Switch from E* to D*

[SD493]

I made the swith from E* to D* because of the HD offerings and E*s promises but nothing happening (or very slowly). I got set up today and went to activate my proramming. I called Pegasus
(I have to use them in my area) and their system was down so it will be tomorrow before I can have my programming activated. Bummer. One question for those of you using the Samsung SIR-TS160. Is there anyway to force a particular digital channel into the guide or at least enter a channel number and check its signal strength? I could do that with the Dish 6000. My digital stations are distant (95 miles or so) and are heavily atmospheric dependant so sometimes I get them and sometimes not. With the Smasung I locked onto a couple of digital channels when I scaned but when the signal strengths dropped they no longer appeared in the guide. I would like to be able to check the strength of individual channels even if they are not in the guide.

[dswallow]

There seems to be a general commonality in behavior with the DirecTV HD receivers from what I've read elsewhere, but I've only used the Zenith HD-SAT520 myself. With it, you can select two different zip codes to get channels added to the guide automatically. I use mine (Central NJ), and a Philadelphia area zip code sicne MY & Philadelphia are the two major markets closest to me. I can then see signal strength for any of the channels in the guide. But any other channels have to be manually added, and I can't see signal strength until there's enough signal for it to lock onto at the time you add the channel.

There seems to be a point when if you tune to a manually added channel and there's no signal, itautomatically gets removed. I think it happens after leaving it tuned to that channel for a short time, not immediately... but since adding the second zip code, I really haven't run into those cases much at all to explore it more.