Thanks - any other suggestions appreciated. Her school is in a suburb of a larger city so I would think antennas are not too far. I think the school should provide the antennas since they took away the cable!!!
Abasket, Mr. B did some reading before we got our flat antennas. He says 1byone is the way to go.
https://www.amazon.com/1byone-Amplified-Antenna-Amplifier-Booster/dp/B00RFLXE0A
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Why would you think the school would give an antenna? Most kids stream on wifi so not even needed so get a firestick or the like. My son just streams on his computer
We ditched cable a year or so ago. Currently all we have is a flat antenna, Amazon Prime TV and Netflix. We’ve tried Slimg and recently tried DirectvNow (3 months and a new AppleTv for under $100!). We did enjoy the olympics, but just don’t watch much TV and couldn’t justify $30/month to binge watch HGTV, especially when it all repeats after the first few days. We did think worked well and will only improve. Our kids see no need for cable at all. Even my parents, who watch a ton of tv, are looking at streaming services. I’m wondering how a shift to streaming will eventually change the cost and delivery of my internet service, since my cable and internet providers are one in the same.
Going from a full cable service being included as part of their apt contract to nothing (with notification of this mid summer) when contracts are already signed AND when we are paying for summer occupancy is not ok IMO.
Not knocking other young adults but I hate that assumption that most kids just stream or just stream on their computer. Guess my D and her roommates are not like others! D2 loves to get up and turn on a morning news show on a local station while she gets ready and is one to often watch the national news when prepping dinner, etc. She LIKES having access to local channels as well as HGTV, food channels, etc. - not just Netflix.
So anyway, thanks for the recommendations - they will figure it out! Nice to give suggestions though.
Abasket- that is unacceptable! what does their contract say about cable and the ability of the landlord to cancel cable and notices and such?
^^ She needs to look it up. She was giving it a couple weeks to see if others already there complained enough to rattle the university to do something - but she plans to spend a little face to face time with the housing office when she gets back! It’s on campus housing/apts - if they did this for all campus - dorms included - it just really seems like a big deal.
But I already sent her the two links above as antenna suggestions. 
Firestick with antenna or the like will give her everything she needs. If her roommates will share in the costs (just for the steaming to TV) it will be super cheap for everyone.
FYI - the old rabbit ears will work but the flat type antenna really do just work better
@abasket We use the Amazon Basics antenna. We purchased a 35 mile range antenna last week on sale for $12.99. These antennas are so small that I don’t even see them. Even when we had cable, we still had one connected to our main TV in case the cable went out. Here’s a link: https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Ultra-Thin-Indoor-Antenna/dp/B00X4RA74A?th=1
Just a heads up that YouTube TV isn’t currently available on the Firestick due to some disagreement between Amazon and Google. We ended up buying a Roku stick.
We never used you tube TV. You can still watch you tube via the firestick via browsers like Firefox on the firestick. Lots of free stuff on you tube also. I know a family that they use this for almost everything on their TV. YouTube TV is a subscription service
I’m another who ditched xfinity for hulu live (and Netflix). It has all the channels I want and I’m saving over 1k a year. It even has sports and local channels.
I watch the live news every day so when I first couple cable, it was kind of rough. But hulu live fixed that for a fraction of the cost. Plus, I can still stream live on my computer when I’m not home.
My cable bill is now $255/month plus I have Netflix, Tennis Channel Plus, WTA TV (and that can only be watched on a tablet or computer) and just had to get ESPN+ - because Watch ESPN isn’t covering all the courts at tourneys anymore - only a few now.
I also have whole house DVR (so need 4 boxes)
I just can’t cut the cord because I’m too lazy.
I’d love to cut the cord but DH won’t let me. I did get a roku stick for our bedroom tv when Spectrum started making you have cable boxes for every tv and charging for them. I refused to pay for another box.
DH doesn’t particularly care for the roku stick but he tolerates it since it’s up in the bedroom. I tried to talk him into using it for the family room tv and getting sling for his sports but it was a no go. He likes the ease and reliability of cable.
@thumper1 Our son is using a free subscription to Sling that we got and really enjoys it. We use Directv Now, but if I wasn’t grandfathered into a low price I’d probably go with YouTube TV for cost considerations. I too have found that our video quality is better than what I remember our cable being, although I never had any complaints with its quality. It still blows me away how good these streaming services can look on a large 4K TV. It seems that sometimes people in different geographical regions can have different results with the same service, so what works for one person may not work for another. But the great thing about the streaming services is that you can try them out first and actually see what works for you. Switching is easy, unlike with traditional cable or satellite.
We switched from Directv to YouTube tv a few months ago. I had already reduced our package once to lower the cost and I was tired of paying $120/mo for channels we didn’t watch. And for the channels we did watch, they ran re-runs or episodes of the same program all day long. Plus there were frequent price increases. But funny, when I cancelled Directv, they were offering me $500 to stay. I repeated that back to the CSR and said “Really? I tell you I am cancelling because you are too expensive for what I get. Then you offer me $500 to stay? If you just had a lower price to begin with, I would have stayed.” Imagine the amount of money they are spending to bribe customers to stay or to get customers back I still get offers of up to $300 to go back. They could use that money to lower prices for everyone. So just on principle, I will not go back.
So we have YouTube tv for $35/mo. We have most of the channels we watch, although I do miss HGTV at times… I did have to upgrade our internet speed, but that was way overdue and has been a good thing, regardless. It isn’t costing me any more because it is bundled with our landline and I reduced the services on the landline. We also have the Amazon Prime library, Plex, and probably some other things I am not familiar with. We share Netflix from son’s account and he shares the YouTube tv from our account. It is working well for now and I am saving $1020 a year.
Of course, each kiddo is different, but neither of my 20 somethings have ever purchased Cable for TV. They stream what they watch on TV. One kid doesn’t even own a TV…but has a huge monitor. The other kid has a TV…but only has basic cable in her apartment. She never uses that basic cable…if she really wants to watch something…it’s usually through Amazon Prime or Netflix.
What will your kiddo be missing if she only can stream and can’t use an antenna?
Neither of my kids had cable TV provided by their colleges. Ever.
I really want to cut my cable as well and my contract ends in October so researching now. My primary watching is local news (Boston 5), NFL (Patriots), HGTV, Lifetime for rainy day binges, and Netflix. I also like to rent movies. Looking for suggestions on how to accomplish this, in layman terms lol. And I assume I will then have to purchase internet service separately?
We are just about to switch from CenturyLink to Sling. DH watches a lot of PAC 12 and Sling is one of the few that carries that network. He has been going in circles with our CL bill and promised discounts. They are known for billing issues and I fully expect they will also start offering all kinds of perks to stay. I’m happy to see that people are having good experiences with Sling.
@NEPatsGirl this is such a common question so don’t worry. Yes… You need internet to make everything work since you are most likely using wifi. You can rent a modem and router or buy your own. I prefer to do that since I don’t pay rental fee’s.
Then get something like a Amazon firestick. That allows you to do a lot but has applications like your phone does for ESPN go, Hulu live etc.
I. Use Hulu live for live Tv like pats games except its Bears Games… Lol… And all sports, movies TV shows. So it’s like Netflix but does more. If you are used to Netflix then you will use this fine. On the firestick you would download the Netflix app and sign in then use Netflix. Firestick makes things go faster also.
For free local channels get a flat attena that has been talked about in this thread several times.