# 811 OTA channel setup - manually add?



## rogerku (Jan 22, 2005)

Greetings,

First off, I did a search for this topic and was unable to find anything...if this has been answered already (and I bet it has), apologies. Just point me in the right direction...

I'm in the process of setting up my 811, and thus far I like it quite a bit. that said, I'm having an issue setting up my local OTA HD stations. I live in Seattle, am about 2 miles from the capitol hill towers, and use an indoor Sears Silver Seeker(?) antenna. With a little repositioning of the antenna, I was previously (with a Samsung OTA HD receiver) able to get every channel except Fox. 

Unfortunately, my experience with the 811 is different. Upon setup, I read in the documentation that one can not only do a sweep for OTA channels (which netted me NBC, PBS, WB and a couple others), but one can also manually add OTA channels. After doing an automatic search, I attempted to manually add my local CBS affiliate, but upon entering the channel number in the proper meu screen and hitting "save", the channel would not be added to my guide. I had hoped to manually add all the channels, then reposition the antenna as necessary for reception of that station. Unfortunately, the menu/guide didn't seem to recognize my requests.

After a rep at dish network told me that it was impossible to manually add OTA channels, I figured I'd contact the real authorities 

So, after the long-winded intro, here are my questions...
-Is it possible in any way to manually add OTA channels to the guide
-if this is possible, is it necessary to be receiving a satisfactory signal on a given channel before adding it?
-what have other people done to address this issue?

Thanks in advance, and I look forward to getting this set up in time for the NFL games tomorrow


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## Jason Nipp (Jun 10, 2004)

rogerku said:


> So, after the long-winded intro, here are my questions...
> -Is it possible in any way to manually add OTA channels to the guide
> -if this is possible, is it necessary to be receiving a satisfactory signal on a given channel before adding it?
> -what have other people done to address this issue?




Hello Roger and welcome.

I really don't know why the rep would tell you you couldn't manually add channels. The important part is to know the channel assignment that the local stations PSIP is sending out. Beyond that you should be ok. I will comment though that the 811's 8VSB off air tuner is picky. If you have a multipath or fringe issue it may not lock the channel. If you have an incorrect channel assignment or a low signal, the 811 will not allow a partial lock.

To manually add: grab your remote...menu (6-1-5), add DTV, put in channel assignment, wait for it to grab channel in the bar graph, then hit save, type in station ID, and save again.......................and...................................you just found a new bug, congrats, I will report it immediately. Please know that this feature did work correctly and still works fineon analog.

What I am seeing is some DTV channels I can scan lock fine, some fluctuate ~49, which you need to be over 55 to lock, and some other channels I can grab using a scan don't seem to try and lock at all. Like I said I will report.

Sorry, A scan is your only hope at the moment.


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## rogerku (Jan 22, 2005)

Thanks very much for the quick reply, Jason. It's disappointing that one can't add DTV OTA channels manually, but at least I know I'm not doing something wrong 

Thanks as well for your offer to log the bug with Dish network. I'm very surprised I'm the first to report it, I figure many 811 owners would be in a similar situation. If it would help, I'd be happy to provide repro steps or further explanation. 

Is there a way I can track the status of this bug? While I haven't experienced any of the other bugs (other than a brief TNTHD frame stutter), this is definitely limiting the functionality of my unit.

As it stands now, it seems my best opportunity is to move the antenna around, initiate a scan, and hope the system picks up the channel I'm looking for. Unfortunately, the signal strength indicator on the "add channel" menu doesn't seem to respond when I move the antenna, so I think it'll just be trial and error.

Thanks again.


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## Jason Nipp (Jun 10, 2004)

rogerku said:


> Thanks as well for your offer to log the bug with Dish network. I'm very surprised I'm the first to report it, I figure many 811 owners would be in a similar situation. If it would help, I'd be happy to provide repro steps or further explanation.
> 
> Is there a way I can track the status of this bug? While I haven't experienced any of the other bugs (other than a brief TNTHD frame stutter), this is definitely limiting the functionality of my unit.


Roger, This "Official" Forum is monitored by Echostar and I am working directly with the 811 Product Team. With this relationship my hopes are to create a more efficient bug reporting and feedback system. Of course everyone is busy with their primary job responsibilities...including myself, but we have decided to take the extra time out of our schedules in order to improve lines of communication and ultimately improve the product and our viewing experience. I am more then happy to log the issue and discuss it in my next call.

As far as feedback and tracking of your report, I will do the best I can to get an answer for you. As feedback comes in I will update the threads. In fact we recently brought on some help here at DBSTalk to assist in this role as we all have jobs beyond the time we volunteer to the forum. Ron is very versed in the operation and also in the exorcism of 811 demons. 

Again welcome aboard.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Jason Nipp said:


> [/font]
> 
> Hello Roger and welcome.
> 
> ...


I will check the manual adding. I am pretty sure I was able to do it with 2.84 but you do need to have a signal. What i Have done in the past is use the manual add to adjust my antenna. I have not done it in the past but I seem to recall if you manuall add the channel you can then see the strength and make the adjustments.

Remember the strength meter is a ratio of strength to noice so it is not just given you signal strength.

If you got all these channels with your other OTA STB fine, I would suspect some possible multipathing like Jason mentioned. The 811 is a bit more picky and I have also found its indicator is a bit lower than the 921. The 811 seems to start having problems sooner than my 921. Could be my cabling or could be the 811 is a little picker.

What type of signal strengths are you getting with the channels you do receive? Do you have to rotate your antenna or are they all in the same area? Remember that different stations transmit at different power and the stations the 811 are not locking on might be transmitting with less power. Guess at this point.. But if adjusting your antenna is an easy thing to do it might be something to try. Also if I recall try rotating it.


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## Jason Nipp (Jun 10, 2004)

Just to clarify for all, I can add some DTV channels manually. However my most commonly used/strongest cannot be added manually and doesn't even try to show the strength bar for these channels. So I cannot manually add 13.1 or .2 NBC, or 26.1 CBS, but I can add 16.1 UPN and 17.1 ABC just fine. If I do a Digital Scan it finds them all plus some outside of my DMA. 

Sorry if I confused anyone.


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## Jason Nipp (Jun 10, 2004)

I was wrong, I do not have a bug with manually adding DTV OTA locals. This was a brain fart on my behalf. Sorry. 

Here's the summation of my the discussion with the team on this issue. When I was trying to add the OTA DTV channel manually, I was entering 13, which corresponds to my NBC channel 13 WREX. But what I forgot is that Analogs (NTSC) and Digitals (ATSC), although sometimes displayed as the same channel number, cannot occupy the same assignment. My channel 13.1 and 13.2 are actually transmitted on channel number 54. When I typed 54 in it found the 2 Digitals just fine. So even though your station may advertise as channel 13 this frequency assignment "Major IDENT" is already taken by the Analog NTSC assignment.

You may ask, "Then why does it show up under 13.1 when I manually scan?" 
The answer is PSIP (Program and System Information Protocol) and TVCT (Terrestrial Virtual Channel Table). The stations identifier cross references against the TVCT to display the channel as 13.1, when in actuality it is 54. This has also caused issues in the past where there is a glitch in the stations PSIP which causes the channel to shift to it's actual channel assignment. As PSIP and TVCT mature we should see less of this occurring.

So in the case of the poster with the indoor antenna who couldn't dial in his manual channels, first you need to go to http://www.antennaweb.org or to contact your local station to see what the actual DTV assignment is. Beyond that you cannot manually add it unless you have a signal to lock. So you can not add channels without a lock then tune by moving your indoor antenna to improve it's performance.


[url="http://www.atsc.org/document_map/documents/T3_543.pdf"]http://www.atsc.org/document_map/documents/T3_543.pdf
[/url]
Source of attachments: ATSC


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