“It’s like the digital world is upgrading codecs and protocols and leaving old digital sets out in the cold.”
A new 3.0 is being implemented but stations still have to broadcast in 1.1 for several more years. Your problem lies elsewhere.
It appears my 15 year old antenna, albeit aluminum mostly, is bawking at being moved. Many of the riveted connections with bars interconnecting maybe adding to the intermittency.
It acts differently at times at different frequencies. The digital realm makes true frequency vs digital assignment, challenging.
I can get 203 MHz and yet 197 not. Used to be nice with analog as a little snow here and little there, no problemo.
Digital is make or break, no middle ground. All towers are a good 40 miles from me.