# OTA Analog



## Skootch (Sep 8, 2004)

Mark, or anyone else with info: When does Dish plan to activate the analog part of the 942 tuner? I read your review from March and figured that by now they would have activated the analog aspect. I am trying to replace my 5000 receiver which I currently use to monitor 3 different security cameras modulated to different channels with a 721 coming through on channel 000. I can't believe a 5000, which is more than 6 years old can display analog channels while my brand new $699 942 can't. This is really unacceptable. Does DirectTV have a HD tivo unit that includes an analog tuner? I may just abandon ship if they do.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

OTA analog is in beta now. Shouldn't be much longer.


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## Skootch (Sep 8, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> OTA analog is in beta now. Shouldn't be much longer.


Thanks Mark. I should have spent some time reading all the posts before buying the 942. Knowing that Dish is close to releasing the software that may include the analog tuner makes me feel better. Until they actually do release this upgrade, I think I will hold off installing the 942 (no analog support and out-of-sync audio/video seems like a good enough reason to wait). It really irks me that Dish doesn't hire techies that can make the hardware work the way it is advertised. For now, I will stick with my 5000/721 setup. So much for watching Survivor in HD this Thursday.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Survivor isn't filmed in HD anyways.


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## JimD (Apr 8, 2005)

What exactly is meant by "OTA analog"? Is there "OTA digital"?

Assuming that "OTA digital" exists and works today, how do I use this?
I am not using the OTA input at the moment. I'd really like to put up my antenna and get locals in HD. Is this doable today with my 942?

I live in Frederick, MD and the transmitters are far away.

Let's say I want to get channel 7 (ABC) in HD so I can watch Monday Night Football. I need to point the antenna in the general direction of the transmitter, but how do I put the receiver on the right frequency so I can see when the antenna is pointed in the right direction?


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## Rob Glasser (Feb 22, 2005)

JimD said:


> What exactly is meant by "OTA analog"? Is there "OTA digital"?
> 
> Assuming that "OTA digital" exists and works today, how do I use this?
> I am not using the OTA input at the moment. I'd really like to put up my antenna and get locals in HD. Is this doable today with my 942?
> ...


OTA Analog = the OTA signals your local stations have been broadcasting for years. It's the type of tuner that has been built into practically every TV made. Your old SD local stations OTA are Analog.

OTA Digital = This is the new standard that all stations must change to in the near future. This is how you get OTA HD TV, but not everything broadcast Digital is HD, in a lot of cases it's just a digital broadcast of the same content they are showing on their analog feed. However, since it is digital it usually looks better and there are no ghosting issues like with analog.

Right now the 942 antenna input only accepts Digital broadcasts, not analog. Where as the 921 and the 811 accept both. The reasons you may want the analog would be in case your local station isn't broadcasting in Digital yet. The downside with the analog broadcasts is you will not be able to record them to the hard drive, where as you can record the digital ones.

As far as getting OTA Digital (HD) feeds where you live, I highly suggest visiting avsforum.com and finding out if there is a regional forum for area you live in. If there is the people on that formum should be able to point you in the right direction. But to answer your question, if your local stations broadcast Digital signals and provide HD content and you can pick them up with an Antenna, then yes you'd be able to watch and record local and network HD content.


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## Geronimo (Mar 23, 2002)

OTa analog is the conventional broadcasts we have seen for years. OTa digital is OTA but is done at different frequencies. the receiver however maps it to the old location. WJLA channel7 broadcasts a digital signal at a frequency in the 30s. A digital receiver though maps those broadcasts to 7.1, 7.2 etc as there may be digital subchannels with weateher ifo etc.

To get this you plug an antenna into the 942 input and scan to see what you get. You may be too far away. It si hard to say.


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## zephyr (Jun 25, 2005)

How will channel numbering work with analog? Since there is no '.' on the remote, it is cumbersome to enter '00301' or even '003' for example. A simple solution has been to turn off the mapping of satellite locals and simply enter '3' which jumps it to 3.1. Is it back to the long channel addresses, or is the solution to turn off the new analog local when a digital counterpart exists?

Don't want to work those thumbs too hard


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## Rob Glasser (Feb 22, 2005)

zephyr said:


> How will channel numbering work with analog? Since there is no '.' on the remote, it is cumbersome to enter '00301' or even '003' for example. A simple solution has been to turn off the mapping of satellite locals and simply enter '3' which jumps it to 3.1. Is it back to the long channel addresses, or is the solution to turn off the new analog local when a digital counterpart exists?
> 
> Don't want to work those thumbs too hard


Sorry, you have to type it all in. 0031 would be what you have to put in for the 3.1 Digital signal. If you put in 003 it would default to 0030 which is the analog or LIL from the Sat service.


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## zephyr (Jun 25, 2005)

robglasser said:


> Sorry, you have to type it all in. 0031 would be what you have to put in for the 3.1 Digital signal. If you put in 003 it would default to 0030 which is the analog or LIL from the Sat service.


Hey, at least you saved me a stroke on the digital. Couch potato aerobics


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## JimD (Apr 8, 2005)

Geronimo said:


> To get this you plug an antenna into the 942 input and scan to see what you get. You may be too far away. It si hard to say.


Scanning won't help me, I am too far from the cities to be that lucky. I need to know what to put in so that the 942 is tuned to the right frequency for ABC HD digital, and then point the antenna in various directions to see if I get signal strength sufficient to watch the channel. Does anyone know how to do this sort of thing?


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## Geronimo (Mar 23, 2002)

If it won't find it in a scan I doubt you will find it your way.

But go to antennaweb.org and put in your zip code. It will tell you all of the digital and analog stations that you might receive, the type of antenna to use, andf what direction the transmitters are in.


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## JimD (Apr 8, 2005)

Geronimo said:


> If it won't find it in a scan I doubt you will find it your way.
> 
> But go to antennaweb.org and put in your zip code. It will tell you all of the digital and analog stations that you might receive, the type of antenna to use, andf what direction the transmitters are in.


I went to AVS and found this:

007-01 39 ABC WJLA-DT HDTV DD5.1

So - do I enter 0701 into the 942 to get there? I can probably figure this out from here, but if someone has already done something like this I could use the shortcut...


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## JimD (Apr 8, 2005)

JimD said:


> I went to AVS and found this:
> 
> 007-01 39 ABC WJLA-DT HDTV DD5.1
> 
> So - do I enter 0701 into the 942 to get there? I can probably figure this out from here, but if someone has already done something like this I could use the shortcut...


Well, it seems really simple, though I don't know for certain how it does it.

I just selected setup/local channels/add local channels, and it seems you select the radio button for "digital" and then it pops up a gas guage signal strength meter and a channel number scroll box. You select the channel number (7 in this case) and then it shows what signal strength it sees.

OK, so the digital signal must have to appear at some pre-determined frequency in order to be assigned "channel 7", and that's how the 942 OTA tuner knows what freq to tune when you select "7". I don't need to know it (in other words).

The digital signal found at that frequency must contain multiple sub-channels (like a Dish transponder does) which will become the "-0x" part of the channel number.

All I need to do is select digital and 07 and then point the antenna around until I see the best signal (if any).

Does anyone disagree with this?


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## Geronimo (Mar 23, 2002)

I would start bu pointing in the direction that antenna web advises. Then tweak from there. But if you have signal lock the picture won't improve much. 

What it did BTW was look for adigital signal that said it was assocaited with 7.1. You can probably get 7.2 (weather radar) as well.


Seriously try a scan you may find out that you get more than you think. Nothing to lose.


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## JimD (Apr 8, 2005)

Geronimo said:


> Seriously try a scan you may find out that you get more than you think. Nothing to lose.


Thanks. I meant to comment on your sig previously. I too am "a recovering dishplayer owner". :lol:

I owned two of them. Man those things were buggy. I got so pissed at Dish that I actually *quit* them to go to DirecTV. This lasted for about an hour after I hung up with the service people telling them my plans. That's when a VP at Dish called me back and offered to replace both my DPs with 501s. I took that offer, and have never looked back. I currently own a 508, two 501s and a 943. Add to this the outrageous amount I spend for "America's everything pack plus the kitchen sink" and their decision to save me from DirecTV *has* to have been a good one for them.

The DP was interesting and perhaps ahead of its time in some ways, but I sure don't miss the bugs.


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## JR_Baas (May 5, 2005)

> 007-01 39 ABC WJLA-DT HDTV DD5.1


You will need to set the 942 to channel 39. From you post, it looks like channel 39 is remapped to 007-01.


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## JimD (Apr 8, 2005)

JR_Baas said:


> You will need to set the 942 to channel 39. From you post, it looks like channel 39 is remapped to 007-01.


Have you ever tried this? the "39" is the UHF channel allocation for the signal. I suppose you could be correct. I will try both.

I apologize for having hijacked this thread. I probably should have started a separate one.


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## rasheed (Sep 12, 2005)

Hello,

From what I understand, for the 942 (and 811), one must subscribe to locals via Dish to get guide data for OTA channels. If analog support is turned on, I'd prefer to turn off my locals via Dish and move up to AT120 (instead of AT60 plus locals, I'd like to get AT120 without locals).

I used to have a Basic Plus plan from Comcast that included FX, but to get FX with Dish, it is not on the AT60 package (and I am going to miss Nip/Tuck).

Is there a plan to allow guide data without getting locals from Dish? Would Dish prefer us to get locals or subscribe to a higher AT package?

So, why allow analog on the Dish with the requirements of getting locals from Dish anyway for guide data (aside from all of these modulated examples provided)?

I do admit that I would be more restricted in scheduling my recordings because I would be more dependant on my OTA tuner and would have many more conflicts, but I am not recording much non-HD network programming nowadays.

Rasheed


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## zephyr (Jun 25, 2005)

rasheed said:


> ...Is there a plan to allow guide data without getting locals from Dish? Would Dish prefer us to get locals or subscribe to a higher AT package?
> 
> ...


No. At lease as far as they are saying publicly.
Both.

The charge is purely a business decision. If you want the guide data, you have to purchase the locals, even though they get turned off and not used.

I agree with the confusion/redundancy if analog locals are added OTA. In this mid-sized market, all the broadcast channels are available digitally.

Many owners would be happy to pay a smaller fee for accurate guide data (say $1.95 per month).


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