AT&T Community Forums

New subscriber- subchannel access?

I had some door to door att contractors stop by and I took them up on the offer, seeing as i'm paying only $20 less for very basic cable on one tv and internet, and UVerse offer has 300 channels on 2 televisions and supposedly faster internet. Seemed like a good deal at the time, and like I'd get more for my money, even though I don't watch THAT much tv...still a better value.

HOWEVER...

my husband and I rather enjoy CreateTv (new orleans WYES/PBS subchannel). In fact, most of the tv we watch is CreateTv- though the kids watch disney, nick, etc- but sadly it is unavailable with UVerse, so this is a big problem. It's his favorite channel. He told me if he can't access create, he would rather cancel, and I'm ok with that.

I don't know much about the technical stuff. Could someone tell me if you can access local sub channels with some kind of antenna or tuner? Our sony bravia tv is about 3 years old. It's pretty basic. I have no idea about the HD stuff.......... I saw some posts about it but they were sort of argumentative and not entirely helpful or clear.

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Anonymous

New Member

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25.7K Messages

11 years ago

If you can pick the Sub-Channels up with an Over The Air Antenna, either indoor or outdoor, you would just have to connect the antenna to the coax connector on the back of your tv.

There are a lot of people in areas, that use antenna's to pick up the sub-channels, due to UVerse does not carry them. There is only one in my area that I would consider watching, but really not that interested in, so I never went about hooking up the antenna to watch that one channel OTA, when I can get the programming that is on it, through other means through online streaming.

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Iproblemz

Tutor

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6 Messages

11 years ago

Thank you! That was very helpful 🙂

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Anonymous

New Member

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25.7K Messages

11 years ago

I can actually get away with a 6' piece of RG-6, with about 2' of the end stripped, so that the outer shield is twisted to create one end of a Y, with the inside "Stinger" with the die-electric stripped off, but not so far back that it allows the shield to touch the inside wire.

I can pick up pretty much all locals, with the exception of our PBS out of Champaign/Urbana, IL. For that I would have to put back up a outdoor antenna, with the mast about 15' above my roof peak.

Our whole neighborhood is full of outdoor antennas that have not been used in years, and would still have no problem being hooked up at this point and actually would work after all this time.

If you want to see what you can pick up in your area, and with what kind of antenna (outdoor, indoor, or amplified), go to http://www.tvfool.com and it will come back with the info showing what you need to know.

There is a good set of discussion sub-forums over at http://www.avsforum.com for every area in the U.S., that talks about OTA.

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aviewer

Expert

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10.1K Messages

11 years ago

Iproblemz - I am a fan of U-verse and OTA. They both can be realy great. But, there are a lot of opportunnities for disappointment.

Props to you for carefully checking on whether or not U-verse carries the channels you need.

Sounds like you have already signed up. The U300 package is the second most expensive package. Its regular price is going to be much much more than "basic cable". The price can only be good for a new customer bundle. At some point it wil go up.

The previous posts are good advice on OTA. I would like to add to that.

If the TV is 3 yrs old it probably does have a digital tuner. ( You MUST HAVE a digital tuner to receive OTA). If you can not tell, post your model number & I will look it up.

Here is another site which tells which OTA channels you can receive - http://antennaweb.org/Stations.aspx?Address=&City=New+Orleans&State=LA&ZIP=70119&Housing=S&Accuracy=4&Height=6&Obstructed=False&StationList=&Lat=29.9798109&Lon=-90.0793488

While you may be able to get some with a wire antenna, a properly designed antenna will work much better & should not cost very much. It can be uesd inside. Avoid amplified antenna because you want to capture a good signal. IF you do not do that first, there is nothing to amplify.

Google for antennas - Here is one supplier - solidsignal.com

Here is the channel list for U-verse - https://uma.att.com/uma/RetrieveChannelLineup?ZIP=06410&APPID=UMA&actionType=&FORMAT=POPUP&FirstTime=F

Post if you have more questions. There are many on theforum that like to help.

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