Yeah my locals are all screwed up. But here's the progression of the problem:
My antenna rotator in the attic seized at 0-degrees North, but not before I realized it and suspected my cheap Radio Shack pre-amp had burned out. I bought a new Channel Master 7777 pre-amp that boasts a +26 dB gain (!). While up in the attic installing it I noticed the rotator was stuck at 0-degrees.
So I suspected first that the control unit was having an issue, such as one of the wires pulled out or something. I went back downstairs and measured the voltages but there weren't any problems. So I just ignored it for a while because I could pick up all of the near local channels in digital now with the new powerful pre-amp. The only channel I couldn't pick up was UPN/WB 53 which is broadcast from a neighboring city to the SSE. (Most of the other channels were ESE, so it's just showing how awesome this pre-amp is that it could pick them all up while the antenna is facing N.)
So tonight I went back up to the attic to repair the rotator. I was able to get the motor to unseize twice by banging on it with a hammer, but nevertheless I gave up repairing it permanently because up there in the dark, sitting precariously on the rafters, I couldn't get the locking washer undone in order to access the gearing and apply grease. So I just disassembled it, roughly aimed the antenna SE and just left it sitting on the rafters, and brought the rotator downstairs to attempt a later repair.
Much to my surprise I can now pick up all of the local channels at 100% signal and can even pick up that UPN/WB 53 channel at 75%. Fantastic! So screw the rotator. However, now began my realization of the newly introduced receiver bugs.
First I noticed some unusually frequent video artifacts present while watching a recorded program. The audio was fine, but there were many video artifacts quickly appearing and disappearing from time-to-time along the right side of the picture.
Then while poking around the menus I noticed the USB multimedia additions.
And finally while proceeding to the local channel setup menu I noticed it now had the analog capability. Cool, but not really any point for me since I've been watching OTA ATSC for years now, beginning first with my AccessDTV PCI DVR card in my computer attached to the HDTV.
But anyway, I did a full rescan for both digital and analog and was surprised to see it found all the channels. So I added them. Unfortunately it didn't really do anything... at least I couldn't find UPN/WB 53 in the EPG, but I could tune it manually by entering 53 on the remote.
Finally I gave up and went back to the local channel setup menu, deleted all the channels, and then manually entered the digital channels. No difference; all of the channels show up in the EPG except 53.
Another problem I noticed this morning is that I couldn't watch local channels on the second TV all of a sudden. (I operate my 942 in dual-user mode so I can watch TV upstairs without a second receiver.)
Also for quite some time now (before the L280 update) all of my local channels except one channel (51, which I never watch) have been missing from the 72xx range where the satellite-rebroadcast of the locals should be.
So I wrote an e-mail to Dish Support today... I don't expect much of a resolution, but here's what I sent:
--
Using 942 receiver. Three issues:
1. I add local channel 53 (ATSC 46) to the locals list and can tune the channel by entering 53 manually on the remote, but the channel doesn't show up in the EPG.
2. Despite having satellite locals turned on in the settings menu, only channel 51 shows up in the 72xx range.
3. Why am I paying extra for local channels when I'm tuning them in over-the-air and the rebroadcast channels don't even appear in the 72xx range?
