A digital TV antenna isn't the answer to your streaming subscription woes

Summary

Digital antennas offer free cable, easy setup, and flexibility without monthly costs.
Setup can be tricky with different brands, unreliable signals, and channel limitations.
Antennas may lack major channels, sporting events, and signal consistency compared to cable.

Anyone wanting to cut the cord on cable is rightly justified. These cable contracts are unruly, locking you into multi-year terms and making it impossible to leave. They offer better deals for new clients and don’t offer discounts to users that have been with them for years. Plus, you get stuck with channels you don’t care about and get charged even more for some of the channels you might want.

If you’re not someone who cares that much about having every channel and just wants to watch basic cable plus a select few other channels, getting a digital antenna might be the way to go. Digital antennas pick up broadcast signals from local broadcast towers and transmit them back to your TV. It’s cable you don’t have to pay for on a monthly basis and also something you get for just plugging something into your TV. I’ve tested numerous digital antennas over the years, all looking for one that works best for my office TV.

How I set up my digital TV antenna to watch free cable

After testing multiple digital TV antennae, here’s what I’ve found makes for the fastest and easiest setup to watch free cable.

I don’t want to pay for cable in my office and I have a TV on my desk that I want to be able to watch things on. While I have a Roku streaming device plugged in, I didn’t want to add YouTube TV or Hulu + Live TV to get basic cable and local channels. While I tried digital antennas, it wasn’t worth the hassle. Here’s why.

mohu leaf supreme pro digital TV antenna

Mohu Leaf Supreme Pro Paper-Thin Indoor TV Antenna

The Mohu Leaf Supreme Pro Paper-Thin Indoor TV Antenna has a maximum range of 65 miles and is an amplified antenna that boosts its signal. It comes with a 12-foot coaxial cable to plug into your TV and can be tacked multiple places.

There are so many different kinds

It can be hard to figure out which one works best for your setup

If you search for a digital antenna on the Internet, the results are going to populate dozens to hundreds of different options. They come in all shapes and sizes with varying instructions on where to best place them — some are meant to be placed outside your home, meaning you’re going to have to reach out a window or onto the roof to adjust them. Some say they shouldn’t be too far from a window, while others insist they can live inside an entertainment unit.

7 reasons why you should buy a smart TV antenna

The name may suggest ‘retro,’ but the antenna might be the ultimate future answer to cable cutting.

I’ve found that, depending on where you are in your house, they work differently. But the problem is not knowing before you buy one what kind is the best for whatever room you’re setting it up in. All different digital antennas offer different features, such as longer ranges, different resolutions, cloud DVRs, and more. You can try and read the Q&As and review for each to see which person out there might have a similar setup to yours, but even then, it may not work out to a tee.

The problem is not knowing before you buy one what kind is the best for whatever room you’re setting it up in.

Setting it up (successfully) can be frustrating

Finagling where you want it to sit is exhausting

Gesobyte digital tv antenna on a picture ledge.

Going back to why you might want an antenna in the first place, it could be because you don’t have room for a cable box. But that doesn’t mean you’ll have room for the digital antenna, either. Some of them are massive and flat while others are smaller and cylindrical. Others might be round with rabbit ears like the old-time antennas on big TVs. Digital antennas need to be plugged into the actual TV in order to work, thanks to coaxial cables. So, you have to make sure that the cord is long enough to reach wherever you’re setting up the antenna.

If the only place in your room that gets good reception is against a window or on a high shelf or even above a closet (which actually was the case for one of the antennas I tested) it may not even reach your TV, which would make you rethink your entire room setup.

That’s not something you’re going to want to do for a $50 piece of equipment.

Certain channels might come in well with the antenna in one spot and worse in another, but every time you move your antenna, you’re supposed to scan the channels again to ensure you’re getting the best signal possible. Is that something you’re in the mood to do every time you want to switch channels?

6 key things a TV antenna can do

It’s an easy way to get all the channels without the cable package and record all the shows without DVR.

The signals are unreliable

Some come in well while others don’t

gesobyte TV antenna bringing in a staticky channel

Different antennas will claim they can get over 200 channels, but the truth depends on where the nearest broadcast tower is to your home. If you live in a remote area, you’re less likely to pick up a signal. If you live in an incredibly populated area, it may also be hard to pick up clear signals. The biggest issue with digital antennas is not knowing which channels are going to come in with a strong signal.

You may think you can watch CBS, NBC, FOX, or ABC reliably because they’re the premiere basic cable channels, but you could be totally wrong. One of the antennas I tested didn’t pick up a few of these staples.

You can visit
this website
to see the local channels that are available in your area.

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I tried this antenna to see if I could get free live TV channels

The Nimizo digital TV antenna worked perfectly for some channels, but didn’t work well for everything that was advertised.

As I mentioned, some channels come in stronger in certain spots than others. Having to see where a specific antenna works best in your room and also which channels work well in that spot is — put simply — way more effort than it’s worth. If there is inclement weather outside, one of the antennas I tested barely worked at all. WIth cable, you have an infinitely better shot of having a reliable signal.

The channel lineup can be misleading

You may think you’re getting one thing, but it could be something else entirely

mohu leaf supreme pro digital tv antenna in a window.

Not having any idea which channels are going to come in at all is frustrating. Antenna packaging often promises a wide variety of stations, but the reality is often very different. For example, I picked up random channels I’d never heard of, like Bounce TV or Scripps News, while the antenna struggled to capture a local news station for my area.

If you manage to get a reliable signal where your TV is placed, you can enjoy the programming for a while. However, switching to a channel you actually want to watch might not be possible. For someone like me, who enjoys watching live sports, relying on a digital antenna just isn’t ideal. Despite my hopes, missing the channels that broadcast the games was a dealbreaker. Occasionally, a sporting event on a major network came through clearly, but the signal often dropped, making the experience way more frustrating than it was worth.

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