Frequently Asked Questions

Stick & Signal is a buying guide for cord-cutting and home signal. We cover the four things you need when you replace cable: streaming sticks and boxes, TV antennas and OTA DVRs for free local channels, Wi-Fi extenders and mesh systems so the streams actually reach every room, and cell signal boosters for houses and vehicles. Every pick carries a live dated price and a Setup rating.

No, and we say so plainly. We don't own a test lab and we won't pretend to. What we do instead: compile the published specs, read the listings and install manuals, quote range and coverage figures as the manufacturer's claims rather than as facts, use the FCC's own published figures for bandwidth and reception, and assign a Setup rating derived from how each product installs. It's reproducible, so you can check our work.

It's our editorial rating of how much work a product's installation really is, derived from its published install method. 'Plug-in' means HDMI, USB or a wall outlet and you're done. 'Simple' means placing and aiming it, or one cable run inside a room. 'Install job' means roof, attic or exterior mounting, a cable run through the building, or power at the antenna. It is not a test result.

That depends entirely on your location, and no product claim can answer it. Use the FCC's DTV Reception Maps tool: enter your street address and it returns the stations predicted at that location with their signal strengths. Strong signals usually mean a simple indoor antenna is enough; weak or no predicted signals mean you need an outdoor or attic antenna, or that over-the-air isn't viable for you. Do that before you buy anything.

No. UHF and VHF broadcast signals are line-of-sight and the curvature of the earth alone rules that out; the real-world ceiling for a consumer antenna is a fraction of it. Those figures are marketing. Where we quote a mile figure on this site it is labeled as the manufacturer's claim, and where a listing publishes no figure we write 'Not published' rather than filling in a number.

Your local ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and PBS affiliates are broadcast free over the air right now, and your TV almost certainly already has the tuner to receive them. An antenna plus a channel scan gets them with no monthly fee at all. The alternative is a live-TV streaming service that carries your locals, which costs money every month but works regardless of reception. We cost both honestly.

Roku if you want a neutral interface where every app sits in the same grid; Fire TV if you're deep in Amazon's ecosystem or price is the deciding factor at the bottom of the range. Both do 4K, both carry free ad-supported channels, both need no subscription of their own. The thing most people should actually compare is the Wi-Fi radio, because that decides whether a 4K stream holds in a back bedroom.

An extender fixes one room for about $25 to $85. A mesh system replaces your whole network for $150 to $320 and fixes the house. If you have one stubborn dead spot and the rest of the house is fine, buy the extender. If coverage is patchy everywhere, or you keep having to switch networks as you walk around, an extender will not fix that and the mesh is the right spend.

Less than you'd think. The FCC's Broadband Speed Guide puts standard-definition video at 3 to 4 Mbps, HD at 5 to 8 Mbps and Ultra HD 4K at 25 Mbps per stream. Add those up for the number of screens running at once. Most cord-cutting households are limited by Wi-Fi coverage inside the house, not by the speed of the plan coming into it.

Yes, with one hard condition: a booster amplifies the signal that already exists outside your building. If you can get even one usable bar standing in the yard, a booster can carry that indoors. If there is genuinely nothing to amplify, no booster will create it. Before spending hundreds, try Wi-Fi calling — it costs nothing and solves the same problem for most households.

You need one only if you want to record broadcast TV or pause live channels. The important part is the fee: some OTA DVRs charge monthly for their program guide, which defeats the point of cancelling a monthly bill. We rank the no-subscription models first and state the fee position on every pick.

ATSC 3.0 is the newer broadcast standard US stations are moving to. It can carry 4K and better audio, but most TVs sold today cannot decode it, so you'd need a 3.0 tuner or converter box. Whether to pay for one depends on whether your market actually transmits it yet — if it doesn't, the capability sits unused. Our ATSC 3.0 guide covers how to check.

Not as freely as many people assume. The FCC's Over-the-Air Reception Devices rule (47 C.F.R. §1.4000) prohibits most restrictions that unreasonably delay or prevent installation, unreasonably increase its cost, or preclude reception of an acceptable quality signal — and since a 1999 amendment it applies to rental property where you have an exclusive-use area such as a balcony or patio. It does not cover common areas or the building's roof. Read your lease and the rule, and ask in writing.

Yes. Every price is pulled from a live retailer check and carries the date it was pulled. If the check stops running, the number disappears and the button falls back to 'Check price on Amazon' rather than showing a stale figure. We never type a price into an article by hand.

Through affiliate links. When you buy through one of our 'View on Amazon' links, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It never changes our rankings — when the cheaper product is the better buy, and in this category it very often is, that's still our pick. See our affiliate disclosure for the details.

Stephen V., who cut his own cable years ago and got interested in the unglamorous half of it. Not a broadcast engineer or an installer — someone who reads the listings and the manuals and checks them against what the FCC publishes, so you don't have to. Nothing on the site is professional installation advice.

Use our contact form or email us. Corrections get priority: if you flag a factual error and you're right, we'll check it against the source, fix it, and note the correction on the affected page.