# OTA ?



## westview (Dec 27, 2011)

A friend has Dish. He says he a little box plugged into the back of his receiver to pick up locals. Is it that simple?


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## GravelChan (Jan 30, 2005)

Yeah, with a receiver that allows it and a antenna is plugged into it. Also, some dish receivers have this capability built into them and just require an OTA antenna plugged into them.


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## sregener (Apr 17, 2012)

The Hoppers can accept a single-tuner USB OTA adapter (must be Dish's own) which, when connected to an antenna, allows you to receive and record OTA channels. I have one, and the tuner is fairly robust. The software in the Hoppers is somewhat incomplete, in that you cannot manually add channels, and a rescan of channels erases previously found channels if they aren't found again. Note that adding an OTA tuner effectively increases the number of programs you can record at once by one, provided one of them is on an OTA channel.

In my experience, the OTA picture is vastly superior to the HD Local-into-Local I receive from Dish. This will vary by market, and most people probably will not detect the differences. However, the lack of color depth and motion artifacting are glaringly obvious to me on my local channels.


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## westview (Dec 27, 2011)

So he has to be connected to an antenna?


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## RASCAL01 (Aug 2, 2006)

Yes it needs to have an antenna attached to it.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Well... in some areas it is technically possible to receive some local transmissions without an antenna connected or with a minimal one. I can connect a small wire to my antenna connector and pick up a few channels. I also have used the UHF remote antenna on Dish receivers to pick up several local channels.

So... the better the antenna, the more likely you are to receive local channels... but it is hard to say it isn't possible anywhere to receive one or some without an antenna as long as you have the built-in support or the add-on module installed.


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## Jhon69 (Mar 28, 2006)

westview said:


> So he has to be connected to an antenna?


If you go to www.antennaweb.org. or www.tvfool.com enter your address it will tell you what type of antenna you need and which stations you can receive.Good Luck!.


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

OTA is a very good thing to have as a backup when the weather prevents reception of DBS signals. (e.g. what I'm experiancing right now in North Carolina). All my TVs either have a builtin ATSC tuner or they have a convertor box.


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## hoophead (Feb 10, 2008)

Many times when the HD signals bails due to weather the SD eqivalent channel is still available


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

hoophead said:


> Many times when the HD signals bails due to weather the SD eqivalent channel is still available


This doesn't apply to folks on eastern arc and their LiLs... Dish only has HD LiLs up on eastern arc for the ones that they carry... so you don't have that "backup" of SD LiLs. Also, if you lose signal on the "backup" it is nice to have OTA as well.


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## jsk (Dec 27, 2006)

Also keep in mind that Dish offers locals via satellite. The 722K OTA module sounds like it is better than the Hopper's OTA module. It allows you to record or watch 2 OTA channels in addition to the 2 satellite tuners. Also, the 722K doesn't erase existing OTA channels when you scan for new ones like the Hopper.


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## fpembleton (Jun 19, 2005)

I never thought much about exploring OTA, been with Dish now about 13 years. Once the terrestrial stations went digital and I read about the sub- channels I purchased the OTA hardware that was required for the Dish receiver in which I wanted to view such. I use an indoor antenna and I was amazed and pleased with the expansion of channels; some of the content I now receive via the sub- channels included Retro TV, Antenna TV, Me TV and a few more which I really enjoy. This is not a large market but I do receive a total of 20 OTA channels compared to the 7 which Dish has in the local channel lineup. Not bad in my opinion.


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## SeaBeagle (May 7, 2006)

I see the following when choosing to play a recording on Over The Air.

"A problem was encountered when opening the files for this DVR event. Please note the error 
code: 04."?

I did not know I created a file on the Hopper DVR. I thought these are TV shows? 

This is when I taped a show on a station that for some reason has not TV show information on the on screen guide.



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## thomasjk (Jan 10, 2006)

I had this error when the recording was interrupted for some period of time on SAT channels. The recording was corrupted. If you recorded an OTA show then it is on your DVR.


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## SeaBeagle (May 7, 2006)

Yes this is what happened. Other recordings play fine from over the air.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

hoophead said:


> Many times when the HD signals bails due to weather the SD eqivalent channel is still available


The converse is also true unless the HD and SD signals come from the same orbital slot.


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## SeaBeagle (May 7, 2006)

No more problems. All recordings are fine. Must have been a glitch of some sort.


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## SeaBeagle (May 7, 2006)

I would like to know how far away is the TV station you can view from your location? How far away is this station. What aerial are you using to receive these stations?

This will give me an idea of aerial to purchase.


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## lotusguy (Nov 18, 2007)

Hopefully someone on this forum can answer this....Dish tech support cannot :eek2:

I have a VIP722 and I am using all three tuners - 2 satellitle and 1 OTA. I would like to select one of the OTA sub-channels by using the remote control keypad. For example, if I want to watch 05-03, I can go into the guide and scroll to it and select it, or I can select channel 5 on the keypad and wait until channel 5 (satellite) displays and then hit the up arrow three times. If I type 0503 on the keypad, I get channel 503 as I would expect. There must be a way to select sub channels from the keypad, but I have hot figured it out. Any help? :bang


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## GravelChan (Jan 30, 2005)

lotusguy said:


> Hopefully someone on this forum can answer this....Dish tech support cannot :eek2:
> 
> I have a VIP722 and I am using all three tuners - 2 satellitle and 1 OTA. I would like to select one of the OTA sub-channels by using the remote control keypad. For example, if I want to watch 05-03, I can go into the guide and scroll to it and select it, or I can select channel 5 on the keypad and wait until channel 5 (satellite) displays and then hit the up arrow three times. If I type 0503 on the keypad, I get channel 503 as I would expect. There must be a way to select sub channels from the keypad, but I have hot figured it out. Any help? :bang


Try 00503


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Yeah... you need another zero... as in:

005-03
011-02

and so forth.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Where tech support fails, sometimes you have to RTFM.


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