Let me start by saying that the last TV I got was a hand me down that the neighbor was throwing out back in the mid 90s when I was a schoolkid. The last time I didn't have cable television, you could turn on a television and reasonable expect to get several (analog) stations. But I haven't had cable in a while, and my analog stations have gone dark. I decided to upgrade last week to a modern TV. I guess I falsely assumed that I would be getting everything I needed to see some television right out of that box. When I scanned for stations though, my brand new awesome TV found nothing. After looking at the connection guide, I was surprised to see something that looked like an antenna, but I went and fetched the one from that old 90s TV and sure enough, about 11 stations pulled up. The majority of them flash something awful, but the fact of the matter is, the channels show up with that old antenna, and without it they don't. So my question is, did I just do a poor job of picking my new TV and not get one as up to date as I thought, or do they all require some sort of antenna to function? And if an antenna requirement is normal, and I just need a better one to stop the flashing channels, what brands / models count for decent these days? I don't need anything super fancy, I just need it to work and I'd like to understand how it works.