As the Tour de France returns to the Alps, it's time to resume my annual uphill battle for decent television reception.

Like many households, we don’t watch a lot of free-to-air television these days. Even so, the aerial on the roof still gets a good workout every winter during SBS’ three-week late night coverage of the world’s biggest cycling race, despite the trials and tribulations that come with trying to get free-to-air reception in a valley.

Back in the days of analogue television, poor reception meant a fuzzy picture. In the digital age, the picture breaks up and freezes, which is much more annoying.

Two years ago, I got my antenna guy Francis back again to move my aerial before installing solar panels. The fact I have a regular antenna guy, and the fact we’re on a first-name basis, speaks to the adversity we’ve faced together over the past decade.

Back then we decided to switch from a VHF aerial pointed at Mount Dandenong to a UHF aerial pointed along the valley to Melbourne’s CBD.

At the same time, Francis replaced the cheap aerial cabling in the roof with decent quad-core shielded cabling. It's less susceptible to the mess of electromagnetic interference that comes from filling your home with tech.

Replacing the splitter in the roof and wall socket in the lounge room also helped. Unfortunately, replacing the aerial cables running down through the walls from the roof proved more challenging. We decided to wait and see whether we'd already done enough to improve the signal.

Some days the picture is great, some days it’s awful. Every channel is temperamental, but unfortunately SBS gives us the most trouble.

Two years later, with Le Tour fast approaching, I recently called Francis back to replace that cheap cabling in the walls with the good stuff.