722 OTA Input from Cable TV

[CulpeperUplink]

Is their a trick to get OTA channels to work when cable (comast) is the input? I would like to get the clear Channels to display thru my 722 OTA mainly the 24 hour radar channel. I can get just about all my local channels with their sub channels when a Digital TV is directly connected to the cable. However, the channel numbers are all off (e.g. Ch. 9 WUSA weather s/b 9-2 however on Comcast it comes thru as 8-444). I tried scanning for locals with all four dish analog types offair, irc, hrc, and cable. The direct tv picks them up when set as dtv which I assume is either cable or offair. Dish finds 0 channels in any mode.

Am I missing something obvious or is not supposed to work?

Also could it be just the tunner on the 722 so would this work on a 922 or a hojo?

 

[Mr Tony]

the OTA tuners on the Dish receivers are ATSC only
cable stuff is QAM

I tried that on my 211 too and had same results...0 channels found

 

[dare2be]

So, does his report that he could do it with his D* receiver means that D* receivers can do QAM?

Oh, nevermind, "direct tv" in his post means the coax connected directly to his tv...nevermind.

 

[Mr Tony]

Oh, nevermind, "direct tv" in his post means the coax connected directly to his tv...nevermind.

 

[CulpeperUplink]

I was only talking about dish boxes don't have direct tv. The direct I was talking about was a TV directly connected to my comcast.

Could have been clearer in my OP.

So is their an easy way to tell if an offair antenna would be worth the effort? I am on the edge of the Washington DC DMA if I drive 20 mins south from home I am in the charoletsville DMA.

Thanks

 

[Mr Tony]

easiest way would be to post your tvfool report

TV Fool

That would show you what stations you might pick up and how far away they are

 

[DishSubLA]

The ViP's were designed to receive cable channels including HRC and IRC that was supposed to support HD local stations fed from your Cable TV company, but I don't think Dish ever enabled that feature. Of course, now there really is no point to supporting that now that Dish provides the key HD LIL's in a lot of cities. It's clear that years ago Echostar engineers were trying to cover the bases and think ahead to have an option if they needed it.

 

[TheKrell]

I think you would need a pretty impressive antenna to "see" Washington DC towers from Culpeper. It has been done using deep fringe antennas on top of a tall mast. What is your range? 50-60 mi?

 

[ntarvin]

For Dish, you need the OTA adapter they sell on their site - I think it's $50. It gives you another hookup to attach your antenna... It only works on certain models, though - I think 722 is one of them that it will work with.

 

[harshness]

For Dish, you need the OTA adapter they sell on their site - I think it's $50. It gives you another hookup to attach your antenna... It only works on certain models, though - I think 722 is one of them that it will work with.

The OTA adapter does NOT work with the ViP722. It works with the ViP722K.

Even then, it will not tune analog channels nor QAM channels so CATV is not an option through the DVR.