I am with Am_Fear_Liath_Mor on the free to air. If giving the choice I would have cable over dish, but in the SHTF scenario I would utilize the free to air on the dish. Usually in that situation, the very last thing I would be doing is watching TV unless I was totally bored. All cable is is a satellite signal converted to cable anyways, so if satellites crap out, so does your cable anyway, unless it's a local feed.

Anyway if you click here-----> http://www.lyngsat.com/freetv/United-States.html
These are some of the free channels in the US and if you look at their site---> http://www.lyngsat.com/ they have listings for free channels all over the world. These are legal channels to pick up free, you need a dish 32 inches or bigger with a motor on it to pick up a whole lot of free channels. E-bay through Canada has your best deals, Do a search for Free to Air TV and you will find a ton of receivers to use, they are legal, stay away from the illegal ones to keep out of trouble. If done right you can have a lot of free tv, maybe not the best channels but it's free. I use cable for stuff I want to watch, I'm not a fan of contracts and receiver dependability with dish.


P.S. Big Dish=no rain fade

Radio news depends on whether or not you have a local station with real people, or the radio-on-a-disk Clear Channel.

A few years after I moved to WA, we had a flood that closed Interstate 5 for four days. I think it was KITI in Chehalis that had two guys on the radio 24 hrs a day for the whole time. The National Guard came to get them, and they refused to go.

These guys were GREAT! They dumped the music and just kept the information coming:
* River heights, flood stages, over banks,
* Which roads were closed,
* Which were close to being closed,
* Which roads were still open,
* Where the shelters were and the routes still open to get to them,
* Where the buses were picking up people,
* Which businesses were closed or open,
* Which mountain roads were open for semis,
* Suggestions about pets,
ETC.

This is the kind of coverage that is really needed in a disaster. If you've got it, you need a radio more than TV. If all you have is Clear Channel, you're screwed.

The problem I've seen with TV is that all they're feeding you is news bites and the most dramatic/sensational photos they can find. Even with cable, I've never seen one with much about what YOU need to know.

I've gone through two more floods with no TV and didn't miss it. I asked around afterwards, and was told there was nothing to miss.

Sue

I agree that TV news is pretty useless, most of the time. Right now I am listening to my favorite local radio station for my daily, useful, news fix.

I have noticed that some of the local stations, based in LA, actually do provide worthwhile info during our various earthquakes and wildfires. Most of the time their news coverage is pretty useless, unless you really care about the antics of celebs.

Case in point: Late at night, my wife came in, after hearing sirens. We both caught a faint whiff of smoke. My wife checked the immediate vicinity outside, while I turned to the boob tube. A Los Angeles station was broadcasting live feed of the fire from a helicopter, and providing reasonably decent info which helped us as we prepared for a possible evac.

It is a good idea to determine which specific media sources can be useful in a disaster situation before you need to use them. My favorite local radio station doesn't have the resources to respond immediately to every situation, although their coverage will be more thorough and thoughtful as the situation evolves.

My recommendation of radio over TV was based on a few experiences but yes, a lot depends on your local stations. Radio stations that are exclusively rebroadcasting a signal from a central site can be as oblivious as the worse of the TY stations. Others have some mix of live and taped/slave content. It the owners allow, and the operators are game, such stations can shift after a disaster to serving local needs. Unfortunately there is no easy way of determining which stations can/will adapt to community needs.

There are conditions that seem to increase the odds of a radio station serving local needs. AM stations seem more likely to serve local needs. Low-power, locally owned, stations that have DJs and announcers on site most of the time seem to be more responsive than High-power, corporate owned, robot operated ones.

I've seen a few AM stations really shine. Often operating as wide-area bulletin boards and information clearinghouses. Thousands may be displaced, children and pets lost. It cannot overestimated what it means when rescuers can send out messages about unidentified kids. When people separated by the emergency have a place where they can leave a message that will be heard by thousands.

I've heard that local radio stations have even been used as a resource by emergency managers. Both to get the word out as to where to go and what to do, but also for monitoring. Unable to get emergency crews out to check if a small bridge was out the radio station sent out a request for anyone in the area to check and let them know if at all possible. Ten minutes later, using an oddball mix of land-line telephones where they still worked, CB, and a few people walking between houses, they had an answer.

Knowing the bridge was still there allowed emergency workers to avoid a twenty mile detour.

The sad thing is that a very few huge corporations own the vast majority of radio stations, and most of these are mostly rebroadcasting a feed from a central studio. So the odds of there being a responsive local radio station in your area is increasingly short. It is worth the trouble to find out what radio stations are in your area and how they are run. Find a good one and you've found gold.

I've never played with satellite, so I can't weigh in much there.

I have a smartphone with a data plan that I can use to gain internet access even if the power is out, and in a pinch I can even use it to connect a laptop out to the internet. Thihs of course presumes the local cell towers aren't overwhelmed with traffic as they well be in an emergency.

I also have a pile of battery-powered radios and a pile of batteries. The main local AM station and several of the local FM stations are designated emergency broadcast stations with greater or lesser periods of built-in generator run time. They also happen to have real DJs most of the time, and a producer sitting around to cut in with local content if something happens in the middle of the night. Anytime a major event arises they are good about getting the word out quickly and thoroughly.

The cell towers around me go out if there's merely a strong storm. I won't count on them during a SHTF situation. Even if the towers don't go out due to damage, the huge traffic during a SHTF situation on the cell networks will cause them to fail.

As we all know, it's a good idea to have multiple means of communication. When I become independently wealthy, I'll have everything I want, including cable, satellite, satellite phone, radio, bunny ears, plain old telephone system and whatever else.

As for now, I'll be switching to Dish Network if my cable goes out one more time. The cable guy just came by and claimed that this fix will be the last one. We'll see. Going basic with rabbit ears is not an option for me because I want my sports channels, and I also like some of the other channels, like comedy, history, etc. Watching sports and sports news is one of my simple pleasures in life.

For everything short of an EMP-related issue or big-rock-falls-everyone-dies scenario, yes, satellite is more survivable.

However.... The following is based on my parents' experince with Hughsnet.

You are limited to a pretty paltry amount of bandwidth per day. They don't cut you off, they just limit you to much less than dial up for a day or two to punish you. Even as it is, the connection speed is only fractionally better than dialup, assuming you have no wet trees in the way- rain and trees, you have no connection. And they've had to replace three in a year due to them getting fried from something, presumably lightening strikes within a few miles.

And more to the point- the web is going to be pretty far down your list of priorities at that point. No need to tell us you are ok- we'll assume you are, wish you luck in the manner that we each find most culturally and theologically appealing, and those of us who will be responding in your general direction will move out.

A friend has Bluesky, and their monthly cap is much lower than comcast (he grabs the security updates off comcast as his GF's or here) and has all of the connectivity issues I've seen with Hughsnet.

Oh, and if you do any kind of gaming, guess what- your ping times are going to go in the toilet. That can't be improved, you are working against the speed of light.

99.9% of the time, I'd think you'd be happier with fiber.

How about my choice since 1994? : NONE.

Yep, I haven't paid the TV bill in well over 10 years.
Currently at $71 a month, Cable TV (and Sat TV) have increased at a rate of about 5% a year. This year I won't spend $852 on TV.

Given the costs over the last 10 years, I've saved well over $8,000 - maybe more - on television bills.

There's little or nothing I miss, and of late, I DO have Cable - for Internet only - so if I want to watch a show now and then, I have Hulu.com, Netflix and lots of other choices.

I just don't think anything on TV is worth paying a subscription for. I'll buy shows (I bought the season of Battlestar Galactica) but I won't pay huge sums for services I don't use.

Ah! I knew there was something we shared besides this forum...a fellow TV-less home!

Sort of.

"In North America (USA, Canada and Mexico) there are over 80 FTA digital channels available on Galaxy 19. (The majority of them are ethnic or religious.) Other popular FTA satellites include AMC-4, AMC-6, Galaxy 18, and Satmex 5. A company called GloryStar promotes FTA religious broadcasters on G-19 and AMC-4."

C and KU band stuff - and the programming is kind of, um, narrow interest:

http://www.sadoun.com/Sat/Channels/American-FTA-free-to-air-Satellite-TV-Channels.htm