Knicker Knotter #8 - Blowing in the wind

Okay, I'm all for technological progress. In my lifetime, I've seen a lot of helpful progress and innovative life-altering technology. However, I'm convinced that the new HD technology on a new bandwidth for broadcast television is a conspiracy of the cable and satellite companies.

DH and I are tightwads. And we don't see the need for cable/satellite TV with umpity bazillion channels and have never had either. Broadcast TV is fine for us. Most of what we watch is on one channel. In the fall, we like to watch football and will watch other channels in our pursuit of the pigskin.

Due to a lightening strike last year that killed our old TV, we even have a new flat screen HD TV. Yes, the picture quality is amazing in HD, and we can watch Netflix movies in widescreen now. BUT...

...we use an outside antenna to tune into broadcast TV. The new HD signal is much more fragile than the old signal. If the wind blows even a little bit, it disrupts the TV picture. The picture will freeze or get weird blotches all in it. The closed-captioning will stop working or will "speak in tongues." We live in the south central Texas plains; the wind is ALWAYS blowing.

We also now have to "tune" our outside antenna to each particular channel. We have to go outside on the porch and turn the antenna until the channel and closed-captioning come in clearly. And we may have to do that several times during a show if the wind is blowing hard and moves the antenna.

This vexes us. Of course, we could get cable/satellite and that would fix the problem. (A conspiracy I tell ya!) But we don't want to do that. Gee, we don't get cable out here in the boonies. And of course, satellite service is more expensive. So, we'll have to look into other types of antennas in all our spare time. Progress. Phooey.