HR20 OTA tuner

straggleweed said:

i installed a hr20 for my uncle in beaumont and directv doesnt carry locals for the beaumont area. i put up an ota antenna and the digital channels came in great when going straight to the tv but when i hooked it to the hr20 i couldnt find an option to scan for the locals. you have to put in a zip code and since direct tv doesnt deal with beaumont it said that no locals were found. i put in a houston zip code and it listed the channels but he is to far away to recieve any of those.

Is there any way to make the hr20 scan for locals with out having to use the zip code... the guide data doesnt really matter as long as the channels are able to be watched

Click to expand...

Make sure you do your antenna setup. Go to "Menu". Select "Sat & Ant". Then "Antenna Setup". Then select "Initial Setup". Follow the on screen instructions. That should scan for all your local OTA channels. After you have finished you can use the "Edit" function of that menu to make changes.

lou_do said:

Make sure you do your antenna setup. Go to "Menu". Select "Sat & Ant". Then "Antenna Setup". Then select "Initial Setup". Follow the on screen instructions. That should scan for all your local OTA channels. After you have finished you can use the "Edit" function of that menu to make changes.

Click to expand...

The HR20 does not actually scan for channels - the user manual says it does but right now it doesn't. You put in a zip code, it downloads a list of channels and then you can remove any you don't want/receive. If the channel isn't in the list you can't add it using a scan, like many of the other receivers can.
Adding the scan capability is one of the requested features for the HR20 but I don't know when/if it will be implemented.

Straggleweed - you don't have to be in an area where DirecTV delivers locals to get the local OTA channels in the guide.
As Lou says, go to menu>help and settings>setup>sat & ant>antenna setup>initial setup. Put in your zip code, you will get a list of stations at the left of the screen - these are the stations DirecTV has in the guide for your zip code. If there are any you don't receive (e.g. if the signal is too weak) uncheck them.
When you have finished, the HR20 will build the guide based on the OTA stations you have selected.

If when you input your zip code the HR20 says it does not recognize the zip, try another one very close to you - one that gets the same OTA stations. So far everyone that has had this problem has found another local zip code that works.