My parents use DirectTV and it wil do the same thing, if its raining or an airplane flys overhead they will get a blocky picture that sometimes drops out.
My local cable provider is aparently doind the same as I get the same thing on some channles at times.

Sue -

How right you are - and probably replaced at today's pace more than once a year...

What still appears to be not well understood is that 'digital' does not mean better! With an analog TV or phone for that matter if you get a brief dropout - you might notice a small amount of static or the picture on a TV might fade - We are so used to this our brains tune it out and we probably don't even notice it. With a digital signal - if there is any amount of signal instability and dropouts - picture and audio will be UNWATCHABLE. I serously doubt that portable sets will work at all in my location (only 15 miles from chicago) anytime in the near future. And tethering a portable set to a BIG antenna or to cable from your cable provider just isn't worth it. What we ended up doing so we can watch TV on the deck in the back yard is to connect up a 'slingbox' to our cable TV in the house and then using my notebook computer over our wireless connection I can watch TV and control the cable box from the computer. It actually works pretty good. Mind you this does nothing for emergency preparedness but it solves the imeadiate problem. At least we will continue to have AM/FM analog radio broadcasting for the near term!

As a side note, it has been proposed that the revenue of the 700 MHz auction be spent on providing ATSC tuners to the general population, that way everybody doesn't have to buy a new tv. You would have to file for a voucher to get an external tuner sent to you.

But this is only a proposal and not set in stone.