# How do I enter OTA stations into timer?



## erasmu (Nov 17, 2003)

I just got my 921. Both satellites are recognized and guide, timers, etc. seem to work great on satellite stations. I have scanned for OTA digital stations and can receive many OTAs in HD. My problem is when I try to create a timer for the OTA, these scanned OTA digital stations are not listed as valid choices. They do show in the guide albeit without program info. How do I get the timers to accept these station numbers? I have looked through setup and the manual without luck so far. Any help would be appreciated. I have L188 software loaded now.


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## Bogney (Jul 11, 2003)

The OTA channels are at the bottom of the channel list on the timer menu. I usually enter channel 9999 and it jumps to the start of the OTA numbers.


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

Bogney said:


> The OTA channels are at the bottom of the channel list on the timer menu. I usually enter channel 9999 and it jumps to the start of the OTA numbers.


At the current levels (L188) I have no trouble entering the channel and subchannel. E.g. WCBS-ny 00201 for channel 002 sub channel 01


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## erasmu (Nov 17, 2003)

Thank you both for those answers. Both were very helpful and will work for me. I had scrolled to what I thought was the end of the channel list, but I must have been just short of the magic spot. I also had tried entering numbers directly, but entered 0211 for 21-1, when I should have tried 02101. I am learning though. Thanks again for the help.


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## bbomar (Oct 18, 2004)

erasmu said:


> I just got my 921. Both satellites are recognized and guide, timers, etc. seem to work great on satellite stations. I have scanned for OTA digital stations and can receive many OTAs in HD. My problem is when I try to create a timer for the OTA, these scanned OTA digital stations are not listed as valid choices. They do show in the guide albeit without program info. How do I get the timers to accept these station numbers? I have looked through setup and the manual without luck so far. Any help would be appreciated. I have L188 software loaded now.


 If you receive any of the HD OTA stations in SD over the satellite, there
is another way to set up the timer. First set the timer on the SD station that
has guide information. Then select this timer and edit it, changing the
channel number to the OTA channel (entering 9999 is an easy way to
get to the OTA channels in the editor). I find that with this approach
the program name is usually correctly identified (instead of unknown over
the air program).


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## DTMARTENS (Oct 28, 2004)

I found this helpful too. Thanks!!!!

It sure beats scrolling all the way to the bottom.


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

bbomar said:


> If you receive any of the HD OTA stations in SD over the satellite, there
> is another way to set up the timer. First set the timer on the SD station that
> has guide information. Then select this timer and edit it, changing the
> channel number to the OTA channel (entering 9999 is an easy way to
> ...


Don't you have to subscribe to the SD channels in order to get this timer trick to work?


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## DTMARTENS (Oct 28, 2004)

I tried doing the editing the channel after I set it to record. It recorded the correct channel I wanted, but it changed the name to "unknown event" and showed I taped channel 279 (whatever that is). I guess this is not perfect either.


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## bbomar (Oct 18, 2004)

DTMARTENS said:


> I tried doing the editing the channel after I set it to record. It recorded the correct channel I wanted, but it changed the name to "unknown event" and showed I taped channel 279 (whatever that is). I guess this is not perfect either.


 Sorry, I was wrong about the recording being correctly labeled.
It is the timer that is correctly labeled, but after recording it shows
as an unknown event. The 279 means you recorded from OTA channel
23. This is a well known bug - the channel shown is the OTA channel
plus 256 (2 raised to the 8th power - a binary arithmetic error in the
code that hopefully will be fixed in the next software release).


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

bbomar said:


> ... This is a well known bug - the channel shown is the OTA channel plus 256 (2 raised to the 8th power - a binary arithmetic error in the code that hopefully will be fixed in the next software release).


Yeah - they really tested the heck of that, didn't they? :nono2:


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