pj81156 Loc: St. Petersburg, FL

I live deep in the woods, so satellite tv and satellite internet are the only options I know of. I have HughesNet, the only one I could get, and Directv. I’m not particularly happy with either, but, as I said they seem to be my only options. I want to drop Directv. Because I am surrounded by trees, a roof top antenna may only get me one or two stations. Trees are much taller than my roof in every direction. I tried it years ago. First, any other options or suggestions. Next, are there any live news shows via HughesNet. I have Netflix, Amazon, Disney. Thanks.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Cut a few trees down and get an open yard?

pj81156 Loc: St. Petersburg, FL

It’s not a few trees. It’s hundreds, not all on my property. And, I live in the woods by choice, and for some things, that is a down side.

Shellback Loc: North of Cheyenne Bottoms Wetlands - Kansas

We dropped direct and went with internet streams - we found YouTube TV to have our local news stations - there are also live news streams available - check this out:
https://www.cnet.com/news/free-live-tv-streaming-news-sources-to-watch-now-abc-cbs-fox-news-cnn-and-more/

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

We have a house in the woods, by choice but desired some flowers and clear space in case of fire.
Saved the house when a fire burned through years ago.now all is grown back and more beautiful than ever.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Regarding the trees and local stations, it all depends on how far they are and the antenna you use. I am surrounded by a forest, with most trees 40-80 feet tall, like you, but I can pick up 8 local stations (with 3 digital channels per station) with an unamplified UHF yagi in my 2nd floor attic - the farthest transmitter is probably 20-25 miles away. I also have ham radio antennas at 35-45 feet for frequencies up through UHF, and while the trees do provide some attenuation, I regularly access satellites 1,000 miles distant that are transmitting with just a watt or two (UHF TV stations transmit with a power in the hundreds of kilowatts), so I wouldn’t discount local TV stations unless they are more than 25-30 miles distant.

Regarding satellite reception, you do need a clear line of site to the satellite which will be South, but because they will be well above the horizon, you can likely see over the trees, so no issue there.

Living with radioTV/satellite communication in a forest isn’t ideal, but certainly not hopeless, and since UHF TV is line of sight (low elevation), cutting down trees won’t fix the problem, even if you wanted to.

pj81156 Loc: St. Petersburg, FL

I forgot to mention, I am 50+ miles from the nearest transmitter, 80+ miles from the next two.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

In that case, I’d stick to satellite.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

As Shellback mentioned, You-Tube TV is an option, as long as your internet is reliable and relatively fast. Hulu is another streaming service. Both will likely carry your local channels and offer the most popular news channels you're used to with DirecTV, such as CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and more.

https://tv.youtube.com/welcome/?utm_source=pm&utm_medium=gs&utm_campaign=1006175

https://www.hulu.com/live-tv

Both have free trials, and there are other companies similar to these. Do you have a Smart TV and wi fi? That is the easiest set-up, but not insurmountable if you don't.

Nanarozzi Loc: Brentwood, TN & East TN

We just went through the same scenario. We have Viasat (Satellite internet) instead of Hughesnet. We did the trial with Hulu and YouTubeTV. We liked them both but went with YoutubeTV because we live between 2 locations and it easily switches locations and we can get local news for each location just by changing your home location. With Hulu, you can only change your home location 4 times per year so we would have had to have two accounts where with YouTubeTV we just need one account. I like the feature on YouTubeTV that you can arrange your programming channels in any order you want them. We only watch a handful of channels so those are on top of the grid and rarely have to scroll though the channel list. YouTubeTV also has unlimited program recording. You can also watch TV on you phone/mobile device.

One piece of advice, I’m not sure if you were a DirecTV customer before ATT took over, but if you weren’t and are an ATT/DirecTV customer it is best to stop your service as close to the end of your billing cycle as possible. ATT does not refund and unused days after you quit their service. We discontinued two of the DirecTV services so we had one of each scenarios. Since we had been customers of DirecTV since 1996, they refunded our unused days without a problem. It was just the opposite dealing with ATT. To put it mildly, it was a nightmare! I wish you luck if you decide to discontinue your DirecTV service if you have to deal with the ATT side. When our daughters family moved last year, she was on the phone for 5 hours getting them to discontinue ATT/ Uverse.

We started streaming in June and have not missed Directv at all. Good luck with whatever you decide.

pj81156 Loc: St. Petersburg, FL

We are dropping directv because of its high cost. Youtube tv at $65 a month doesn’t help much. Hulu sounds much better. Thanks. Plus HughesNet is neither fast nor reliable when there is any bad weather.

traderjohn Loc: New York City

Any thought about...books??

DaleBrown

Our house is located in a very rural and treed location also. We have DirectTV, but wish to discontinue it because of cost and redundant programming.
We would love to use our Verizon service for WiFi reception, but after just a day and a half of watching or using video 4G WiFi we get throttled down to 3G and it becomes impossible to watch Netflix or any other streaming service without interruption and VERY slow speeds.
Any help with a solution much appreciated.
Suggestions of removing trees or moving not appreciated so much.

DaleBrown

Our house is located in a very rural and treed location also. We have DirectTV, but wish to discontinue it because of cost and redundant programming.
We would love to use our Verizon service for WiFi reception, but after just a day and a half of watching or using video 4G WiFi we get throttled down to 3G and it becomes impossible to watch Netflix or any other streaming service without interruption and VERY slow speeds.
Any help with a solution much appreciated.
Suggestions of removing trees or moving not appreciated so much.

Country Boy Loc: Beckley, WV

I too work off of 2 satellites and have trimmed trees to restore service before. If your trees are too high, there are towers you can purchase and install to support the satellite height. I had one that was 75 foot tall and easy to install and use. The one I had came in 3 bolt together sections and was easy to put together and I believe AT&T also carries them. I would look into getting one and both satellites could be mounted higher and make both services better.