John Smith wrote:

Fred McKenzie wrote:

Most of the time my simple antenna picks up good HDTV. However there
are times when reception is poor, and I have to switch to the Analog
tuner. I'd rather have a little snow than no picture at all!

As I say, something is wrong, and it may not be "all on your end", and
broadcast HDTV may need some upgrades to the software handling the
coding/decoding of the signals ... widespread usage, in the future, and
"fixes" along the way should provide a much improved system.

I experience the same phenomenon. My antenna is a UHF indoor bow tie dipole.
(All my HD channels are currently on UHF.) I am about 30 miles from the TV
tower which is at 1200'. My HDTV set can show signal bars like a cell phone.
Without moving the antenna or other surrounding objects, the signal will
sometimes slowly vary by one or two bars. If it goes down too far the
picture breaks up and quits. At other times the same station will give a
solid 3 or 4 bars.This happens on all channels. Perhaps atmospheric
movement? Lots of dust here in the desert. Any other ideas?

I have not had a chance to "experience" broadcast HDTV yet ...
however, the cable HDTV is much improved over old analog ...

I have cable HDTV on my other set in the family room. Surprisingly (to me)
the broadcast HDTV picture is superior in quality to the cable HDTV picture.
Perhaps Cox is using more compression to squeeze more channels in the line.