It's about have over the air TV available on each of the 4 sets. Read my answer.

Depending on your distance from the broadcasting antenna towers you may be able to use small set top antennas for each set if your house is not like mine. Our house is sheathed with foil backed insulation. There are also newer windows that are effective RF blockers. Buy one antenna as try it out on each TV set to make sure it works well for each location. You will have to change the settings on the TV to broadcast or over the air or whatever is not cable and do a a channel search.

If that works on all 4 sets you are good to go- buy the other 3 antennas.

Before you read the next part I just read your post again. Each set has it's own mini box- If they have their own coax cables going to a the main box the following procedure could be a piece of cake.

But, don't you hate buts?, if not you may need to get a more powerful directional antenna that can be mounted in the attic if you don't have a metal roof, then outside on a pole. The antenna lead will be 75 ohm coax and you will need a 2 stage amplifier. That has a power supply with the actual amplifier at the antenna. The power unit needs to be located at a point that it will be easy to run coax to each set. You will need a 1 to 4 splitters to share the signal with each cable.

FYI the higher the frequency of the channels the greater the loss over the length of the cable.

Especially if you can use the wiring that was used to distribute your cable throughout the house. That way you may only need one digital antenna for all your TVs.

I've never had cable TV - never lived anywhere it was available - but my understanding is that it usually comes in through one location and then wires are run to where ever a TV needs to be hooked up. If you need or want to put in an exterior antenna, just hook it up to that box once the cable is disconnected.

When we built this house we put in a distribution box for our satellite TV and for the telephones. When we went from satellite to Prism TV (CenturyLink over DSL TV) they did something inside the phone distribution box.

Now we are streaming all of our TV but next year I want to put in a digital antenna - which will have to go on the roof, use an amplifier, and hook it to the coax that was used for the satellite.

We're in an odd location - behind a ridge that blocks TV and cell phone signals from the direction of town. And we have an ICF house (concrete with rebar) with a metal roof. So we will have to have a digital antenna put on top of the second story roof to get over the ridge and get a signal from the west. So I have been researching the possibilities. It will NOT be cheap with the installation problem - no one wants to climb up on the second story of a slippery metal roof!

We used the same external antenna set up that I installed 30 years ago to receive analog TV signals and then digital signals. An antenna is an antenna that is designed to receive the radio frequencies it is designed to. That antenna does not care how the data on that RF is modulated. It's kind of like Sunkist touting raisins as being 100% fat free during the low fat craze.

I did replace our two antennas with a deep fringe and median range (the point in two different directions) after a buzzard tried to light on the old one and broke elements off. These two antennas are the same basic design that I used to install in Houston 45 years ago.

About your external antenna problem. How high above the roof line do you have to go to get signal? You might be able to do what I did. We have a 40' push pole mounted from the ground up the side of the gable. I have avoid mounting stuff on the roof that can cause leaks.

The first floor of the house is about ten feet below the top of the ridge but then there are the trees that are 30-40 feet tall that are along the ridge.

The channels that I need to have a better antenna to receive are 30-35 miles from us on the west side of the west side of the ridge, out west of town. Many of the other channels can be gotten with one of those little flat antenna that sticks to a window - but they are across a valley to our northeast.

Before I spend the money for a rooftop antenna or even a tall mast, I will try a window antenna out the west window on the upstairs - but that is the one room that does not have a TV in it so we'll have to run some coax across the house to test it - or have a pro with a signal tester try it.

but I want to assure you that life without cable can be quite fulfilling.

I don't have a TV. Haven't had one for 11 years now. I don't feel like I'm missing a thing. I have internet, and I watch plenty of stuff on my computer. I have Hulu, Netflix (both streaming and DVD), and Amazon Prime.

I never have one of the news channels on for hours, which leaves me far more sane than many others who are watching whatever news channel all the time.

When some sort of breaking news occurs, local TV stations often go to live streaming, which is usually much more interesting than what's on the major networks.

So once you get the specific information you need, go for it.

Interactive TV Coverage Browser

This is a mapping tool that will let you browse the TV transmitters in your area and see their coverage maps. Channel reception is estimated using the same 3D propagation modeling algorithms that are used throughout this site, but the results are presented in a more visual and dynamic format.

http://www.tvfool.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=90

Go there and enter your address and read a bit. If you are in a rural area, far from TV stations you may need a roof or attic antenna - all depends on direction, distance, height, tress, mountains etc. This should tell you the distance and direction of the stations.

If you live in a city etc - you may get by with "rabbit ears" or something set top.

I have an attic antenna and a signal amplifier - using the existing coax cable to all the TV's. I get a few dozen local channels.


I'll "warn" you though - after netflix, hulu, etc it gets REALLY hard to tolerate regular TV with all the commercials!

I myself don't watch much (even streaming) but I am enjoying the old over the air tv shows on
ME TV from time to time. Sis did subscribe to Directv Now at a guaranteed lifetime price of $35 plus
$5 for HBO, well the quality is lousy (always buffering or missing channels) and since ATT bought
this company they say they are not bound by the lifetime pricing and it is now almost $60 a month,
constantly going up...just like cable. Sis still wants to pay for this junk, so she can...that's my
story and I'm sticking to it...