Got a predicament. We are going to our lake house this weekend and apparently the internet and cable is going to be completely down for repair all weekend.

Also the cell service at our house is next to zero…lucky to get one bar on a good day.

Having said that are there any options we could get the A&M game?

portable hotspot from a different carrier?

that or socialize with the neighbors.

Good suggestions

I guess I was hoping someone had used a new set of rabbit ears or antenna that would at least pickup ABC

But not sure if those things are all that reliable or not

akaggie05 said:

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Depends entirely on proximity to a decent sized city with an ABC affiliate. You can get a high-gain directional antenna but depending on distance to the transmitter you could have mixed results.

Plug in your location here to see what you're dealing with.

https://www.antennaweb.org/

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Pretty handy thanks

Says closest ABC affiliate is 45 miles away with medium directional (red antenna color code)

Decent powered antenna should pick that up.

aezmvp said:

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Decent powered antenna should pick that up.

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Thank you sir

https://a.co/d/a44e1fz

What are you looking for in reliability on these things. Something like this do the job?

I had an antenna for OTA channels when i was in VA. i tested a few and by far the biggest factor was placement versus the actual antenna. The one that worked best for me was one i could put on a large window near the TV.

Just FYI that amazon link is a product swap where they sold one thing got a bunch of ratings and then changed the product. I'd go with something else or just stop by Best Buy/Lowes/HD.

These antennas are completely unpredictable as to how they will work in your environment. I would order 2 or 3 different types from Amazon, keep the one that works the best and return the others.

Lathspell said:

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Don't plan vacations to remote places during football season?

Starlink?

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Starlink is probably the most reliable option for OP, but also expensive for just one game.

Internet and cable is simply down for repairs this weekend alone. Simply bad timing why we are just looking for a relatively cheap option for Saturday only

I would actually do a permanent solution and install a mountable antenna (one of the larger ones) either in the attic or on a tall pole if you are allowed to at the lake house. That way you'll always have local channels no matter what the line situation is. I did that up here in the DFW northern suburbs and hooked it up to a HDHomeRun connected to my network and then have all of my locals on all of my streaming boxes in the house. Full uncompressed HD channels that are almost a minute ahead of any streaming TV service.

Last time I tried to follow a game at a lake house without internet, UCLA....

I don't whether it would work for you, but I once had to go into my 'Professor from Gilligan's Island' mode to pick up OTA TV reception.

I got a piece of 50' coax cable, peeled back about 4' of braided shielding/insulation from one end, ran that end out the window and hung it over a tree branch, hooked the connector end up to the TV, and voila!

I don't recall if I had to short the shield to the center conductor for the best reception. YMMV.

Now watching the Ags against a top 10 opponent on national TV. What could possibly go wrong?

Remember: You'll need to do an antenna channel scan on your TV to register the channel. And if your ABC affiliate is WFAA (Channel 8) from Dallas, they've got a pretty decent signal. Good luck.

Starlink!

I struggled to get OTA broadcast signal at my house when we went cable/sat free.

The problem I had with the different antennae purchased was some were better for certain stations. I think now that it wasn't necessarily the antennae, but the location of the antennae and the direction of the "ears".

After checking youtube, I picked up the Mediasonic Homeworx Digital Converter Box (HW250STB), and I plug my antennae into it, and it can also act like a DVR for that signal. However, the best part is that it shows signal strength for each signal, so my FOX and CBS are almost at 60 degrees from each other, so I just move the antenna to get the strongest signal, and it works great.

The box was $25-35 I think, but I made up for it because my $12 antennae is doing better than what those $50-60 antennae were doing.

AgDev01 said:

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I had an antenna for OTA channels when i was in VA. i tested a few and by far the biggest factor was placement versus the actual antenna. The one that worked best for me was one i could put on a large window near the TV.

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This. The higher you can get the antenna, the better luck you are going to have. I just put one of these in my attic, with an amplifier and i can pick up San Antonio stations ~90 miles away with no problem.

I've had very mixed results with indoor antennas. I've tried more than a few and have trouble picking up stations 25-30 miles away.

Yeah we haven't had satellite or cable in probably 12 years. Small indoor antenna always seemed iffy on number of channels and quality of reception. We moved further away from the towers but put a big antenna in the attic and get all OTA channels no problem with great quality.

boy09 said:

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AgDev01 said:

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I had an antenna for OTA channels when i was in VA. i tested a few and by far the biggest factor was placement versus the actual antenna. The one that worked best for me was one i could put on a large window near the TV.

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This. The higher you can get the antenna, the better luck you are going to have. I just put one of these in my attic, with an amplifier and i can pick up San Antonio stations ~90 miles away with no problem.

I've had very mixed results with indoor antennas. I've tried more than a few and have trouble picking up stations 25-30 miles away.

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Same scenario for me. Also being able to distribute it to any device on the network via a HDHomeRun makes it a very nice setup.

If your attic has foil backed board, you will be SOL unless you mount the antenna outside the house and run the cable inside.

This is the setup i used.

Five Star TV Antenna Indoor/Outdoor Yagi Satellite HD Antenna with up to 200 Mile Range - Attic or Roof Mount TV Antenna, Long Range Digital OTA Antenna for 4K 1080P with Mounting Pole https://a.co/d/30mvTGm

Ancable Window and Door Feed Thru Jumper Cable,1-Pack 1ft (32cm) F-Type Female to Female Flat Coax TV Cable Extension Adapter for Antenna, DirectTV and Dish Tailgater, White,Ultra Slim Paper Thin https://a.co/d/5mnSYpu

Plus a few coax cables of needed length.

This is pretty cheap and effective. I've made it before and it worked well in an apartment in Houston. The broadcast towers are around Missouri City IIRC, so about 20 - 25 miles away.

Cardboard Antenna

Hopefully, you missed it.