TV antennas are making a comeback in the age of digital streaming

[thesquanderer]

40. It was a distance thing. But that's not the only possible problem.

I'm pretty far from the broadcast locations (50+ miles?) in slightly hilly terrain. My OTA reception was not great, but it was watchable. With analog, there's a gradual degradation. With digital, you get great reception... until you get nothing. So in a borderline area, analog could get you something while digital gets you nothing. Though you're right that I might be able to fix it with a good outdoor antenna.

But my girlfriend at the time had the opposite problem. She was in the city, super-close but with lots of tall buildings around. She got all the analog stations fine with rabbit ears, but far fewer when it went digital. It wasn't that she was far, but apparently the "line of sight vs. building reflections" requirements are different. Again, it was probably a difference between being able to get something "good enough" for analog, but not for digital. But she was also not much of a TV watcher and just lived with it.