channels above 139

[plexman]

Is there any way to scan for channels in the 240-300 range? I've been getting local channels in the clear in HD without a problem for at least 2 years. Before I had a digital tuner, I had the cable ran straight into the TV and had local channels in HD. I did not even see the analog ones through the TV (they were there as my analog tuner seen them).

All of a sudden this week I no longer get local channels in HD. I know it's not the tuner or my PC. I connected the coax straight into the TV and I still don't get HD like I used to. I believe that they are still broadcasting the local channels in the clear in HD but have moved them up to the 240-300 range. The below listings is from their site for basic cable (no stb).

# Channel Name Interests Features
2 WIPB-49 (PBS) Local
3 WIPX - 63 (ION) Local
4 WTTV-4 (CW) Local
6 WRTV -6 (ABC) Local
8 WISH -8 (CBS) Local
9 WHMB-40 (IND) Local
10 WNDY-23 (MyNetwork) Local
11 WXIN -59 (FOX) Local
13 WTHR -13 (NBC) Local
60 Public Access Local
61 Educational Access Local
98 Educational Access Local
99 Educational Access Local
190 Leased Access Local
241 WFYI-VME (PBS) Local
242 WFYI-DT Ideas (PBS) Local
244 WIPB-CREATE (PBS) Local
247 WRTV-DT News Local
248 WTHR - Universal Sports Local
249 WTTV-THIS Local
250 WTHR-Weather Local
251 WISH-DT Local Weather Station Local
295 WDTI-DT Local


Neither my TV, gbpvr, or npvr will let me manually select these channels. I have selected every single scan option available (even "all countries") and still I cannot seem to find any HD channels in the clear.

Anyone got any ideas or advice? I watch mostly local channels and want most of my recordings to be in HD. I have a hvr-1600 and would hate to have to go from 2 tuners (for local channels) down to 1 analog.

[mvallevand]

The cable channel don't have anything to do with the broadcast channels, guessing on a zip code I think the QAM channels are shown here http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/lin...up_3828217

Martin

[plexman]

Here's the link with my zip input. This just happened this week in my zip. I don't believe the site is up to date. This did look pretty accurate as of the last time I scanned (over 3 months ago).

I have a friend who has the same problem, but his happened months ago. He lives closer to Indianapolis and his digital cutover was months before mine and he eventually had same problem I'm having.

Whenever I scan I don't even find 1 single channel period whether it's encrypted or not. Maybe they decided to do away with the HD in the clear and broadcast just the analog.

I also used the site with my friend's zip code and it shows he has clear HD channels, but he's having same issue as me, but a few months earlier.


http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/lin...up_3814766

[johnsonx42]

Try scanning with one of the 70+ frequency options instead. The .ini files used by those go up to channel 159. AFAIK there aren't any physical channels higher than that; as Martin said the logical channel numbers listed by the cable company have nothing to do with the physical channels.

[plexman]

I've scanned using every setting default, default +70,hrc, hrc +70, all countries.

4 months ago they went all digital except a handful of local channels. I had to get a digital box and IR blaster for my analog tuner to keep getting basic cable channels.

2 months ago they moved the HD channels from the 180-270 range up to 1000+. Still I was getting local channels in HD until this week.

Previosly anytime I scanned for channels I found 50-100 encrypted channels and roughly 15-20 unencrypted. Now when I scan I get absolutely nothing on any of the settings.

I guess they decided to stop sending HD in the clear for the local channels and send just the analog. It's the only thing I can think up unless they moved the stations above physical channel 159.

[johnsonx42]

AFAIK they can't stop sending the HD locals in the clear; they're required to do so. You should ask the cable company what's going on... it may be difficult to find anyone to talk to about it though: on the two occaisions in the past where I called the local cable company to ask about QAM they insisted there was no such thing.

[plexman]

Might it be possible they meet their requirements by rebroadcasting is in standard def instead of high def?

[johnsonx42]

Yes, apparently operators who carry both Analog and Digital can meet their Must-Carry requirements by carrying the analog versions of the local channels. Although, most network stations actually opt-out of must-carry and instead negotiate for re-transmission consent in exchange for money or agreements to carry other channels owned by the network. From what I've read though, if the cable company offers digital locals to *any* subscriber, they must make them available un-encrypted to ALL subscribers; they are simply not permitted to encrypt local broadcast stations. I am certainly no expert on these matters though, I don't even have cable and haven't had actual cable TV in nearly 15 years now.

[plexman]

In this case I can only see 2 options.

1. local channels took the must-carry

2. comcast moved the stations to a frequency outside the range covered by physical channels 1-159.

I think 2 is most likely as previously when I scanned I could find lots of encrypted channels along with the locals and now I cannot find 1 single channel.

[johnsonx42]

I don't think #2 is possible. I'm not sure what you have going on there, but I really don't think they could have moved all the channels to higher frequencies; where would they get all the equipment to transmit and receive all these non-standard 1GHz+ channels? They'd have to replace every standard 1Ghz signal splitter with high-frequency, high-cost satellite-spec splitters. Nothing technically would stop them from doing it, but practically it would be an expensive nightmare.

Question: do you subscribe to digital cable, or just analog? If you subscribe to analog only, they may have put a low-pass filter on your connection so you get only the frequencies that carry the analog signals.

Or the other question of course is if you don't get ANY digital channels any more, are you sure your tuner just hasn't quit working?