When we lived in the Houston/Galveston area, we always had one. Never had anything else until we moved up here, and now have DirectTV. It was okay as long as Jody was alive, because he watched tv. I have almost no interest in it and they went up to almost $100 a month, and I probably don't watch 3 or 4 hours a month, so plan to cancel it. Without it, though, because we live in such a rural area, we have only a couple of stations. I think we can get a couple of stations out of Tyler.

On DirectTV, we could still get the big stations out of Houston. We just used rabbit ears for the most part. Those are easy to hook up and should work fine if you have local stations. We got almost 100 stations for free when we lived on the coast. Of course, some were Spanish, Vietnamese, etc., but PBS had three or four stations alone.

BTW, when I bought my antennas, there were few like the Leaf....now there are many. I would probably buy a cheap digital antenna (they are now sold everywhere) and see what it pulls in before sinking $60 or more on a Leaf.

does you DISH not receive local programming?

At our lake cabin (Pasco county Fl) we have an antenna on the TV in the guest room. (we are on a lot with lots of big trees.) we receive all the local channels and many more. The antenna itself is like this one. its an extremely easy hookup, the antenna stays inside.

https://www.rcaantennas.net/indoor-hd-antenna/?sku=ANT3ME1

Put your zip code in the search box of this site to see what kind of coverage to expect.

https://www.fcc.gov/media/engineering/dtvmaps

We have a Leaf and it was so easy to install, you just plug it in to the back of the tv. The challenge was for finding the best place to put the panel. On our kitchen tv, we find that we move it every few months to maintain all the signals.

We like aaallllllllll the broadcast signals that we get. Must of the stations have 3, 4, or 5 channels with secondary programming. It's great.

On the main tv, we also stream. We haven't had cable in 25 years and don't miss it.

I do have the locals channels now with dish but I want to save some money over time. I've seen many antennas very low priced. I am just wondering can I do this myself? Any suggestions on a antenna to buy? Thanks

Yes, you should have no trouble connecting an antenna yourself. Are you near a major city that has network affiliates? Look at the Leaf website (below) to figure out which one would work for you.

https://www.gomohu.com/leaf-tv-antennas.html

I'd start with the Leaf Metro Indoor Antenna for $18 (if you are within 30 miles of a medium- to large- sized city). You can order it on their website (gomohu.com) or at Walmart.com. You can always return/exchange is needed.

My brother has this one in his bedroom in Cathedral City and gets very good reception - much better than I do with a slightly cheaper model of the same antenna. I have a few problems with the MeTV channel, but my brother gets it clearly.

You definitely need to get one with an amplifier. We have one similar to this one in the living room, and it works better than Mohu, at least for us.

Despite what any of the antennas claim, you won't get stations that are more than about 40 miles away. We only get Palm Springs/Cathedral City stations, and the Inland Empire stations are too far away, but then they are separated from us by mountains, and so there is that consideration as well. We can easily see the Palm Springs and Cathedral City transmission towers on top of a mountain north of our house here. I don't know where the Redlands/ Riverside/ San Bernardino transmission towers are, but we can get those channels in L.A. but not in Palm Springs.

We do have cable in L.A., but that does not give us all of the local stations, and we get around 200 stations with the antennas in L.A. but only about 40 or so in Cathedral City. About half of the stations in Palm Springs area are in Spanish and about 1/3 in L.A., which has dozens of channels in various Asian languages that we do not get in Palm Springs. I used to watch a Japanese soap opera channel that had English subtitles, but not all of them do.

Not a feasible choice for us. Before we went to a streaming service we can use in both of our places, I tried to get an antenna to work. At our more recently purchased place, I probably tried 6 different models, including several with amplifiers, before doing some more checking, only to find out that between us and the signal sources are hills. Same at the other place. YouTube TV provides a streaming service we can use at both places, even simultaneously when we're at different locations. DISH went out the window and we now have better service that includes local stations at about half the price.

I have a $20 1x1 brand, which looks like the Leaf and RCA - just a notebook sized piece of flexible vinyl. It does have to sit in the window to get all of the local stations (because of the room site and where I want the TV in the room.

Absolutely easy to connect and then have the TV scan for channels.

MarilynC, you might like to have a Roku. No continuing fees beyond the initial purchase (anywhere from $25 and up, depending on the model - I have the cheapest and it meets all my needs.) Roku offers lots of free streaming channels, including news channels that would include Houston. Of course, they also offer other channels for a subscription price, which mostly run $5-6/month. Right now I am paying for Curiosity Stream and Acorn; for July & August I paid for Peacock Premium so that I could watch the Tour de France, The Tour of Spain, and some of the Olympics.

My old neighbor gave me one and it works for me. Don't know brand but it's a white square. I get 64 channels but only watch 5 or 6 of them. Easy to set up too. I tape mine on wall near my window. Saves a ton of money but limited on shows.

Samkaren

An outdoor antenna is all I've ever used for TV, with the addition of streaming in recent years. Antennas Direct has good products:

https://store.antennasdirect.com/HD-TV-antennas.html

I use the 8-element bowtie model, mounted high above my house, but my location is very different from yours in Florida, and you wouldn't need a setup like that. Whichever you choose, you may be surprised at all the channels you get.

Sounds like while OTAs have improved, they still can't overcome a TV signal's inability to penetrate through hills and mountains. So, if we were in a TV no man's land before satellite/cable we're still in the same boat today. correct?

TIA

The switch to digital signals really reduced the distance that TV signals can travel, and also made them more susceptible to being blocked by terrain, buildings, trees and so forth. If I remember correctly it is because digital signals are more linear (less wave-like) than the analog ones were, so less able to travel up & over obstacles.

As I said above, do not expect any antenna to pick up stations clearly that are more than 40 miles away, even if the antenna is amplified, and all of ours are.

In Palm Springs and Los Angeles, the transmitters are on the tops of the highest mountains and therefore have a decent range, providing there are not other mountains in the way. There are mountains separating Coachella Valley and the Los Angeles Basin, which includes the Inland Empire cities of Riverside, San Bernardino, Redlands, Ontario, etc. We get the Inland Empire stations in L.A. but not in Palm Springs. The Coachella Valley is surrounded by fairly high mountains (up to 10,833 feet), and this is enough to block TV transmission and some GPS service.

If you go to Death Valley, you will have no cell phone service in most of the park and certainly no TV service.

our cable company gives them out, but you have to ask for it ...

lars, my comment was to share my experience with places in hilly locations. For areas that are mostly flat, and/or below a mountain-top broadcasting site as you describe, so long as not in the hills like the Hollywood Hills whose ridges and canyons can block mountaintop signals all the same, different story.

Here's a site that lists the channels that you might be able to get in your area.

We have Samsung TVs in Cathedral City and one in our living room in L.A., and we get Samsung streaming channels for free, with internet connection. We do watch a lot of these channels, including the Gameshow network and the Wipeout channel, among many others, including This Old House, America's Test Kitchen (plus several other cooking channels), etc.