Probably most of you watch your television via cable or dish. We still get our analog over the airways. I just bought our little box to translate current analog to digital and lo and behold I get new channels (but lose PBS if I use the box. And here’s my conundrum. I can either watch a crystal clear ABC tonight and see the Celtics game is what seems like HD. Or, I can watch a snowy analog. Seems like a no-brainer right? Nope. Snowy analog wins because my crystal clear digital station has problems. It runs smoothly and then freezes or creates a Picasso-like cubist picture and the sound disappears til it starts again.
I’ve tried to mess with my rabbit ears to see if that helps but to no avail yet. Any help?
Musings on Faith and Psychology 
i think you probably need a boosted aerial to watch it properly.
Buy cable. Triple play. help the value of my stock options.
“It runs smoothly and then freezes or creates a Picasso-like cubist picture and the sound disappears til it starts again.”
Ah, that’s easy. You are describing the symptoms of transmission errors, caused by a poor signal. Either too weak, or noisy. Weak signal or noise causes analog to go snowy, and digital to go cubist. It’s the same underlying cause, it just manifests in different ways.
“I’ve tried to mess with my rabbit ears -”
And there lies the cause – good luck getting a strong enough signal through those, unless you live across the road from the transmitter.
You might be able to fix this using a preamp – worked for me. Alternatively, get a better antenna. Those are your options – you need a better signal, that’s all.
A boosted aerial is just an antenna with a preamp built in.