Since I've been living alone one way I've found to cut my monthly bill costs is not pay for satellite or cable television. And I do not miss it, mostly I do not miss those insane bills! Between local television and things like
Amazon Prime
,
Netflix, and internet tv there is plenty for me to watch.
Since analog television went extinct and we are left with digital television, aka DTV, I was frustrated with the reception of the signal I was receiving with DTV. Between not getting local stations and then the few I was getting constantly digitizing and me having to do everything I could think of to get reception back... I decided I was fed up and there had to be a better antenna than the one I had with the big huge rods sticking to the sky and the stupid round pointless thing in the middle. I had enough of cutting the power off to things and turning it back on, adjusting rods and changing channels. I was spending more time just trying to keep a signal than I was watching the show. Despite over the past year what I was experiencing with DTV, I still wasn't so frustrated that I was willing to pay huge bills every month to watch tv!!!
So began my reading of reviews, and more reviews, and even more reviews. I wasn't sure how much I was going to be willing to pay for an antenna but I was seriously looking at reviews for everything from the cheap stuff to the ones into hundreds of dollars. It had to be an indoor antenna since I live in an apartment. I finally found it on
Amazon.com, yes I know I refer to Amazon a lot but I am an avid shopper of Amazon and I find my best deals there and I wouldn't recommend it if I didn't shop there myself! So what did I find on Amazon? It's called the
Leaf HDTV Antenna made by Mohu
. It is a paper thin indoor antenna and it is made in the USA. It also has a black side or a white side so you can fit it in with your color scheme, or you can put in a window or behind some furniture, or I saw pictures where people just taped it to the back of the tv. There is a super thin ring of plastic around it that they have provided if you'd like to secure it with push pins instead of tape.
I read dozens and dozens of reviews about it on and off of Amazon. There are
over 700 customer reviews on Amazon, actually that is what caught my attention because I believe it had the most reviews of any of them that I saw there. It of course had mixed reviews as expected. Some people live in areas where they really just aren't going to have much luck no matter what they use. However in over 700 reviews less than 100 were 2 stars and under, 5 stars being max.
So I decided to give it a try! I ordered it on Sunday and it arrived today on Friday via USPS mail. The I opened it up and it resembled not much more than a piece of laminated paper with a wire attached. I had it delivered to my office and had said to my coworker as I was showing her my new technology discovery, she has a love of technology like I do, that I was going to be pissed if I got home and it ended up just being a piece of plastic that didn't do anything!
I get home I take it out of the packaging, take the old crazy bulky antenna and toss it to the ground triumphantly now that I wouldn't have to look at the eyesore anymore, and hoping that this Leaf actually worked! Oh no did I break the eyesore? Well if I did it doesn't matter because the Leaf works beautifully! When I first hooked it up there was no change in the channels and everything was still digitizing and I was like dang it! Noooo! Then I thought to go into my tv menu and have it re-tune the channels doing an auto-scan and my tv who is much smarter than I automatically tells me as soon as it starts the scan that it detects a new antenna and will be rewriting all the previous saved channels. Why do I love technology? That's why I love technology! I'm thinking maybe this is why others had issues with the Leaf is because they didn't take the time to go into the menu and have it reset and wait on the tv to re-auto-tune the channels.
I checked with
TV Guide online and looked at what the actual local broadcast area channels were for me and I now receive all but one with the Leaf! From what I understand some areas have lots more channels available to them, and some people assume that since it was so widely broadcasted when the switch was made that it was going to be better because there would be so many more channels now, however that does not mean that they are all actually broadcasted in your area. I suggest going to TV Guide putting in your zip and seeing what available to you. Also the other exciting part, besides more channels, is the tv has been on for 7 hours and not once has it digitized! I'm so excited over this more than anything because the digitizing was bad. It would do it every few minutes before and sometimes I'd fully lose service for hours at a time. I would get so frustrated with the digitizing I'd just switch to watching a movie or tv show on Amazon Prime or Netflix!
I know I've only had this thing for a few hours and it's working beautifully now and maybe I'm jumping the gun on writing this this long review, however I just couldn't wait to share this new discovery of mine with you. And since I had read so many reviews where people had them for several months or over a year and they worked great I feel confident in telling you about this now! But I promise if I have a problem in the near future I'll definitely make an update and let you know.
If you are frugal like me and prefer to not pay some corporation your hard earned dollars just to subscribe their overpriced service to watch television and are sick of only having 3 channels that you can barely watch anyways then I suggest try out the Leaf!
OH WAIT!! I forgot one of the best parts! This miracle antenna only cost me $37.59 and it was free shipping! What what! Yep that's right!
Ok Balue is sick of me giving you guys so much attention and is now laying here pawing at me and would love for me to spend some time snuggled up with him watching our perfectly clear awesome television picture.
Much Love! Have a wonderful weekend!
UPDATE: 5/1/12 - Antenna still works awesome! No digitizing in months. LOVE IT!
I do not really use my laptop outside, but my phone is Wifi capable and I do not get much signal in the dog park next to my apartment, so I decided to go and check that out. In this photo I'm standing in front of the wall where my router and Bounce
are located about 4 feet behind me, and if you squint your eyes and look for the arrow I inserted you can see the brown picnic table in the distance. That's where I spend my time while Balue is having his park time. Usually I get 1 white bar with WiFi at that table, I now get 3 green bars, and 4 is the most that would be on my phone. So 3 out of 4 green bars, when before I had no green isn't too shabby!
to come in the mail, so expect to hear from me fairly soon on how that works out.
