Saving money is causing TV withdrawals in Waukesha

[SHAWTV]

We had TWC cable/telephone service.  Also, RR internet – but that's paid for through my husband's business. We found that the majority of the television we were watching was local channels, yet TWC would increase all the time.  We were so tired of fighting with them.  The DVR sure was nice, but in today's economy, we needed to cut back.

I heard about Ooma free phone service from a friend who used this for over a year.  And thought that might be a great way to reduce the bill.  Then our out of pocket expense would only be cable.  So in March, we purchased an Ooma box for $200 and ported our phone # over.  This gave us free long distance, caller ID, call waiting hooked into our RR.  We were very surprised at how easy it was to setup & how well it works & should only have FCC taxes to pay each year....  When we got the next cable bill with the phone off of the cable/phone bundle - to our surprise, the BILL WENT UP!!!  We decided ENOUGH - - we need to get rid of TWC, they are just ripping us off!

So, after being their customer for I think about 16 years, we did it... took the DVR & cable boxes to Mayfair & said so long!

It felt good for about 1 full day (then they shut the cable connection to the house off).  OMG – now what?  We have 4 TVs.  2 newer ones in the bedrooms (with HD).  The one in the basement is an older TV, but not used very much.  The TV in the living room is a 61" old style projection tv (not HD).  The TV's in the bedrooms keep loosing the digital signals of the over the air television.  Some days were better than others, but come-on when you want to sit down & watch TV, you want it to work all the time.  There are more than enough channels there for us to watch - if they'd just stay on through an entire show.  I purchased a $90 antenna with a power cord, to try to help improve the signal strength, but no improved results that we can tell.  So I returned it.  Until we work out the digital signal in the bedrooms, we have no plans to get converter boxes for the other 2 TV's.

We connected our living room TV to our computer and watch CBS & Fox6 News.  The picture is very good.  But we can't seem to find much else out there that isn't real choppy.
 
We've come to the conclusion that we will probably need some sort of service back.  All we need are local channels or a better interface to work with internet to watch TV over the computer that is now connected to the TV in the living room.  

Anyone have any suggestions for our predicament?

[kevbeck122]

Get a decent UHF antenna and point it to the east toward the Milwaukee antenna farm and you should be fine.  AntennaWeb should give you a better idea where the antennas are from your location.  Something like this would work: http://www.antennasdirect.com/DB2_Indoor_antenna.html.  I've been using that for several years and I've always gotten signals in the high 90s (I used it when I lived in Waukesha.. now I'm in Sussex).  I can even pick up about half of the Chicago stations on a good night.

Otherwise basic cable should be under $30 a month.  Dish Network might still have an unadvertised "Welcome Pack" for about $10 a month.  Both Dish and DIRECTV have family packs for about $20-$30 a month.  I believe they include local channels, otherwise you can probably add them for about $5 a month extra.

[Nels Harvey]

Are you able to install a satellite dish?  Dish network has a fairly low cost basic service with most local channels.  Yes, their prices go up too, but I don't believe they are so aggressive as TW.  I do think they have the edge over DirecTV on prices, but research both.

As far as weather outages, I have found them so very infrequent that cable is possibly worse.  Of course, TW won't tell you that.

If you want to be able to receive free TV over the air, a good antenna such as the Channel Master CM-4228 is ranked among the best.  The location of the antenna is very important to intercept the TV signals.  It may be that you are behind a hill blocking the signal, behind a large building, or behind thick trees that attenuate reception.  The only answer may be to go higher and in the open with the antenna, which can be an undertaking.

Go to TVFool .com, enter your location, and you can get an approximation of signal levels from the area TV stations.  I have found the practical signal levels to receive a station should be a level higher than about -70.  Most of today's digital TV's will get a blotchy signal down to -74, and will have a good solid signal in the -69 or better range.  A gain antenna like the CM-4228 will add about 10 points to the TVFool levels.  An amplifier in the line will keep the weak signals from line losses, but will not help pull in a signal that isn't there in the first place.

I do wish you well!

[Jimboy]

Digital OTA TV works fine with the right antenna.

You could try these guy's.....
http://www.kemmertv.com/
http://www.digitenna.com/

[brewtownska]

I couldn't tell from the original post...did you keep the RR internet or drop all of TWC services?  If you kept RR, you may still be able to pick up the digital versions of the local channels from the cable coming into the house for the internet.  That is what I do, mostly so I can still see CBS in HD (I have Dish network for programming, which doesn't offer CBS 58 in high-def).

In order for this to work, your TVs would need the kind of tuner than can pick up digital programming in the QAM format.  This is probably only a possibility on the 2 TVs you said are newer in the bedrooms.  You can probably find out of the TVs can process QAM by checking the internet for their specs.  Then just do a digital scan on the cable input and see what you get.  Typically you'll find the High-Def versions of NBC, FOX, ABC, CBS, PBS, and a handfull of others.  These will come in without breaking up, so they will be much better in your situation than trying to use the antenna.

If it doesn't work on your first try, check to see if you have any splitters in the cable runs.  If so, they need to be able to pass certain frequencies (I think they need to say 5-5000mhz).  If you do have the correct splitter and you know the TV can process QAM, then maybe TWC put a filter on your line to block these frequencies.

Let us know if it works!

Mike

[ArgMeMatey]

If you kept RR, you may still be able to pick up the digital versions of the local channels from the cable coming into the house for the internet.  That is what I do, mostly so I can still see CBS in HD (I have Dish network for programming, which doesn't offer CBS 58 in high-def).

So are you saying you subscribe to TW Basic, or that TW is simply not notching out the QAM signals for RR subscribers, so you are getting QAM for just the price of RoadRunner?

I have TW Basic, for a little less than $20 per month.  We get 4, 6, 10, 12, 18, 24, 36, 58 in QAM digital.

[brewtownska]

The only TWC product coming into my house is Roadrunner, but by plugging one of the cable splits into my TV 2 years ago, I noticed I could still get the High-def channels via QAM.  I know others have confirmed the same thing, so it's not just a fluke with my connection.

It seems to me someone on here reported that when they dropped to RR only, TWC must have put a filter on their line because they couldn't get the QAM channels anymore.  So it may all depend on what TWC's policy was when they were last to your house to adjust the connection to the outside pole.  In the case of the original poster, it's worth checking to see if they can pick up the QAM, as that will fix their issue with dropouts on the locals with the antenna.  I too live in Waukesha, and putting an antenna on the ground level gives me the same sort of break-ups.  So if I need to use an antenna, I'd probably either need to mount it in the attic or on the roof.

[Gregg Lengling]

Quote""""I heard about Ooma free phone service from a friend who used this for over a year. And thought that might be a great way to reduce the bill. Then our out of pocket expense would only be cable. So in March, we purchased an Ooma box for $200 and ported our phone # over. This gave us free long distance, caller ID, call waiting hooked into our RR. We were very surprised at how easy it was to setup & how well it works & should only have FCC taxes to pay each year.... When we got the next cable bill with the phone off of the cable/phone bundle - to our surprise, the BILL WENT UP!!!''''

Geez this post is almost exactly what  I posted a month ago...lmao....I went to OOMA and my bill went up....too bad TWC ...they lost me also.
I have a decent bow tie antenna and all my tv's work great OTA (but I couldn't go thru complete withdrawals...I had Dish installed for my cable fix)