consider connecting your receiver to it and scanning the system for whatever nonscrambled stuff is available via QAM.

I don't know what cable system you can use in North Carolina, but in WA about 90% of the state is Crapca$t. Your results may be different, but consider:

If your outlet's connected to the junction box, and that in turn is connected to the main line under the street, you can still get a signal even without a subscription. As long as you're don't do something dumb, like overpower the Fox NoiseNews Channel on the analogue side with Al Jazeera English (think of the children! We don't want them growing up actually hearing an unbiassed view of the day's news, do we?) or throwing out a bunch of harmonic noise and interference thus degrading the cable reception, the cable company will probably leave you alone.

(Yeah, legally it's a gray area. Oh well.)

On CCa$t (at least in this area), you can pull in FTA on any off-the-shelf commodity ATSC/QAM receiver, the local channels as well as the community access/PEG programming, a few shopping channels, the big national "superstations", the Weather Channel and some testing/engineering channels. You likely won't get many of the "cable channels" (if any at all outside of maybe TBS, WGN, and a few others.) But you should be able to get your local OTA channels at the very least.

I don't know how the cable monopoly works in your area, or if they even put anything out FTA (not all cable companies do.) And some cable systems instead use DVB-C, which is mutually incompatible with most mainstream ATSC/QAM boxen.

But it's still worth a try.

Edit add: before I forget, this website can show you what's available free to air on the cable in your ZIP code:
http://www.silicondust.com/support/channels/
(tip: enter 98660.)
 
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