Cox Cable Company raised my rate once too often. I don’t mind paying them for internet, but their TV charges were much too high. The only problem was, since the switch to digital, it was the only way I could receive TV at all on my analog thrift-shop portables.
My decision to save money required an investment: a new HD digital television. The $100 I spent on the 19-inch set would be more than paid for in two months of non-cable. It was a brilliant plan.
It was a brilliant picture, too, compared to what I had been watching before. I hooked it to an antenna I had made years ago, which consisted of an old pair of rabbit ears mounted on a 20-foot length of PVC pipe attached to the side of my house. Perfect reception.
I have fewer channels than I had with cable, but broadcast TV has more choices than it used to. PBS alone has excellent programming that I had been missing, and a on couple of channels I can travel back in time, watching shows from the past, some of them so many decades old I barely remember them. Car 54, Get Smart, Green Acres, Honey West, Burke’s Law, Lost in Space, Dobie Gillis; the list goes on.
I’ll miss MSNBC and CNN, I’m sure, though I can catch the good parts online. So far, though, I happy with broadcast, where the future meets the past.
–cosmic rat March 30, 2013