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This is the exact kind of crap that should really drive folks to do this.

I figured my set up....

For local channels, I set up an indoor HDTV antenna (you can find these on sale, I got mine at Wally Worldmart for $79). I put this up on a pole in my house and works great. I had to get this, in order to get our local PBS (WYES) that is still on VHF, and is very hard to pull in with other antennas. Otherwise, I'd recommend one of the Mohu Leaf HDAntennas. This one worked great except for my local PBS and I like some shows on there.

I bought a Tivo Roamia OTA 1TB DVR to act as my local channel tuner. It comes with included lifetime guide service. Worked great out of the box.

The only drawback of the Tivo unit, is that the Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming which it also does (and searches across), the front ends are horribly laggy, but for OTA needs, it is amazing.

For my streaming needs, I got the Amazon FireTV.

I got this over the FireTV stick for its extra computing power. It streams VERY well Netflix, and Amazon Prime (4K on these too). AND...the power was needed for my streaming app that solves my "cable network" needs.

I did Playstation VUE. I got the 70+ channels package for $35/mo. It has all the ESPNs (I like during college football season), all the cable news I want (MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, etc), and channels like TCM, TBS, Nat'l Geo, FX..etc...

It also has built in DVR functionality, which makes it great for catching the Walking Dead on AMC to watch at my convenience and skip commercials.

The Fire TV is powerful enough to use the VUE guide....Roku 3 and PS3 could not use the guide very well at all.

So, this is my living room.

For the other TVs in my house (bedrooms, office), I set up a bit of networking for those.

I set up Tivo Minis to stream from the main unit into each bedroom, for DVR and live HD tv. The main unit has 4 receivers, so you can watch different stuff in each room. I also have an Amazon FireTV for each other room, so I can watch streaming or VUE cable channels in each room. Again, each can be watching different things.

The Tivo Minis don't work wirelessly, and I also found the FireTVs don't work as well wireless as they do wired.

So, for each room I have Ethernet over AC....and a little TP-Link switch there too.

So now..everything hooks up nicely, and I dropped from $113/mo for UVerse to $35/mo with VUE.

I figure in about 8 mos I'll break even on the new hardware.

So far, the only caveats....my house has some less than optimal wiring, I think leftover from Katrina rework problems. At times, my Tivo has problems with slow network, but not that often. Also, setting up the Tivo minis...it has to go through Tivo Centrals computers before it can get recognized by your main DVR unit. This is a horribly thought out, PITA...but if you register your Mini online with tivo 24 hours before you hook it up, and then you have the main unit phone home a few times while trying to sync them , it will finally work. They need to fix that. I almost gave up on it, but once it syncs..works as intended and I live the Tivo guide and user interface. Auto commer

I have this http://www.antennasdirect.com/store/ClearStream-C2-VHF-Combo.html in my second story attic at 47 miles out from the transmitters, roughly 50 feet above sea level. Mounted it to an attic cross beam, aimed it with my iphone compass and was good to go. Works like a champ.

Go here http://www.antennaweb.org/Address.aspx to evaluate how your location in relation to your local transmitters.

Antennas Direct also sells them directly at http://www.antennasdirect.com/ Great customer service, too.

Actually, I suspect lots of these are snuck into the manuals by tech support staff as jokes.

Yes, it's quite obvious that they're jokes when you look up the original sources. For example, the article only quotes the first warning of the following:

WARNING
Do not attempt to install if drunk, pregnant or both.
Do not eat antenna.
Do not throw antenna at spouse.

http://www.antennasdirect.com/cmss_files/attachmentlibrary/pdf/generic_instructions.pdf

It's time to check to see what channels are available, then deal with your antenna.

http://www.antennasdirect.com/hdtv_antenna_selector.html
A good place to learn about antennas.

TV Guide - http://www.tvguide.com/listings/default.aspx

Pretty much your just not set up to pick up all channels, and this can be remedied by you. Don't start off again making it sound like stations have been lost somehow by the transition to digital television.
Your channels come from Harrisburg, and Lebanon along with Lancaster when it comes to digital tv. (just so you know)

Also, include decimal versions of the channels in the equation since most of the channels out on digital tv separate a single channel into 2-4 different subsections of data. (PBS over here has 4 different sections under channel 8... 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, and 8.4)

Of course, this is also coming from someone who has a signature that tries to make broadband sound like a totally overblown thing...

I think the suppliers are trying to dump their VHF/UHF/FM stock as most everything is old stock.

VHF isn't going away any time soon, so I'd hope that antennas to pick it up will remain in stock. Five of the local broadcasters (yes, I'm in Las Vegas) broadcast HD on VHF channels. One of them is even using low-band VHF (channel 2).

So, what about VHF? I realize the majority of DTV broadcasts are UHF, but a few are in the VHF range. How is this antenna's performance down there?

But aren't TV broadcasters mostly on cable now??

I've ditched the cable/satellite in favor of terrestrial HDTV. You'd be surprised with the amount of content that you can acquire through time shifting and a good antenna (especially if you like PBS stuff like Nova).

Cable/Satellite TV's days are numbered with solid internet broadcasting.

Yeah, I had to get a bowtie DB2 HDTV antenna (30 miles) since my rabbit ears couldn't do well.

I am currently using a DB2 HDTV Antenna (rabbit ear antenna was too weak (had problems with stronger signal strength [never higher than 50%], but this bowtie type fixed it) with my Broadband Technologies' Air2PC-ATSC-PCI in my computer. This antenna (30 miles) should be fine for HDTV sets if I ever get one.

AntennaWeb does a great job giving you HDTV reception information. Antennas Direct has a great selection of antennae (antennas?) to choose from and some useful information on which frequency ranges each antenna is useful for.

Yeah, we get 8 here in Hampton Roads, VA too. To see what is available in your area look Here or better yet, Here for what is available in your area. I'm waiting for the ATI HD-tuner card to add to my system plus an antenna from the site linked to above. Fortunately, where I am at all 8 stations are within 5 degrees of each other and one stationary antenna will pull them all in.