In reply to LastBoyScout:
> At the risk of asking the obvious, does your new house actually have a TV aerial
> If none, then you'll need to get a digital compatible one
There is no such thing as a "digital compatible TV aerial". It's the tuner in the connected equipment that needs to be able to decode the digital signal. That would be why Rigid Raider needed the "digital box thingy", if their actual TV is/was so old that it doesn't have a digital tuner. If they've bought a new TV in the last ten years or so (it became mandatory for new TVs to have digital tuners built-in in 2008) they can ditch the separate digibox.
The digital datastream is broadcast on the same range of UHF radio frequencies as the old analogue channels, and it's the radio frequency that you're trying to receive that decides what kind of aerial you need, not what's actually being carried using that radio signal.
When digital terrestrial broadcasting first started - but before digital switchover happened - the digital channels used additional radio frequencies to the analogue channels, though within the same overall frequency band. Some of those additional frequencies were outside the narrow group of frequencies used for the analogue channels in a given geographical area, so if you wanted to receive the pre-switchover digital transmissions you needed an aerial that could receive a wider range of frequencies than the the traditional "grouped" aerials used for analogue TV. Such aerials are called "wideband" aerials, but at the time they were often sold as "digital aerials" - which was technically incorrect, and unfortunately led many people to the misleading conclusion that when analogue TV was being turned off they had to change their aerial as well as getting a digital tuner.
What actually happened, though, was that in the vast majority of the country the digital channels ended up on the same frequencies as the old analogue channels, so if you hadn't bothered with digital TV before then the only thing you needed to change in order to continue to receive TV after the changeover was a digital tuner - your old aerial would happily continue to receive the same radio frequencies as before.
It's actually much easier to design an aerial that works well if you only have to optimise it for a small range of frequencies, so wideband aerials tend to be bigger and more expensive than grouped aerials (plus bigger aerials need heftier masts -> more cost), and in some cases they perform less well in terms of pulling in marginal signals. Even if your old aerial is actually knackered, you probably only need to replace it with another aerial in the same group, rather than shelling out for a wideband aerial which might actually turn out to be compromised in some way.
All the above being the case, the situation is now being complicated further by the fact that chunks of the radio spectrum that were previously allocated for TV transmissions are now being repurposed for 5G and the like. So what's happening now is that some of the radio frequencies being used for the digital channels are being shunted around again, and in some areas that may mean that people will need new aerials. But again, an aerial of the correct group for the new frequency band being used should be adequate and there is no need to get a "digital aerial" because there is no such thing.
One final caveat: there may be an argument for getting a wideband aerial simply to avoid having to change to another grouped aerial ever again. Then again, there has been talk of re-allocating some other frequencies outside the range of existing wideband TV aerials, to make up for the loss of frequencies in the existing frequency range, which would mean getting yet another aerial. One could almost get the feeling that governments, regulators, and the industry in general would actually be happier if terrestrial TV would just go away...
And yes, the answer to the actual OP is to get a Freesat box.
