The Couch Surfing Project never ceases to amaze me. I don’t know of a community you can join that exposes you to a more diverse group of cultures. It’s always so interesting – learning about the places other people live, their culture, their interests…their lives. I’ve never met anyone from Jordan before, much less heard them talk about what it’s like to live there.

This is the first post.

I googled “Antique Store near McKinney TX” and drove to the closest one. It took a while to find, but I finally found one. Just call me Bogey.

This could be fun.

I live in McKinney, TX and I was looking for an antenna that would get good reception of all the over-the-air digital and HD channels in Dallas/Ft Worth. I live 46 miles from DFW’s antenna farm in Cedar Hill, so it’s quite a distance. I found a lot of antennas that were rated “up to” 50 miles, but I didn’t want to take the chance. I also wanted to put it in my attic since the roof isn’t an option for me, so I wanted something with a higher rating. I ended up buying the Clearstream 4 (CS4) Antenna, which is rated for 65 miles, from indoorhdantenna.com.

When I first hooked it up, i wasn’t getting reception on some of the channels. I read that a lot of people had problems when they used coax cables longer than 50 feet, and I was definitely over that. I only had one spare cable to run from the antenna to the splitter in the attic, and it was 50 feet right there. Then the signal had to go from the splitter down to each room, adding another 20-30 feet. I bought a 8 ft cable as a replacement and added an amplified splitter on top of that and now everything works great. I get all of the channels with perfect reception.

A few notes:

• ABC is the only channel in DFW that does not broadcast on UHF. They are VHF only. The CS4 is a UHF antenna, but it works.
• I’m in SOUTH McKinney. Look up how far your line-of-sight distance is for you before buying an antenna. You can do this at antennaweb.org (just put in your address, you don’t need to give your email or phone), then click on “Show Digital Stations Only” since they’re about to make the transition.
• Mounting the antenna is best outside, but it will work in the attic. Just make sure you get it as southwest as possible and away from any metal like air ducts.

Helpful websites:

• http://www.antennaweb.org – channel listing with frequency, distance, and compass heading.
• http://www.indoorhdantenna.com – antenna recommendations and advice. I recommend buying your antenna from them as well.

In a nutshell, I made the right choice. I’m not watching as much TV and I don’t miss it one bit. When I do watch TV, it’s usually a free podcast downloaded from the internet. I downloaded the last few episodes of Battlestar Galactica off of iTunes (great series, btw), and switched to over-the-air for LOST. A few weeks ago my dad was in town and he helped me install an over-the-air antenna I bought online to get better reception of my local channels. I set up my TiVo to download old episodes of Frasier and Seinfeld for those times I just want to veg-out, and that seems to be enough.

We’re only 4 weeks into the MLS season, but I’m not going to miss anything. $20 bought the entire season for all the games on my computer, and they now have 800k streams which is right about standard-def TV quality. I just hook up my laptop to the TV and it looks great. For any other sports that aren’t on TV, I can just walk down the street to McKinney Tavern.

It turns out I’m saving about $80 a month.

After evaluating both Time Warner cable and AT&T U-verse, I made a decision. I’ve canceled both. I canceled AT&T last week, and Time Warner bit the dust today.

My primary reason for dumping AT&T was a technical one. The audio on all of the HD channels would cut out for about a half of a second – just long enough to be annoying – about every minute or so. It was extremely frustrating. Apart from that, I found that service was about the same as Time Warner cable…so there wasn’t really an advantage except for a slight price difference.

Once I canceled AT&T, I left my Time Warner box unplugged for a few days and never missed it. This served as confirmation of what I already suspected: I’m not really going to miss anything (except a $80 cable TV bill).

As for the internet, I didn’t really notice much of a difference between Time Warner and AT&T. Time Warner charges $50/month whereas AT&T only charges $35/mo, so I kept AT&T for the internet. I’m downgrading from 7mb/1mb to 6mb/512kb, but that’s not a significant difference for my use. Hopefully I won’t regret switching. Time Warner has always been extremely stable for me, and AT&T is a sort of unknown in that regard.

Stay tuned for Part III. I’ll post my thoughts on what life is like without cable TV in a month or so.

One of the large motivators is money. I can free up about $60-70 per month by canceling. That’s $720-840 a year!! I’m trying to buy a house, and that would help get me where I need to be sooner.

The other motivation is simply to watch less TV. Now that a few of my shows are off the air, I’ve only got a couple left that are “must see”…Lost, Battlestar Galactica (only 6 episodes left), Psych, and Heroes (which I’m about to give up on because it’s getting dumb). Everything else is channel flipping. Sure, that’s fun, but think of all the time I could save. I’d do more reading and I bet I’d go to bed earlier (No late-night Daily Show or Colbert Report)

Lost and Heroes are available over the air with an antenna. BSG and Psych are available on iTunes. BSG is about to finish the series…so that only leaves Psych. Getting back to the money factor, an entire season is only $30, a far cry from $720. I could buy roughly 20 seasons of TV shows off iTunes for what I pay in cable TV for a year.

Sounds simple enough, so why the debate? Sports. You can’t buy live TV off of iTunes. ESPN/ESPN2 doesn’t stream video unless you have Verizon, which I can’t get. Neither Fox Soccer Channel nor Fox Sports Net stream video at all. So I’m running a little experiment…

I signed up for AT&T. Right now I have Time Warner, but switching to AT&T U-verse gives me the opportunity for a couple of things. First of all, I got the “U200″ package. This is about the same price as what I have on Time Warner, but does not include Fox Soccer Channel. So I can see what life is like without it. Second, I can’t use TiVo with AT&T U-verse. I have to use their DVR. That frees up $15/month in TiVo fees right there. If I can’t live without FSC, I can upgrade to the U300 package for the amount that I’m saving on TiVo. However, if I can live without FSC then I’m one step closer to doing away with cable.

Assuming I can live without FSC, is it worth $60-70 per month to see Stars and Mavs games? I’m thinking no. If there’s a big game I want to watch, I can walk down the street to McKinney Tavern and watch it there.

Another interesting tidbit: I realized this morning that apart from Thursday night’s Stars game, I haven’t watched TV since AT&T installed on Wednesday. No, that’s not that long, but now I know that I can make it 3 days without channel flipping.

Summing it up:
As of this past Wednesday, I’ve got 2 cable TV providers: AT&T U-verse and Time Warner. In two weeks I’m going to be canceling one or both. I’m leaning toward canceling Time Warner. Actually, I’m leaning toward canceling both.

Comments are welcome