Over the Air Free TV Channels

[be8nice]

Originally Posted by tragenvol

YouTube TV has all Nashville locals except for PBS; their package has roughly 40 channels and is $40 per month. PS Vue has all Nashville locals less ABC and PBS; however, PS Vue does have ABC on demand content. The PS Vue second tier package is roughly $45 per month.

Youtube TV is not available on Amazon Firestick, but PS Vue is available through the Amazon Firestick platform. Both streaming services are available on the Roku platform as well.

$40+ is a steep price for someone seeking just the local networks to stream. These are networks that are supposed to be free, they use publicly leased airwaves.

I grew up in the Cookeville area and still have family there and sometimes play with the antenna on my visits. Pre-digital days, you could get a number of channels. Cookeville is in a weird zone where the Nashville-Knoxville-Chattanooga signals collide.

West of town (aka Baxter) its a Nashville-only zone, with WCTE as an absolute. My experience in this area with digital is that only WTVF would receive from Nashville.

When I was much younger, I remember the old analog signals from Chattanooga came in fine on Buck Mountain. If you're just east of Cookeville, the Chattanooga broadcast towers on Signal Mountain are closer than any Nashville station. I just did the plot on Google Earth, it appears WRCB/WTVC/WDEF is ~ 68 miles and WTVF is ~ 76 miles, with WSMV and WKRN all even further. You don't even have to be up on the plateau, you could be down in the Cookeville region as long as you're in a good line of sight then the Chattanooga signals would start to come in. Watching WRCB wasn't a problem, but this was many years ago during analog. I'm not sure how the digital transition affected it and I no longer have an antenna in those areas to play with.

So, the Cookeville market is a tough cookie to get reception in. Depends on what side of the Cookeville area you reside in and if you're on the plateau or not. If you're just south of Cookeville, the Chattanooga stations were all very clear depending on your line of sight. Sparta for example is only 50 miles from the broadcast towers on Signal Mountain. I'm not even sure why its considered the Nashville market, IMHO they should take a few counties out of the Nashville market and add Chattanooga to them. Why anyone from Van Buren or Grundy would be counted in the Nashville market when they can't receive Nashville signals OTA is the bizarre world of Neilsen Market design. The way these markets are drawn sometimes makes zero sense. I know Chattanooga is in Eastern time, but subtracting that 1 hour difference is incredibly easy.

Knoxville is a bit remote vs the Nashville and Chattanooga broadcasts. However if you are in Monterey on the east end of the county then Knoxville becomes your closest signal.

The problem of being in a transition zone far from major markets is that you never know where to point the antenna until you map it. In my humble opinion, Cookeville should have local repeater tower broadcasts for either Nashville or Chattanooga networks. There's enough population in the area and a free digital signal should be available, Cookeville is probably the highest population center of the state with the least amount of accessible over the air networks. Since cable and satellite is just prohibitively expensive these days it would make as much sense today as it ever has.

[be8nice]

Edit, I woke up with Google Earth still pulled up on the computer and realized even in Monterey the closest signal is actually still Chattanooga. So, it appears Chattanooga is probably the best bet anywhere in eastern Putnam County for reception OTA. Knoxville signals are probably not viable until you get into Cumberland County a good bit. Of course, anyone who is in a valley or "dip" of any significance will likely get no reception from any of them except WCTE. Cookeville (and the Upper Cumberland in general) is not a good area for free OTA signals, unfortunately.

[scorpsman]

I currently use Spectrum Choice ($24.99 for 1st 2 years + $5 broadcast TV surcharge) for my broadcast channels w/ 10 more a la carte channels. It works well, but I don't think we watch it enough. Maybe once baseball season is over, I might cancel it until spring.

[be8nice]

A very good web site to assist with this is tvfool.com. They have maps, plots, and graphs to help you with signal quality with most stations. WDEF in Chattanooga is not available on their database, but all the others are.

I hope these tools help, because I likewise think cable and satellite prices are outrageous. At a certain point there isn't much value in the service being provided, and free OTA signals should always be FREE! It is absurd that these media companies are asking for broadcast fees at all when they receive free over the air leases to broadcast their signals. The networks always have been different from pay-tv and it should remain free.