Antenna Or Satellite?

I'm really dragging today. Not sure why I'm so tired, but I've had a couple of nights this week of being awake later than normal. Now, on the opening night of NFL football, I feel like I could go to sleep by seven!! It won't happen – I'm sure I'll pep up with the kickoff!

As we're now on the downhill side of our unemployment benefits, we've been making more steps at money saving. Earlier this week, we downgraded our satellite package. We're good with it. In fact, it's helping us discover more and more movies and TV programs available online. Tuesday night, we hooked the computer and HDMI cable up to the TV and watched Rizzoli & Isles online at the same time it was being broadcast. Not too shabby.

Because of everything we're finding online, we decided that we could probably cancel our satellite altogether and install a TV antenna. That's been our “project” of the last couple of weeks.

Hubby found an antenna online that we thought would work for us, so we ordered it. When it arrived, it didn't take us long to admit defeat. For one thing, it was going to be at least ten feet long when assembled. For the second – and to me bigger – issue, the instructions were pretty skimpy. I'm visual. You give me a few words and some good diagrams, and I'm pretty good at assembling. But make me have to figure out what these pieces are......it doesn't happen!

The diagrams weren't numerous enough or detailed enough for me to be able to figure out which piece was which. I kept scanning over the written words, and they might as well have been in a foreign language. We were smart enough to throw in the towel quickly, while we could still put everything back in the box and tape the box shut. We returned it, but we didn't give up.

Once the monstrosity was returned, hubby started looking online to see what else was available. He found a much smaller antenna, for even less money, that just might work. It was delivered today. First off, it was delivered in a cute little box with a built-in carrying handle. So cute! (Yes, I know - “cute” doesn't count for anything!!)

When the pieces came out of the box, there weren't too many. The few screws included were already attached to some of the pieces, so we didn't have to sort hardware. It looked fairly simple – hopefully, it's not too good to be true!

The assembly instructions were clearly written.....and the diagrams were clear and detailed! Yay! It was assembled with very little angst, and in a reasonably short time. Oh, yes, it's only 20” by 28”. Hubby is now on a run to pick up some coax cable so we can try it out. So wish us luck. We should know fairly soon if it will work or not. And if it doesn't, we can always return it and keep watching on the satellite.......as long as we can watch that football game tonight!