Finally got an AM21

[Will94]

I gave DirecTV my sister's address in Houston many years ago. At the time, nothing in my market had gone HD except for a special all-HD PBS channel. I've kept the Houston locals as my wife grew up there and has watched KTRK news most of her life. I have an hr21 receiver connected to my largest TV and an H21 receiver connected to my other HD TV. I have a small outdoor antenna connected directly to my largest TV to receive my real locals. There have been a few times recently that I wanted to DVR something off of the local news and couldn't and a few times that my local Fox has shown a different NFL game than the Houston Fox did, and I couldn't pause that game. I finally decided to buy an AM21.

The setup couldn't have been easier. However, my local NBC and ABC repeaters didn't "load." They don't show up in the program guide. The Waco/Temple/Bryan DMA is a crazy shape. Those of us in Bryan/College Station rely on repeaters from Waco for Fox, NBC, and ABC. We have our own CBS and PBS. CBS, PBS, and the Fox repeater show up in the program guide, but no NBC and ABC. We've had an NBC repeater since 2003, although it did change call letters last year. Our ABC repeater dates back to 1997. On the other hand, KWBU PBS from Waco does show up in the program guide, and that went off the air in 2010.

I am guessing that these problems could be fixed if someone bothered to update a database?!? As it stands, I am probably going to disconnect the AM21 and be glad that it only cost me $50.

 

[jcrandall]

Unfortunately Directv has essentially given up on updating the OTA database, yet they still sell the AM21.

A terrible position for a company to take, with a quality effort from just a few people, perhaps even one, they could update and maintain that database. If they maintain the position of "don't care", they should enable OTA scanning for situations like yours, which they have done in the HR34 receiver, but not the HR2x. Scanning isn't a perfect solution, however, as you would not have guide data.

 

[detroit_fan]

I realize this does not help you with your current set up, but if you connect the AM21 to a HR34 you can get all the channels in your area. The 34 "scans" for channels instead of using the outdated database. You will not have guide data if those channels are not in the database, but you will get them on the screen and it will just say "regular programming" in the guide. Maybe if you upgrade to a HR34 in the future you will get the channels.

 

[Will94]

Well, I posted my problem to another board and got the response pasted below. I'll probably type up an email this afternoon and send it to KXXV and KCEN, the two Waco channels whose local repeaters aren't in the guide. There are 200k people in Brazos County. I can't imagine that they don't already know about this?!?

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DirecTV doesn't create the guide database or really have anything to do with it. They contract that out to Tribune Media Services. That's who you need to contact.

http://www.tribunemediaservices.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribune_Media_Services

If you can reach the engineer at the local station they may be able to help with getting things sorted out with Tribune Media.

 

[texasbrit]

This is definitely a database problem and not just for DirecTV. If I use tvfool to list all the OTA stations KCEN is listed as RF channel 9 68 miles away and KXXV is on RF 26 at 75 miles. The local repeater stations for NBC and ABC are shown as KAGS-LD and KRHD-CD but with no channel affiliation. So they just look like two independent low power stations.
This is usually an error in reporting by someone at the main channel. They report data for the main channel but forget to report the data for the repeater, so the database does not know it exists. And DirecTV often will not include low power stations in the AM21 database, but it is typical for them to include them if they know they are repeaters of one of the big 4 networks.