How I cut cable and found the cheap and free alternative to watching TV.

I was a loyal cable TV customer all my life. I started having cable once my parents bought an old analog Sony TV set from an electronics store back in the early 90's. I was a little kid at the time and I had cable TV throughout my childhood and young adult years, especially when me and my parents moved to a house in Antioch, California, a suburb in the Bay Area. I enjoyed that I can watch 24 hour cartoons, 24 hour movies, and 24 hour music with the cable networks. My brother Ricky was still living in my childhood home in San Francisco, and he wasn't using cable TV there. When I moved back to my childhood house in San Francisco about two years ago, I had my mom's old 1993 analog Magnavox TV set up in my bedroom. Yet I couldn't watch anything on my TV except using my Xbox 360 to play my movies and TV shows I had on DVD. It wasn't until later years I found out that analog TV sets now needed a DTV converter box and antenna to watch over-the-air programming. 

Back in June 2009, the US government now ensured that all networks upgrade from analog to digital broadcasting. I didn't have an HDTV set, and it turned out only HDTV sets or Smart TV's didn't require you to buy a separate converter box to watch local channels and the big networks like PBS, ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, and CW. They had digital tuners built in, so if someone didn't subscribe to cable or satellite TV, they can watch over-the-air broadcast TV channels through connecting their antenna to their HDTV set. 

Analog TV's weren't obsolete but they now needed a DTV converter box and antenna to watch free TV (the local channels and big networks) since June 2009 when the Digital TV laws were passed by the government. 

Of course I didn't have cable anymore once I moved into my childhood house. For the next year or so, I was stuck using my Xbox 360 gaming console to watch DVD's I bought from Rasputin Records or I borrowed DVD's from the library to watch whatever I could. Something in me was missing. I wanted to watch actual TV. So I went on the Internet to find out how my old 1993 Magnavox tube TV can receive free TV programming from the local channels and big networks like ABC. Me and my brother Ricky weren't subscribing to cable or satellite, so our options were limited to watching over-the-air antenna programming of shows like Grey's Anatomy or Nashville. 

So I went to Radioshack the next day without getting enough hours of sleep, excited, and I bought me a DTV converter box and a Radioshack TV rabbit ears antenna. The reason why my brother didn't have cable or satellite was because we didn't want to pay $80 on basic cable with most channels we wouldn't even watch. Plus there was too much trashy reality shows and with so many channels and smut, it was harder to surf through cable to find good quality TV. Too much smut too. We thought it was pointless. My brother had a Samsung HDTV he bought from Costco in 2008, so he was able to watch over-the-air programming without a converter box as it had a digital tuner. Not sure what shows he watches though.

So I bought me the converter box and antenna. I set it up on my old analog TV, I scanned for channels and tweaked the rabbit ears antenna a little bit and I had about 36 channels! Some of these local channels didn't work because it had a very weak or no signal. I couldn't get KTSF very well because of a very weak signal on my antenna and DTV converter box. Now you see, I live in a metropolitan city that's very popular in America called San Francisco. Tourists come here and many people in the world would love to live here. Because I lived in a big city, I was able to get a lot of over-the-air DTV channels! Here's my channel lineup through my converter box and rabbit ears antenna.

My digital broadcast TV channels

CALL SIGN	NETWORK	CHANNEL	HD
KBCW	CW	44-1
KCNS	MundoFox	38-1
KCNS	Sino TV	38-2	-
KCNS	Estrella TV	38-3	-
KCNS	Japanese	38-4	-
KCSM-TV	Educational	60-1
KCSM-TV	MHz Worldview	60-2	-
KCSM-TV	Audio	60-3	-
KFSF-DT	UniMas	66-1
KFSF-DT	Bounce TV	66-2	-
KGO-TV	ABC	7-1
KGO-TV	Live Well	7-2
KGO-TV	Live Well	7-3	-
KMTP-TV	Ethnic	32-1	-
KMTP-TV	NTDTV	32-5	-
KMTP-TV	Asian	32-6	-
KOFY-TV	Independent	20-1
KOFY-TV	Me-TV	20-2	-
KPIX-TV	CBS	5-1
KQED	PBS	9-1
KQED	PBS	9-2	-
KQED	World Channel	9-3	-
KRON-TV	My Network TV	4-1
KRON-TV	Weather	4-2	-
KTVU	FOX	2-1
KTVU	LATV	2-2	-
K14MW-D	-	-	-
KTSF	Asian	26-1	-
KTSF	ICN	26-4	-
KTSF	Vietnamese	26-5	-
KTSF	World	26-6	-
KNTV	NBC	11-1
KNTV	COZI TV	11-2	-
KTNC-TV	Estrella TV	42-1	-
KTNC-TV	Estrella TV	42-2	-
KTNC-TV	This TV	42-3	-
KTNC-TV	Retro TV	42-4	-
KTLN-TV	TLN	68-1	-
KTLN-TV	Infomercials	68-2	-
KTLN-TV	SonLife	68-3	-
KDTV-DT	Univision	14-1
KDTV-DT	UniMas	14-2	-
KSTS	Telemundo	48-1
KSTS	Exitos TV	48-2	-

Now that I am enjoying TV. I found that most of the TV shows, entertainment, and other fine programming on these broadcast channels were better than what I was getting on cable. I get to enjoy the local news on ABC with Carolyn Johnson and Dan Ashley. I get to watch the latest hit TV shows on the networks like Dancing With The Stars and The Mindy Project. With cable, there was just 600 channels and pretty much nothing was on during most of those channels and I would never watch most of them anyways on my TV. So I wasn't paying for a hundred something cable TV channels I would never watch or had nothing on. I loved the fact I cut the cord and disabled my cable. Watching free TV should be something that is embraced. As of these days, I heard most people are getting fed up with the rising costs of cable and satellite TV and cut their cord for streaming video/Internet TV set-top boxes like Roku and/or just settled with digital broadcast TV channels with their antenna hooked up to their flat LED screen HDTV sets. Plus finding good TV shows and movies on cable gets mundane and tiring quickly!

              

Since I've been living like this for awhile already, do I really miss cable? Well I do miss watching channels like Comedy Central, Travel Channel, ABC Family, Disney Channel, BET, and TV Land. Instead of TV Land, I watch I Love Lucy reruns on MeTV. Instead of Comedy Central, I watch America's Funniest Home Videos on ABC. Instead of Disney Channel shows, I watch the Vortexx on CW on Saturday mornings. Now you see, I love TV but I don't let it consume my daily life. I have a girlfriend Faith who I'm in a long-term relationship with. I spend time with her in my free time. I make music with my guitar and use  Mixcraft on my laptop. I walk around the Excelsior District where I live at in San Francisco for a few hours in my free time when the weather is good! And I work a per diem job at a greeting card company. 

Because of the popularity of streaming video set-top boxes like Apple TV, Roku, and TV Pad, I learned online that using these electronics can be a money saving alternative to cable and satellite. In late April of 2013, I became one of the 5 million people who decided to give it a try. I bought Roku LT from Best Buy, and I set that purple box the size of a sandwich onto my TV. 

The thing about Roku is, it contains 600 online streaming Internet video channels featuring movies, the news, cartoons, and TV shows. A lot of the content is free, but it's mostly B-movies and I do get free Anime on the Crunchy Roll channel on my Roku LT box. To get the most of Roku, you need to subscribe to paid streaming channels like Hulu, Netflix, or Amazon Prime. You get a lot of reruns of TV shows from the big networks like ABC, CBS, and FOX, programming from a few cable networks, and a whole lot more. I use Roku to watch movies, TV shows, and things I couldn't get out of the converter box broadcast channels since it wasn't enough to satisfy my TV needs.  

I found the cheap and free alternative to cable and satellite, by watching over-the-air digital TV broadcast channels like ABC, KOFY, MeTV, CW, and FOX. And I use a streaming media player called Roku to watch more and more interesting TV shows and movies that I couldn't get on the broadcast channels or were only on cable or satellite. Who needs cable or satellite when you can find free and cheap alternatives to watching TV? :)

I don't really care what anyone says. I love TV. It's one of my interests and hobbies. But I do other things besides that too, keep in mind. And I'm here telling you all my amazing story of how I cut the cord and found the alternative to cable and satellite TV. :)

Thanks for reading!