67. Get rid of Cable TV

I just got back from the Comcast service store and have officially gotten rid of our cable boxes and cable service!

As I wrote a little while back, I tried to make an antenna.  It failed.  I am sure that there are many reasons for the failure but I had hope just based on the comments that were given after the video.

One thing that we did in preparation for not having cable was to record as many kids shows as we could on our Tivo.  We filled it up with Mickey Mouse Club, Imagination Movers, Word World and other shows that they love to watch before bedtime.  Hopefully we will find some other shows on regular TV or through another online service.

I decided to try to get the amplified antenna again and to put it up in the attic to see how reception would be.  Guess what, success!  We get about 40 channels through the antenna to both televisions. Most of them are useless (foreign language/shopping), but it is still fun to say we get that many channels for free. I have one antenna in the attic with a splitter attached to it.  From there I ran a cable to the television in the basement and to the television in the living room.  We get CBS, FOX, NBC, ABC, WGN, PBS and a bunch of other channels, all in HD.

The next thing we did is we ordered a Roku XD. It finally came in the mail today. The Roku is sort of like having another computer.  It connects Hulu, Netflix and Pandora to our TV.  There are a bunch of other "channels" in Roku, but that is as far as I have explored so far.  Through those services we get access to tons of movies and tv shows.  We have a free month subscription to both (after it is about $8 a month) so we intend to see what features we like in both services then we will probably see if we want to keep both or just go down to done of them.

I will post again my progress in a month to share how things are going.


6 goals down!