Re: Help. Got Sling TV not long ago and need help

Just buy an amplified internal digital antenna as long as your TV is a digital tv which you are almost guaranteed if tv is less than 10yrs old. The digital antenna will get you many local channels, like 5-9 channels depending on location. You can buy from $19- $119, i would suggest $40 maybe $50 range. You can plug into your most elevated cable outlet and then use all outlets around house or you can plug direct to TV. They are small, usually 8"x8" or smaller. Then keep your Sling for all other channels, just have to switch your input/source which is simple, then run an antenna scan on that source whether its HDMI, or cable input. Antennas are on Amazon, at Best Buy and Walmart. Just dont buy cheapest.

Its pretty simple! Good luck.

tabbyplague®

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IMO Sling is the worst of all the streaming TV services

Sep 2, 2020, 5:37 AM

out there. My recommendation is to ditch Sling and pony up a few more bucks a month and go with Hulu or YouTube TV where your local channels are integrated into the service. You will have a lot less headaches, more reliable reception of local TV, and overall better service quality.

Bottom line - Sling does not natively offer local channels within their service. Sling's offer of "free local channels" is misleading to say the least. Sling is not streaming your local channels through their service but relying on you to procure and hook up an HDTV antenna to your TV in order to get your local channels for "free". Essentially Sling is taking you back in time to the way we watched TV before cable where we used "rabbit ear" antennas and/or that big clunky (Yagi) antenna on the top of your house.

You don't need Sling or their AirTV package to get over the air TV broadcasts. Almost every TV has a built in tuner that is capable of capturing the free over the air TV signals transmitted by TV Stations. You just need to hook up an external antenna to your TV to help capture these "free" signals. This method works so long as you live in an area where the "free" over the air TV signals are strong enough to be received at your home location. Depending on the distance and obstructions between your home and the particular TV Station transmitting tower - your reception of these free signals can be hit or miss. Very rarely have I seen it that any one home location is capable of receiving all 4 major networks (Fox, CBS, abc, NBC) over the air from their local affiliates without issue.

The AirTV package being advertised by Sling is nothing more than an external HDTV antenna and a TV Tuner that can be used to capture over the air signals. Since most TV's have built in tuners - it seems like a waste of money to me to buy an AirTV package as you could buy your own HDTV antenna from Amazon and use your TV's internal tuner without need of AirTV's fancy box.

If you want reliable local TV - I'd forego the "free" over the air HDTV antenna route and either get a streaming service that offers it in their packages (i.e. Hulu Live or YouTube TV) or even a bare bones cable package. There is a reason most people jumped on the cable bandwagon when cable first became available in their local areas; over the air TV tends to be very unreliable for most home locations. Some stations may come in strong while others fade in/out or are not received at all. While today's over the air digital broadcasts have great picture quality - the problem still remains that most households are unable to reliably get all their local channels through this method.