Channel Scan Range Post FCC Repack

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NOYB

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Channel Scan Range Post FCC Repack

#1

Post by NOYB » Tue Oct 27, 2020 2:50 am

After the FCC repack my market has channels only in the 7-13 (VHF High), and 14-36 (UHF). There are no channels in the 2-6, and 37-69 range and I do not see this ever changing.
Is there a registry tweak or something to set/restrict the WMC "Set Up TV Signal" and "Scan for More Channels" to only 7-13, and 14-36?
If there is it might be a nice addition to EPG123 WMC Tweaks.
Thanks.

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garyan2

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#2

Post by garyan2 » Tue Oct 27, 2020 3:07 am

If there is, I haven't found it yet and trust me I have looked. I'm OTA myself with 2 VHF broadcasts (Lo and Hi). So there is no registry for it, and nothing in the WMC database for it... it is just hardcoded to be the limiting factor for Win7. For Win8, it will scan the VHF band, just not for Win7.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#3

Post by NOYB » Tue Oct 27, 2020 3:41 am

garyan2 wrote: Tue Oct 27, 2020 3:07 am If there is, I haven't found it yet and trust me I have looked. I'm OTA myself with 2 VHF broadcasts (Lo and Hi). So there is no registry for it, and nothing in the WMC database for it... it is just hardcoded to be the limiting factor for Win7. For Win8, it will scan the VHF band, just not for Win7.
Thanks Gary.
Yes Win8 does scan VHF bands (Lo and Hi). But if it finds the same channel in UHF it uses that one.
For instance here there is channel 8.1 (8) KGW and 4 sub channels (8.2, 8.3, 49.2, 49.4). They are also broadcast on UHF channel 23, a low power transmitter, as 8.10, 8.20, 8.30, 49.20, 49.40, and those are what WMC selects. To use the VHF channel I'd have to add them manually. Same as Win7 users would have to do I presume.

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garyan2

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#4

Post by garyan2 » Tue Oct 27, 2020 4:05 am

Same problem here for both my VHF channels. The UHF channels are either low power or pointed in the wrong direction and have multipath problems.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#5

Post by NOYB » Tue Oct 27, 2020 4:37 am

I'm fortunate in that all the towers are due east (90 degrees +/- 2 @ 18 miles, except for one that is 100 degrees at 26 miles).

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#6

Post by NOYB » Fri Nov 06, 2020 1:46 am

Have you check these registry sections?

Max Physical Frequency:
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\TV\Tuning Spaces\ATSC"
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Multimedia\TV\Tuning Spaces\ATSC"

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#7

Post by garyan2 » Fri Nov 06, 2020 2:22 am

Yup, no effect in changing those registries.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#8

Post by NOYB » Fri Nov 06, 2020 3:23 am

It's working here...

Of note for them is:
1) Need to restart WMC and run "Set Up TV Signal" to pick up the change. Simply running a "Scan for More Channels" doesn't pick up the changed ranges. Maybe there is something programmatically that can be done to pick up the changes without a restart or signal setup.
2) Changing the "Min Physical Channel" to something other than the default of 2 breaks the channel scan. It scans for channel 2 and then stops.

Currently have the "Max Physical Channel" set to 36 and it is working. Setting to 51 also worked.

Windows 8.1

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garyan2

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#9

Post by garyan2 » Fri Nov 06, 2020 6:00 am

garyan2 wrote: Tue Oct 27, 2020 3:07 am If there is, I haven't found it yet and trust me I have looked. I'm OTA myself with 2 VHF broadcasts (Lo and Hi). So there is no registry for it, and nothing in the WMC database for it... it is just hardcoded to be the limiting factor for Win7. For Win8, it will scan the VHF band, just not for Win7.
Sorry, I thought we were talking about scanning VHF channels. I've never actually tried changing the Max Physical Channel values, never saw a reason to. When I do scanning, I just [Cancel] it once it gets all my locals. What it has already scanned stays... you just end the full scan early.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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#10

Post by NOYB » Fri Nov 06, 2020 6:06 am

Well it's nice to have computers do things for us. That one of their purposes.
Post FCC repack I don't see any reason to be scanning for a boat load of channels that don't and won't exist.
Picked up those reg tweaks from a SiliconDust HDHomeRun dev forum thread.

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