For local TV ... note I said my TV provider is "antenna in attic". Think about that - good for a few chuckles when setting up new Internet service recently ("...you can save even more with our 3-way bundle! Who's your TV provider now? ... 'Antenna in attic' ... Who's that? Oh; guess we can't beat the cost of that..."). It's actually in an upstairs bedroom closet, which for some reason has a "vaulted ceiling" allowing me to hang an outdoor-style antenna from the ceiling with enough clearance to walk under. Then I hooked it up (with a distribution amplifier for a bit of signal boost) to the "cable" within the house and viola! TV in the bedroom & living room, and decent FM radio reception. Of course, you do have to get a TV or AV Receiver with a decent TV tuner (hard to find these days), and you will still want that Internet connection for stuff you can't get on local TV (yes, it IS a vast wasteland - so why pay the cable/Uverse/etc. people to watch it?). Total cost of the antenna, amp, and all the wiring/splitters is covered by about 2-3 months of cable bill. But you're right - rabbit ears won't cut it for digital TV unless you're almost next to the tower - I lost one channel (ABC network, unfortunately - they have some interesting shows) when everybody went digital because they're on a different tower (a little off-axis) and very low-power.

To see what might be available with different grades of antenna, you might want to check out: [www.antennaweb.org]