Model 6000 - 8VSB Cartridge. How it works?

[Adam Richey]

Once I get my new antenna, I plan on running a line into the living room since the current one seems to be all screwed up. If I hook the antenna cable up into the 8VSB cartridge that I got, how exactly do I go about getting the antenna locals then? Do I do some digital station scan on the receiver and the receivers saves them in the guide or what? How exactly does it work? Since this antenna SHOULD be able to pick up some Indy low-power stations, will the receiver be able to detect those too or not? Please give me information as to how this would go. I would really appreciate it.

[Chris Blount]

Yes, the receiver has a channels scan. You can scan for both analog and digital channels. Very easy to do.

[invaliduser88]

After getting my antenna direction worked out, I am able to pull all of my digitals from the antenna farm 50 miles away in Southwest Houston.

Programming channels with the 6000 and 8VSB Cartridge is easy, just go into the menu and press 6-1-5. Everything is pretty simple from that point on.

[Adam Richey]

Cool. Thank you very much. Any low power channels that I pick up, will it include those as well?

[DarrellP]

One thing to remember, the program info is NOT listed along with the Local Digital channel, it is associated to the Analog channel. So when you go to put in your Analog channels, do it manually, do not use the Auto Scan feature. DO use the Auto Scan for your Local Digital channels, though.

When you put the channel in, it will have a radio button to associate it with a network, you have 4 choices, ABC, CBS, NBC or Other. Associate the big 3 with the appropriate button then you will see ONLY FROM 7-10 PM in your guide NEXT TO THE ANALOG CHANNEL, the station info.

This info is supplied by Dish via the satellite. Someday, Dish will turn on the PSIP guide info so the 6000 can read the data right out of the digital data stream. Unfortunately, not many stations are including this info right now. I have 6 digital stations available to me and only 1 is including the info (CBS). The CBS engineer has to input the info into the PSIP computer manually every day.

Your best bet is to subscribe to your Dish locals (if you can) then create a Favorites list with just the Dish locals and your Digital Locals in them, then when you hit the Guide button you can see what's on.

Another thing to remember: after you've sat on a local channel for awhile, you will lose connection to the satellite, so do NOT hit the Guide button to navigate. Use the Browse button and surf to the channel you want or to the nearest satellite channel and press Select then go to the Guide. If you don't do this, chances are you will get the dreaded "Acquiring Sat" signal.

The weird thing is you can turn OFF your 6000, leaving it tuned to an OTA channel and when you first turn it on in the morning, you will have Guide Info and you can hit the Guide button without any problem.

The guide tends to go away when you sit on an OTA channel for too long and the 6000 loses time if the machine is left on. So if you have a timer you want to fire on a local channel, leave the 6000 off or tune to a sat channel or your timing will be screwed up.

To update the EPG faster when you have a bunch of "Info Not Available" listed, tune to channel 120 then hit the Guide button and it will fill in much quicker. It seems to help if you Page up and down during this process.

One last tip: To run a single cable in from your antenna and dish, use a diplexor. Insert the diplexor after your switch, combine the sat and OTA signal, run the cable inside, hook the other diplexor inside to split the sat and OTA signal and run the 2 cables to the proper input on your 6000. Be sure to buy a high quality diplexor, don't use a cheap one.

If you need any info, feel free to ask, I've had mine for a year and a half and I think I know every quirk known to it.

[Nick]

Great post, Darrell. :)

Although I don't have HS yet, I feel as
if I've just had a mini-course on
intergrating OTA channels into the 6000.

Thanks!


Nick :smoking:

[HTguy]

FWIW, IMO the analog tuner section of the 8VSB module is nothing to write home about. You will probably get better & clearer reception by splitting the OTA antenna output & feeding one leg directly to your TV ant terminal (thru the VCR if you have one.) That's what I do.

In fact, that's what I used to do on the main TV w/my old 5000 rcvr for the same reason.

You won't have any complaints about the digital stations if you have decent reception & a good antenna, tho.

BTW, it's a good idea to rescan them periodically to update any PSIP info & see if any new ones have come on. In our area a few of the stations seem to turn off the ch remap every now & then and then turn it back on later.

[DarrellP]

The OTA Analog tuner performance depends a lot on your signal. Here in Portland, the only station that is not yet Digital is our WB and they have an extremely strong Analog signal.

Tuning them in on the 6000 it looks better than AT&T Analog Cable and better than that channel off Dish, but it doesn't hold a candle to my buddies Sony Wega tuning in the same channel.