With cable and satellite TV subscriptions getting ridiculously expensive, more and more homes are ditching pricey pay TV and choosing free, over-the-air broadcasts. Digital TV typically provides between 20 and 60 channels depending on where you live, and can save you at least $1,000 a year, based on a typical pay TV subscription.

So, cut that cable, ditch that dish, and join the 14 percent (and growing) of American households that are free from monthly bills for TV service.

Putting up an antenna is easy, but before you buy one you’ll need to figure out what channels are available where you live, how strong the signals are likely to be, and what direction they’re coming from. See TechHive’s guide to choosing an antenna to figure all that out.


Once you’ve determined your needs, this article will help with your antenna purchase.

Updated February 12, 2019 to add a video explaining how to determine which free over-the-air TV channels you can receive where you live (see below).

Best indoor TV antenna

This antenna impressed us with its ability to pull in more broadcast channels than the competition. Further, those it did receive were a little stronger than from our runner-up which should make for happier TV viewing. (Read our full review.)


The Antennas Direct Clearstream Flex is a large, flexible antenna for mounting inside your house against a window or on a wall. It comes supplied with an inline amplifier that gave a good boost to signal levels in our tests. It did well on both VHF-High and UHF reception—the broadcast bands that include the vast majority of large stations in the U.S. (Read our full review.)