Follow the Money

Watch Free Local TV With Antenna

23 million households in USA watch local TV channels for free. The remaining 102 million pay around $300/year for something that is free. Why? They don’t want to install an antenna or just don’t know that’s an option. This costs TV viewers around $2.5 billion dollars each year. Streaming, cable and satellite services collect this money and forward most of it to your local broadcasters as retransmission fees. This is why free local TV channels using an antenna is one of the best kept secrets in the TV business.

For a small one-time cost of installing an antenna you can not only watch local channels for free, but you can also:

Record and watch programs at your convenience.
Watch TV over Wi-Fi from any room.

Good reliable antenna TV reception with good antenna installation. Those plastic rectangles that some folks put up in their windows are called mudflaps. You don't use them to drive on the freeway at 80 miles per hour. For reliable TV reception you use a real TV antenna, installed by someone who knows what they are doing.

Are antennas difficult to install?

Modern antennas can be compact and easy to install.
A federal law prohibits homeowner associations from restricting use of an outdoor antenna to watch TV. See FAQ #56 at this link.
Search online for a qualified local antenna installer. Professional antenna installs cost around $400. That’s only around five months of payments for YouTube TV!
If you want to install one yourself, a knowledgeable consultant can help you get everything set up correctly. Click here for our recommendations.

Does over-the-air (OTA) TV provide better signal quality?

Yes. OTA free signal is much better quality than cable, satellite or Internet because it is not compressed to save bandwidth and money.
Regular ATSC 1.0 TV is HD quality with Dolby surround, two-dimensional, sound.
The new ATSC 3.0 TV is in HDR+1080p quality with Dolby Atmos, three-dimensional, sound.
You don't need to wait for 4K transmissions because HDR+1080p upscaled to 4K delivers about 85% of the visual improvement that you will ever get from native 4K. See FAQ #62 about this topic at this link.

Should I consider using a DVR to record?

In 1999 TV viewing changed forever when TiVo introduced the DVR. You could pause Live TV, record it and watch it at any time and at your convenience.
However, until recently storage was big and expensive.
To compensate for inadequate storage Roku and Netflix popularized the streaming business.
Now with large 1TB Flash drives and 8 TB disk drives you can build your own libraries. Why pay the streamers when you can record all the shows you want, for free off-the-air, and watch them without even connecting to the Internet?
Once you go DVR, you will never go live again. Especially, if you hate sitting through commercials.

Can I stream my recordings to any room?

Yes. With the Zapper Mini you can watch any recording or Live TV in any room.
The Zapper Mini connects to your main ZapperBox DVR over your home internet using Wi-Fi or Ethernet.
You do not need to run RF Coax cable to each room.