eternalflame1 :
Bought SlingTV with the assurance I could get local TV, KCET and KDOC with an antenna. Bought adaptor and a 70 mi antenna just to find this B.S.! After MULTIPLE calls with no help I was told there is absolutely no tower reception at all in Dana Point 92629. SlingTV said no refund was in order. Short of flooding the area with door tags and leaflets, can I do anything or do I eat the $200 spent and go back to cable?
I'm in Dana Point. The northern part of town sits upon a big hill. Unless you live on the northern edge of town (on top of this hill), you won't have line of sight to the TV broadcast antennas (most are located on Mount Wilson, north of Los Angeles). Even if you're in Monarch Beach, I believe the hills in Aliso Viejo block Mount Wilson.
Prior to trying to pick up local channels with an antenna, one should visit one of the sites set up to help with antenna placement and direction.
http
/www.antennaweb.org/
https/www.antennasdirect.com/transmitter-locator.html
I'm a little surprised SlingTV doesn't offer local channels. I thought they did. We're in the Los Angeles local area, so you should be getting ABC, NBC, and Fox as part of your package. (CBS is obstinate and insists that the streaming service pay for their local channels. I get it with DirecTV Now, but it didn't start off with CBS.)
http/help.sling.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/How-do-local-channels-work-on-Sling-TV
You might be able to pick up the San Diego stations. I'm down by the freeway and got an intermittent OTA signal from a couple San Diego stations. But the low altitude of the house (I'm by the beach) really hampered reception. I could get a better signal mounting the antenna in the attic, and I suspect it would be a usable signal if I mounted it on top of my chimney. But I figured that was too much effort since I rarely watch local broadcasts anyway.
PBS is available via the PBS website and the PBS app on a variety of different streaming boxes. Recent broadcasts are available, but be forewarned that they put most of their older library behind a donation paywall. You have to donate to your PBS station to get access to it.
And how the heck did you end up pre-paying $200 for SlingTV? One of their big claims to fame is a la carte pay-as-you-go pricing (no need for a multi-month or multi-year subscription). There should be no need to pre-pay for it. If the $200 was for a streaming device, then you can still use it with DirecTV Now or Hulu or Playstation Vue (which doesn't actually require a Playstation). So you haven't wasted the money.
https/www.tomsguide.com/us/youtube-tv-vs-cable-tv-replacements,news-24578.html
https
/www.cordcuttersnews.com/philo-vs-sling-tv-vs-directv-now-vs-playstation-vue-vs-fubo-tv-vs-hulu-vs-youtube-tv-updated-february-2018/