Question about how local appear in program guides of some older receivers

[gor88]

As I understand it, some older D* receivers can have upcoming locals show up in their program guide once uplinked.

Would it be possible for any of you to see the upcoming locals for Columbus, MS appear, even if they are on a spotbeam? Since this market won't move to 7-S, I suspect that it will be placed on a spot. According to a station engineer's information, I expect the channels to be uplinked within the next few days.

In this forum, who are the members that have the equipment to see the locals ahead of time? If you are one of those members, please keep an eye out for the Columbus, MS locals and reply to this post when you see them. I am not sure what the two letter prefix will be (such as JA3 for Jackson, MS Ch. 3). The channels will be as follows:

WMAB Ch. 2 PBS Ms. State, MS (but could also be 12 or 18)
WCBI Ch. 4 CBS Columbus, MS
WTVA Ch. 9 NBC Tupelo, MS
WLOV Ch. 27 FOX West Point, MS
WKDH Ch. 45 ABC Houston, MS

Thanks in advance.

[gor88]

I should say that Columbus, MS will be placed on a spot on the 101 bird.

[Greg Bimson]

I was able to "see" locals when they were added, using a 3rd generation RCA receiver. The only way to "see" these locals was to try and set a timer on channels that were suspected to hold the locals.

For example, I "saw" the Des Moines and Roanoke locals about a month prior to being placed into service, because I tried to set timers for the 450-470 channel range. However, when DirecTV added the last few markets, I did not see anything to know those locals were being added.

If anyone wished to try this, in the Columbus-Tupelo market, the Columbia, SC, market, or the Huntsville, AL market, I will explain this a bit better.

I believe that the Columbia, SC, locals will be placed on the same spot beam as the Greenville, SC, locals. I really believe the channel range will be from 908-912. Try to set a timer on those channels, and see if a channel header actually comes up.

The same applies for Columbus-Tupelo. I think those locals will be co-located with the Memphis locals, in the channel range from 927-933.

It also applies to Huntsville, which will probably be paired with the Birmingham locals, in the channel range from 952-956.

Unfortunately, though, I think that DirecTV figured out my timer trick, and somehow disallowed access to it. However, anything is possible.

[Jacob S]

Does anybody know where Charleston, WV is going (101 or 110/119)?

[gor88]

Thanks, Greg. I wondered how that would work.

Unfortunately, my mother (who has been anxiously awaiting locals) has the GCE0BA base model Hughes receivers in her house. Trying to explain how to check for the locals would blow her mind. Bless her heart, she still hasn't gotten used to switching between the satellite and OTA antenna. I get called when she can't do the switch successfully (usually, she hasn't tuned the TV back to CH. 3). This is why she needs those locals. Once she gets them, the TV and VCR will always stay on Ch. 3, with channel changes only occurring on the Hughes receiver. She needs things to be kept simple. :)

Hopefully, the information I got from a station engineer gave me will be correct. It should occur in the first half of July. I will probably tell her to enter 004 on her remote each day and that if she sees her CBS affiliate, she has locals.

[Msguy]

More Than Likely this is how the Columbus - Tupelo, Ms Channels will list on your Direc Tv On Screen Guide.
927- Channel 2- WMAB- Mississippi Educational Television - also PBS Service
928- Channel 4- WCBI - Columbus, Ms. CBS Network Television Service
929- Channel 9- WTVA - Tupelo, Ms. NBC Network Television Service
930- Channel 27- WLOV - West Point, Ms. Fox Network Television Service
931- Channel 35- New UPN Channel for Northeast Mississippi
932- Channel 45- WKDH- Houston, Ms. ABC Network Service