Your ATSC receiver's presets?

[Darth_vader]

At the risk of starting another list thread, here's a topic that I don't believe has been brought up, like, ever. How is your channel map programmed? By that I mean, what do you get by operating your channel up/down keys?

There's a more technically-correct standard wording for that, but unusually, I can't think of it right now.

This thread also applies to in-the-clear ATSC-QAM users, not just broadcast ATSC-M.

 

[Darth_vader]

I'll start. I have all the local services I can receive in my equipment's memories, but I have them limited to the following. I have no major network affiliates or religioid programming, as they aren't worth wasting time scanning:

02-02 (KATU) ME-TV
10-01 (KOPB) Oreegone state-run propaganda and PBS shows (when there's an extra time slot to fill), but mostly propaganda
10-02 (KOPB) More of the same, only 4*3 SD
12-02 (KPTV) COZI (mainly for "The Avengers")
32-02 (KRCW) Antenna

Yours?

 

[ShawnHill1]

We have so many subchannels here in Los Angeles, about 135 channels that I can receive in my area of the city. I recently bought a new TV, and I'm still getting my favorites list together...so far, I have the Big Four, The CW (KTLA), Antenna TV, Buzzr, Me-TV, Decades, Cozi, Bounce, and one other local station. I don't watch any of the local PBS outlets or some of the other multicast networks (This, Movies!, H&I, The Works, etc.) enough to care to put them on my favorites list, and the rest of the stations are either Spanish, Asian, religious, or all-infomercials.

I guess to break it down...

2-1 KCBS
2-2 Decades
4-1 KNBC
4-2 Cozi
5-1 KTLA (CW)
5-2 Antenna TV
7-1 KABC
11-1 KTTV (Fox)
13-2 Buzzr
34-3 Bounce
56-1 KDOC (Independent)
56-3 Me-TV

 

[K.M. Richards]

I'm also in L.A., but I watch via a TiVo Series 2 DVR so don't use the up/down buttons on my digital receiver's remote very often. I keep a lot more channels in my favorites list than Shawn does, primarily so that if I see something I want to record on the DVR program guide there isn't a mismatch between the TiVo's "known channel lineup" and the ones the Zenith box decodes.

A lot of what I have that Shawn has skipped are movie channels. I have all the ones on Shawn's list, plus:
5-3 This TV
7-3 Laff
8-3 Retro *
9-1 KCAL (Ind., owned by CBS)
13-1 KCOP (MyNet)
13-3 Movies!
13-4 Heroes & Icons
28-1 KCET (Ind., non-commercial)
28-4 NHK World
30-1 KPXN (Ion)
46-2 GetTV
46-3 Escape
46-4 Grit
50-1 KOCE (PBS)
50-2 PBS Plus
50-4 PBS World
56-4 Comet
56-8 The Works
58-1 KLCS (PBS & educational, owned by the school district)
58-4 MHz Worldview

All told, I have 32 channels programmed into the favorites list of both the receiver and the DVR.

* - Channel 8, KFLA-LD, is a low-power station which transmits from Mt. Wilson, the same location as all the full-powers in the market. I live close enough to Wilson that I get a reasonable signal from them more than half the time.

 

[Ccook55]

I live some 30 miles north of the bulk of the transmitters out of Atlanta but because of the lay of the land at the apartment complex where I live (the street dips down), the only thing I can get over the air is Ion affiliate WPXA/channel 14. And that's even with an amplified antenna.

 

[ajc_trw]

How tuners get their virtual channel numbers

At the risk of starting another list thread, here's a topic that I don't believe has been brought up, like, ever. How is your channel map programmed? By that I mean, what do you get by operating your channel up/down keys?

There's a more technically-correct standard wording for that, but unusually, I can't think of it right now.

This thread also applies to in-the-clear ATSC-QAM users, not just broadcast ATSC-M.

Either by running a channel scan or punching in an RF channel (let's say 36 in the Los Angeles area*) your tuner picks up the channel and on reception reads the channel ID tag. After that it stores the virtual channel and adds it to the channel list. After that it puts the V#s in order.

If two stations use the same virtual channel numbers both are stored and are available separately. I had this happen when WCBS & WMAR both came in and I had two 2-1s one after the other.

* If the RF channel is stored as a virtual channel number you'll have to get to the RF channel some other way. 36-1 can prevent you from dialing in KNBC's RF channel by taping in 36.