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Antennas, Anyone?

For the first time in my adult life, going all the way back to college 30 years ago, I am now part of the ever-shrinking world of the cable and satellite-free. I finally reached my tipping point when it came to the cost of subscription television, and I said sayonara to the signals entering my home via fiber optics.

Ironically, once upon a time I worked in cable television for the better part of a decade. One of the employee benefits at the time was free service, including all of the movie channels. For a pop culture junkie like me, it was heavenly.

But as my children got older and busier, and I collected more outside interests and activities, a funny thing happened – I watched less and less TV. “American Idol”? I’ve never watched it, not once. “Dancing With The Stars”? Ditto. Other than Packers and Badgers games, my TV became little more than a monitor for my VHS and DVD players. The only two primetime shows that I do watch, “Lost” and “The Office,” are viewed at my leisure on season compilation DVDs or on the Internet. So for a long time, I subscribed to the least expensive package available, which basically consisted of the Madison and Rockford broadcast channels, JATV, and home shopping.

Eventually, even that didn’t seem worth paying for. So I purchased an antenna. My plan was to put it up on the roof Sunday morning, with hopes of having it functional by Packers game time at noon.

I had to visit the hardware store when it opened at 9 a.m. to pick up some parts I needed, and I ran into my pastor there. When I told him what I was up to, he had a look of real concern on his face and told me to be careful. It sends a real shiver up your spine when your pastor looks that worried – does he know something I don’t??

My multi-level house is on a hill in Milton, so I was hopeful that my “100 Mile Antenna” would actually pull in distant signals from far away lands like Milwaukee. To be honest, my main concern was picking up whichever Milwaukee station carries the Packers ESPN games over the air.

I ended up mounting the antenna to my chimney, and the process went fairly smoothly. My son Rob helped me out when four hands were needed – a momentous occasion, his first time on our roof. I didn’t hit my noon deadline, but by about 12:30 or so, we were hooked up – and receiving a whopping four channels. Upon closer inspection, I didn’t have the amplifier hooked up properly. Once that was functioning, the channels came fast and furious.

For a geek like me, it was exciting stuff. We’d point the antenna in a certain direction, do a channel scan, and watch the new signals arrive. A few were mystifying. Channel 55? Oh, it’s in Kenosha…hey, we’re picking up Kenosha!! Channel 52? Mayville. Who knew Mayville had a TV station?

We ended up with over 40 channels, twice as many as we had been receiving when we were paying. Suddenly, I was getting all of the additional digital channels that I couldn’t get with my cheapo package – the weather channel on 15.2, the Retro channel on 27.2, etc. This was exciting stuff!

But the biggest score was pulling in almost all of the Milwaukee channels. We seem to be right at the edge of their range; on Sunday evening, each one was clear as a bell, but on Monday night, it was hit and miss.

Oddly, I can’t pick up Rockford stations except for WTVO. This was a surprise as those towers aren’t any further from my house than Madison, yet Milwaukee is nearly twice as far.

But the biggest frustration was that I could not pick up one Madison station – Fox 47, the station carrying the Packers. By the time I discovered that I could get Fox 6 out of Milwaukee, the game was over and we had missed it. I consulted with the company that sold me the antenna and we tried several different ideas to try to pull it in. Nothing worked. What’s really strange is that Fox 47 shares the same tower as Channel 3 – and while I am picking up 3 with a signal strength of 98%, it’s like 47 doesn’t exist. So as Packers fans, we may be relying on favorable atmospheric conditions every week in order to see our beloved team play.

Even without the one channel we wanted the most, there is a real sense of freedom in our new cableless lifestyle.

The only downside?

If the antenna blows off the roof, I can’t call someone to complain.