Over the air channels: Lost program guide

[MichaelWiggins]

Hello all,

I upgraded my Dish Network system a month ago to include a ViP722 and a ViP 211. These receivers are hooked up to two Dish antennae and one over-the-air antenna. I couldn't have been happier with the results.

When everything was hooked up, one of the pleasant surprises was that the Dish program guide included the program guide for the over-the-air channels in my local area. Great!

But just a few days ago all of the over-the-air channels in the program guide changed to where ALL of them say: "DIGITAL SERVICE", 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I thought it was a temporary outage but that now seems to not be the case. I called Dish Network and they said that they do not provide the over-the-air program guide unless I had signed up for local channels (which I had not).

So does anyone know WHERE the local program guide was coming from? Is it provided by the public broadcast channel carrier(s) or someone else? Is it a service I have to pay for (and wasn't told about)? I see the TV Guide logo on most of the program guide pages, but there is no mention of a service. In essence, what do I have to do to get the local program guide back?

Thanks for any and all replies.
Mike Wiggins

 

[rcwilcox]

Hello all,



In essence, what do I have to do to get the local program guide back?

Thanks for any and all replies.
Mike Wiggins

Subscribe to locals from Dish

 

[KAB]

Don't know why you had a guide at one point without subbing to locals. You should not have.

 

[TNGTony]

To answer your question about where listings come from, your receiver gets the info from the Dish Network satellites. Dish Network in turn gets them from Tribune Media and delivers it using a scheme that is patented by TV Guide. So it is not "free" to anyone.

So your options are

1)Buy a TV Guide (or local Sunday Paper with TV Week) costs a couple of bucks a week. About $8 a month. You then have to manually set the timers on your DVR.

2) Subscribe to Local channels from Dish which include the local listings and much easier to use DVR $5 a month.

You should have never received local channel guide info if you never had local channels. It was a mistake on dish's part.

Some local TV stations do provide program info for current and next program, but that only works on TVs or DVRs with that feature and ONLY if you are tuned in to the channel in question. Even if Dish receivers had that feature, there is no practical way to integrate it into the main guide.

See ya
Tony

 

[MichaelWiggins]

Thanks TNGTony!

TNGTony,

Thanks for your detailed and useful reply. As I am not knowledgeable enough to know what all the data is that is carried on the ATSC (DTV) signal, I had evidently made the mistaken assumption that a channel guide was in there SOMEwhere. Let me tell you: after 3 weeks with the local channel guide, I am ready to subscribe to local channels just to get that back (it was THAT useful with the DVR!). I'm just disappointed that it will lessen the usefulness of my rooftop antenna.

And thanks to rcwilcox and kab for your replies.

Mike Wiggins