Hello,

What I'm looking for is any modern TV that, when connected to an external OTA TV Antenna, will turn on and immediately be showing live TV on the previous channel watched. Like old-school TVs.

So turn on the TV and it's showing a TV channel, not a GUI of any kind.

Then, shut off the TV, turn it back on and it's showing the previously watched channel, NOT a GUI.

Does that exist these days?

I have a 15 year old Panasonic plasma that I have an external antenna connected to and it works this way (before GUIs became commonplace). So was wondering if any of the newer TVs had that sort of functionality WITHOUT having to interact with a GUI of any kind.

Thanks!

I used to use a website every day, PopMinute, which was so great because it didn't require a login and only showed major network listings, and not every local subchannel. And it showed which shows were new episodes, as well as a brief synopsis. It was perfect! But they seem to have gone out of business.

I've tried many potential replacements, but they all seem to require creating an account and being local to your market and cluttered with all 120+ OTA channels, when I'm really only concerned with the major networks. I really miss PopMinute and would love to find something as quick and simple for the daily check of what's on tonight on the major networks only.

I have been using you current antenna set-up for about 13 years and have not had a lot of problems overall but recently I have had issues receiving WBAL in Baltimore. Does anyone know if they have “changed” anything recently? I did a new scan with my HD Homerun and it doesn’t even show up anymore, just completely missing from the list. Any help or advice is appreciated!

Hello all, looking for an antenna recommendation that I can get for my parents. I would like them to be able to pick up local networks (Fox, CBS, NBC, etc). The report does not too promising.

https://www.rabbitears.info/s/3241103

What's recommended here? The TV is not close to a window by the way.

Hi there. Verizon has killed cable cards, so my TIVO is now useless unless I can figure out a way to get decent OTA reception. We're on the Jersey Shore (Bradley Beach) in a freestanding home. From what I can figure out online, it looks like there may possibly be some southerly signals as well as northerly from NYC. In particular we would like to be able to lock in the ABC affiliate (Jeopardy!), but that seems to have the VHF issue.

Here's the rabbitears result: https://www.rabbitears.info/s/3240590

Any thoughts/ideas would be much appreciated.

Fiber Optics are finally getting installed in my neighborhood and I'm going to drop cable once they are. Previously I asked for an antenna recommendation and was thinking of getting a Clearstream 4 that someone recommended.

I later found out that the previous owner of this house had an antenna installed, that we've never used. It's old and I assume the Clearstream 4 would be the better antenna, but is this a good Antenna? https://imgur.com/a/ubUzdud The only markings I could find on it were on a V322 UHF/VHF transformer that had a broken lead so i can't test to see if it works without replacing the transformer. Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

Is there a general consensus on the best streaming stick available? We use Apple TVs and love them but it’s mildly annoying to unplug it and pack the cables when we travel.

Looking for something I can throw in my bad and just leave there so we always have it ready to go with minimal set up.

I was thinking between Roku and Amazon, with preference for the latter based on my experience with the Roku TVs I’ve used before.

This is my knife edge setup to pull in a set of channels from over 80 miles away regularly. I only have 2 issues with the setup which aren’t a huge deal as it’s so uncommon.

1. ⁠when an airplane flys over I get pixelization but I’m in a low flight area so it’s manageable.

2. ⁠When it’s windy I sometimes get severe pixelation or none at all.

Pictures in order:

1. ⁠Shows my antenna pointed directly at mt Mansfield in VT which is over 80 miles from me and is 3 edges away on my rabbit ears report. The antenna is roughly 3-5ft off the ground this is very important as higher gets me nothing and lower gets me nothing.

2. ⁠Shows my Kitz 500 amp with a 120 ft RG11 cable that is buried most of the way. I have to have my Kitz 500 amp turned all the way up to 36db and since I get little to no cell signal at this location a LTE filter or any other type of filter is not needed. The antenna is also located very far away from any man made interference so no other filter is needed.

3. ⁠Shows my hd Homerun in a faraday cage that lets it breath but doesn’t allow anything inside the building to interfere with the hd Homerun. I have found this to make a huge difference for my setup especially when I use an external hard drive wit it or set it near a wifi router.

4. ⁠This is my isobar it basically stops any interference from coming through your electrical wires and messing up your signals on your hd Homerun. This is also very important for me on my 3 edge signals from 80+ miles away.

5. ⁠Is the very basic wifi router I use for this.

6. ⁠These are the channels I get with this setup which is very impressive for my location.

Extra info:

1. ⁠Signals on hd Homerun

RF Channel 10: 84 signal quality
RF Channel 14: 51 signal quality
RF Channel 18: 94 signal quality
RF Channel 26: 80 signal quality

Total channels: 23 (With more coming because of the FCC LPTV application process and one being approved in a town near me).

Rabbit ears report: https://www.rabbitears.info/s/3233687

To figure all this out and solve all the interference affecting my hd Homerun took lots of trial and error but once I figured it out it was well worth it.

I'm trying to watch the Blackhawks, Bulls, and ESPN on a couple of different TVs, but Fubo and DirecTV Stream are way too expensive.

I’m looking into either pairing YouTube TV with the CHSN app, or doing a combo of Sling TV and CHSN to save some cash.
Has anyone tried this lately? How does it work with streaming on multiple screens at the same time, and which setup is actually the best bang for your buck?

(Public service announcement)

I'm in the process of moving onto OTA from YTTV. After coming to realization, aka senses, that we were paying a massive amount of monet just to pull down the 4 major networks+PBS most of the time, I went and finally got an antenna that does the job. I'm using the HDHomeRun with the Channels App to pipe it into my TV and ipad. Overall, pretty solid.

There are two things that I still miss and am trying to close the loop on:

1. News channels. What I've found is that the various network apps get us access to news

2. Sports news. Is there some equivalent to ESPN news out there on an app that is worth getting sports updates? I've seen some things on Pluto and Tubi, but nothing consistent. I'd be happy to use another app to find the Fox/CBS equivalent to ESPN News.

Any insight would be much appreciated. Worst case is that we buy ESPN service, but the whole point of dropping the payments was to be free of them

So I exceeded my internet provider's bait-and-switch period. Suddenly my monthly bill jumped $40 and I cannot afford it.

I found out they have a prepaid plan of 100 Mbps for $30/mo.

The internet tells me that is plenty of speed. I need to hear it from a real person though, not some AI-scraped article...

To make it more confusing, I chatted Xfinity twice. Both times I got the "are you SURE you want to downgrade from 1 Gig to 100 Mbps?! That's a HUGE drop in speed and bla bla bla".

Not sure if it's their job to instill doubt or what... One of the folks said to contact the post-paid customer service to cancel and ask for a deal. She was "a long time customer and employee <wink wink>".

They are the only cable internet provider in my area. I don't want to rent their hardware, which I'm sure is part of whatever short term deal they would offer (plus a phone, the market they're trying to break into 🙄, plus smart home crap, etc). I have my own modem and router, prefer to control that part and keep it simple. All I need is internet!

So now I don't know if 100 Mbps is enough speed. Especially if the line gets clogged with too many users.

Fiber hasn't reached here yet (and it's not the screaming deal they promised if it *did* make it here!), satellite is too much, which leaves me with 5G. That turned out to not be such a great deal either, even with existing customer discount. (and was only 300 Mbps)

So those are my options.

Oh, and I need to move soon, but I don't know where or when. Just that it has to happen before my lease is up. So no contracts and no clue what type of provider I'll need.

--> Honest opinions on 100 Mbps? <--

Is it really all I need?

Or once that theory is off paper and into the real world, it doesn't pan out?

-- Ya know, once the smart fridge, smart stair lights, smart scale, smart watch, smart surveillance, and smart bidet are all connected. For 3 gamer kids, a serious wfh dad, and a mom managing it all with smart calendars etc. 1 Gig would crap out in that reality...

ANYWAY!

It's just for 1 person, I want fast internet, have prepaid wireless so rely on home wifi, and have 4 connected devices tho not all at once. I watch a movie here and there, start random online courses, and have 5 hour Zoom meetings every few weekends. And I'm 'surfing' the internet, a lot.

I've had my 1 TB AirTV Anywhere for years. Originally bought in 2019 because, at the time and for years, it was the only one that could connect your antenna to your Wifi. The way my new (to me) house was laid out, it was very difficult to get my antenna near my router.

So AirTV + SlingTV free was my solution. The main reason I wanted this was to get OTA Sports to the basement and my projector. And it worked OK. It would sometimes pixelate and get hung up a little in a few specific channels. It was more than watchable, just occasionally frustrating. I chalked this up to the Browns football channel had always been a bit problematic for a lot of people.

A week ago. I came downstairs in the morning and I could hear the fan spinning in the ATV box. And it didn't stop. Much troubleshooting... It's dead.

Research Tablo v TIVO v HomerunHD v a new AirTv. Tablo now supports Wi-Fi and I wanted to try something different. Even ordering from AirTV in 2026 is now a janky mess. Way to screw that up, Sling.

Got the Tablo setup today.

Damn.

It's good. It's real good.

Ease of installation is fantastic. Create account. Connect to Tablo, get it in your network, connect antenna.

Install app on the Roku, open the app... No login or anything. Immediately finds the Tablo, asks "is this the one?" Yes. Connected.

Compared to Sling, the app is lightning fast. Unlike ATV, it connects to my 5g wifi.

And it opens so fast. Super impressed.

But what's really surprised me? Put Channel 19 on, that Browns station notoriously hard to pull in: perfect. Not a single Pixel out of place in over 2 hours. Absolutely blown away.

Can't recommend this enough for OTA TV if you have a challenging install.

Not sure if it's better because of newer equipment, or that because Tablo has some kind of antenna amplifier built in (that you can turn off) or the 5g WiFi. But it's much better.

One complaint, I do miss when you go to the guide, the active channel drops down to a PIP on Sling. Does not do that in Tablo. It just goes to the guide only.

This is my antenna for the full story (was already installed when I moved in).

/Edit Just timed it, I wasn't imagining it. Sling takes 9 seconds to open on my Roku. Tablo takes 2.

https://a.co/d/063tCpnd

/edit/ Should have shared my $20 off code: EMMITT

Not affiliated, I just searched for a code before I bought, like I always do, and found this.

TLDR: anyone know the cheapest way to stream CNN?

So I dont really watch TV. I have streaming services to watch my prefered sports leagues and movies and that's about it.

I used to have cable but found that I only really used it to watch CNN and the other big news networks as background noise and to watch breaking news during big events (elections, tragedies etc). I cant justify spending $100/months for one or two channels.

Just got a notice my Hulu bundle is going up to 110 a month. Includes espn and Disney. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I don’t need espn or Disney. TIA

I already have several streaming services (Apple, HBO, Paramount+, Peacock, Disney/Hulu).

Hey y'all, I'm looking for what kind of antenna I might need. I live pretty close to most of our big stations, but I'm in a weird spot at the bottom of a hill with a lot of foliage. I miss having my antenna to watch primetime stuff!

My current antenna is a small (and rather old, at this point) indoor one. Should I get a rooftop type thing? I looked at the megathread and tbh I'm still not sure.

Here's my rabbitears results: https://www.rabbitears.info/s/3229822

I've been trying to get Fox over antennae and I bought a ClearStream Max-V and mounted it on my 2nd story window, with a 20ft coax cable running to my TV. That window is facing the same direction as the Fox channel i'm trying to get in Detroit: https://www.rabbitears.info/s/3229962

At first I wasn't getting some of the same channels I got with my little $15 flat antenna I had up there (which also wasn't getting Fox and had worse reception on some of the other channels), so I added an in-line signal booster and that seems to have gotten my existing channels back (NBC, CBS, ABC... all out of Detroit too, with pretty good strength).

I'm wondering what I should try next... It seems like I should be able to get Fox right? Any reason it wouldn't come in? I have a Fire TV Omni that I'm hooking it to.

I have Hulu Live because of AMC and The History Channel. I do not like the Hulu Live interface but need those specific channels that Youtube TV does not offer. If I switch to YouTube TV, how can I watch AMC and The History Channel?

I recently saw a popular Reddit discussion about ditching paid streaming subscriptions and switching to free alternatives. It was interesting to see how many people were happy with free streaming services instead of paying for multiple subscriptions.

That got me thinking. There are probably tons of great free streaming platforms around the world that most of us have never even heard of.

So I started putting together a list (1022 updated)

United States: Tubi, Pluto TV, The Roku Channel, Plex, Xumo Play, Hoopla, Kanopy, Samsung TV Plus, LG Channels, Sling Freestream, Google TV Free Channels,

United Kingdom: BBC iPlayer, ITVX, Channel 4, STV Player,

Canada: CBC Gem, Hoopla, Kanopy,

Australia: ABC iview, SBS On Demand, 7plus, 9Now,

New Zealand: TVNZ+,

France: ARTE, france.tv, Molotov, Free TV,

Germany: ARTE,

Italy: RaiPlay,

Spain: RTVE Play, Atresplayer,

Sweden: SVT Play,

Norway: NRK TV,

Finland: Yle Areena,

Japan: TVer, ABEMA,

Some are ad-supported, while others are public broadcasters. Availability, account requirements, and local eligibility rules vary.

I'm sure there are plenty more, especially in countries that don't get talked about much on Reddit.

What are the best free streaming platforms in your country?

If you know one, share the name, country and what makes it worth checking out. Thank you!

Hey everyone. I am planning on cutting the cord to Cox cable soon and installing an outdoor antenna so that I can receive OTA channels. My initial thought was to connect the antenna to the main coax cable outside that feeds into the home. There are 5 tvs that currently have cable feeding into them. Obviously, there is one main line and it must be split in the attic feeding into each room where there is a tv. My question is would I need to install some sort of amplifier? I'm assuming if I connect the antenna alone that there will be signal loss since it splits into 5 lines?

Just want to make sure I order everything I need before tackling this on. This is all new to me so I'd appreciate some advice here. Also, if an amplifier is needed which one do you recommend and which antenna would be a good one? I don't mind spending a few bucks since I'll be saving thousands once completed. Appreciate any advice, thank you.