Paying for satellite TV? Something you might not be aware of.

cjstrayhorn

cjstrayhorn

New Member
Location
Texas
I paid close to 100 dollars a month for TV service for years. When I became disabled I had to make a decision - TV, or food, lol. I bought a TV antenna for 30 bucks. Now, I get 55 channels, most in high def, and it costs me nothing! Zero! I get pretty much the same channels I was getting on Satellite service. I'm just sayin'..............
 

Wish I could do that here, I recently subscribed to foxtel as
my hubby loves his movies etc and goes out very rarely, his illness
prevents him from doing the stuff we used to enjoy and it's
one of few 'luxories' that we can afford and I must admit that
being able to watch the latest episodes of 'Sons' and 'Boardwalk'
'Thrones' etc is rather good
 
When we lived on a hill, we bought 'rabbit ears' and picked up about 4 channels. That was enough channels for us, as my husband and I didn't want our children watching a lot of TV. They had plenty of electronic games.

Now, that my husband and I have an empty nest, we find that we watch or read the news on the internet as well as view entertainment. We can watch our favorite TV show - a day later than it is shown on TV - on the internet. We could watch many other TV shows, on the internet, if we wanted to watch more. We also rent DVDs and go to the movies.

So, we find that we are not missing out so much by not having a TV. We have more control over our own schedule without that 'idiot box' - sorry, I got carried away. And we do more things such as go for walk, play cards, and have more time for our hobbies. Its just a little more peaceful and relaxing without a TV. Such is my and my husband's preferred lifestyle.
 

On our kitchen TV, we have rabbit ears, and get in all the regular channels, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 20 and 31. If I'm on channel 7, and I click on the + on the remote, I'll get 7-1,7-2,7-3,7-4...but none of those shows are in HD. The digital high definition shows are excellent quality, but my signal goes off easily. I'm always having to adjust the rabbit ears for each channel, especially on a windy day. :( In the olden days, you'd get a snowy picture when reception was bad, etc.
 
55 channels?!? Wow! We get about 4 or 5 with rabbit ears and the converter box.

You know of course that you can watch most TV shows and movies for free on-line at such sites as Hulu? There are also a ton of old movies, documentaries, cartoons, commercials and such at the Movie Archive ...
 
Even though we are at the top of the hill, we are in a little bowl at the top of the hill. That means we get nuthin' when it comes to antennas and TV. The upshot to living in a bowl at the top of the hill is the tremendous straight-line winds seem to stay on the ridges and, knock-on-wood, I have SEEN funnel clouds above us and they stay up there ------ so far--------------. I'll take that over good antenna reception any day:playful:

We have DirecTV, and while we only watch a few channels, they are channels we would not be privvy to if we only had rabbit ears.

As far as watching videos, including Netflix movies, we have Hughes.net and they instituted that little thing called FAP a few years back, a/k/a Fair Access Policy. We have a 27" monitor but it's not worth either the FAP grief or having to sit on the bed in the spare bedroom to watch anything for any length of time. http://services.hughesnet.com/service_tools/fap/index.cfm

Where we live, it's either Hughes.net or dial-up and everybody knows what a losing/aggravating proposition dial-up is. I'm hearing that rake-your-fingernails-down-the-blackboard sound, in my head, as I type this:grief::grief:
 
TWHRider said:
Even though we are at the top of the hill, we are in a little bowl at the top of the hill. That means we get nuthin' when it comes to antennas and TV. The upshot to living in a bowl at the top of the hill is the tremendous straight-line winds seem to stay on the ridges and, knock-on-wood, I have SEEN funnel clouds above us and they stay up there ------ so far--------------. I'll take that over good antenna reception any day:playful:

We have DirecTV, and while we only watch a few channels, they are channels we would not be privvy to if we only had rabbit ears.

As far as watching videos, including Netflix movies, we have Hughes.net and they instituted that little thing called FAP a few years back, a/k/a Fair Access Policy. We have a 27" monitor but it's not worth either the FAP grief or having to sit on the bed in the spare bedroom to watch anything for any length of time. http://services.hughesnet.com/service_tools/fap/index.cfm

Where we live, it's either Hughes.net or dial-up and everybody knows what a losing/aggravating proposition dial-up is. I'm hearing that rake-your-fingernails-down-the-blackboard sound, in my head, as I type this:grief::grief:
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Wow - now I know why they call it "fapping"! :playful:

That's really bogus - download limits? What, are we back in '92 with CompuServe? Sheesh!

Sorry you're stuck with Hughes - I looked into them for all of 5 minutes when I was checking out ISPs.
 
We live in a 'holler' here in the Ozarks, surrounded by hills. We don't get cell phone reception down here and I've had dish service before,which is sketchy at best. I bought a Roku player and can stream movies off Hulu+,Netflix,Amazon Prime, as well as many free news, weather and misc. movie channels,etc. Right now we actually only have Netflix as a paying channel for about $8.00 per month. We are not big TV watchers, so this suits us just fine. I sure don't miss the high dish or cable bills and all the ridiculous commercials. Love my Roku player! :love_heart:
 
We dropped cable a few years ago when the price went way up. Now we mainly use Netflix but also the best bargain around - The public library! They have thousands of DVDs we can check out for free!
 
We have Comcast cable on our bedroom TV, not the basic plan, but a step above. Hubby watches more than me, as he likes to watch movies, news, history, sci-fi, etc. We also get movie CDs sent to our home via Netflix...hubby want's me to watch a horror movie with him tonight "The Possession"...we'll see how it goes. :eek:

You're right R.Zimm about the library, there are some DVDs for free rental, providing they're not too scratched up and dirty. I usually pass if it looks bad/old, don't want to mess up my player.
 
Had the rabbit ears (damn, those things are hard to catch!) for years when I lived on the ridgetop above the bay and got all the channels I could ever need. But, now, even though I'm living a stone's throw from the bay, I'm in a little gully surrounded by redwoods and barely get a couple channels. So . . . gonna bite the bullet and go for the dish. Remember when satellite television first became popular? People had those HUGE dishes sitting in their yards!!!
 
R. Zimm said:
We dropped cable a few years ago when the price went way up. Now we mainly use Netflix but also the best bargain around - The public library! They have thousands of DVDs we can check out for free!
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We switched from Comcast to Direct TV.

We stuck with Comcast for several years, even though we could not get BBC America with our plan and were loathe to pay more for cable. The straw that broke the camel's back was Comcast's moving Turner Classic Movies to the next expensive plan that also provided BBC America.

Direct TV offered more channels than the Comcast plan featuring BBC-A and TCM, so we switched to Direct, but if their price goes up, we'll probably get an HD tv, an antenna, and snag whatever floats by while using Netflix for supplemental viewing.
 
Finally got the Directv ordering snafu ironed out and am, now, a boobtube watching fool. Of course, it's mostly useless crap. But, along with MercyL, I really enjoy TCM.
 
That Guy said:
Finally got the Directv ordering snafu ironed out and am, now, a boobtube watching fool. Of course, it's mostly useless crap. But, along with MercyL, I really enjoy TCM.
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There is something special about watching the classics. One weekly program I really enjoyed was the Sunday Night Silent Movie, with Charlie Chaplin's work being some of the funniest social commentary.

Of course, Buster Keaton's facial expression cracks me up as soon as I see him.
 
MercyL said:
There is something special about watching the classics. One weekly program I really enjoyed was the Sunday Night Silent Movie, with Charlie Chaplin's work being some of the funniest social commentary.

Of course, Buster Keaton's facial expression cracks me up as soon as I see him.
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Watched some Dashiell Hammett treatments the other night and thoroughly enjoyed them. Of course, we've seen them again and again but they are so good it's always fun. My favorite classics are the old film noir. The silents are in a class all their own. So much emphasis on getting the story told without sound took quite a lot of skill.
 
Agreed, broadcast TV is mostly useless crap, or as famously described years ago: a vast wasteland. I don't think Discover, National Geographic, Science, A&E, etc. are available by rabbit ears. They're purely cable/satellite I think. I couldn't live without such channels. And recording favorite shows is the only way to go, IMHO. My gosh - every and any thing is available 24 hours and with DVR I can record and watch whenever I please - and speed through the commercials, too! Who'd have thunk TV could be so entertaining? And those huge screens available nowadays - wow!
 

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