I've cancelled my sub with BEV (no LoS to the satellites any longer.. too many trees!), and am hooking up the antenna at the house. Connected directly to my Plasma, I'm able to pull in plenty of HD content OTA. So I figured I'd jack the coax into the back of my old 9242 and see if it would work, and give me PVR capabilities. I followed the instructions in the manual, but everytime I go into System Setup, Local Channels, I get the following error "unable to access this feature at this time. Data not available".
Any idea why I might be getting this error? Does the BEV dish need to be connected to the 9242 still? (which it isn't in this case, the dish doesn't exist outside anymore since I was unable to pull a signal from 82/91).
HI,
I have one of those 9242 that a friend gave me. I'm using it for ota only and it's great, even if I can't use the EPG on local channels. I was wondering why lots of BEV channel were listed but a lot were missing. Almost all of the BEV channels equivalente to my local channels are missing. Is there a way to get them back to see what are playing?
Only the subscribed channels or free preview channels will be in the guide. There is a chance that some channels might show up if you have the guide on ALL channels instead subbed channels.
Is this unit on an account or are you just using it for OTA?
My unit is only use for OTA. With all channels guide selected, some of the unsubscribed channels are list but with a x-cercled. This is fine for me. I wish I could see the unsubscribed equivalente to my locals so I can see what's on or to come. Could it be related to the fact that only one of the tuner is connected to the dish(both sat, 82° and 91°)?
Which channels are you trying to see? The SD ones at 280 or the HD ones at 1200. On my decommissioned 9200 the ones at 280 are in the guide but the ones at 1200 are not. Not sure if that means anything for the 9242.
Also check the channels locks and make sure someone has not locked out those channels. Turning off all locks will disable channel locks.
As example, if I want to see what teams are competing this saturday night on NHL Hockey
on CITY(BEV=207 or 1033;OTA=62.1), I could go in the guide @ channel 207 or 1033. If this is the game I want to record, I could from there create a manual entry on channel 62.1 at the same hour for my recording. If it's available, I wouldn't need to go over the web to find that information.
About the 280 vs 1200, are you talking about ranges of channels. If so, I would beleive in the first set you have the SD channels while in the second, you have the HD. With your 9200, do you get all the equivalent bev channels of the channels reveived over the air?
I asked myself another question. As I used my 9242 receiver in OTA-only mode and it seems impossible to get the EPG for local channels by pointing on bev satellite 82°/91°, could I use it on another satellite to receive the EPG?
No,other Satellites won't lock in and won't work.Bell could have easily had an EPG for OTA if they would have wanted with Software updates.However they realized that they were cord cutters going OTA and thus they didn't want to make things better for OTA Users.
OK then, is it possible to recycle the hardware and install a new OS to use the ATSC receiver and its hard disk or another into a homemade PVR. Are there anyone with a success story with this project? If necessary, I also have a 9200 to make my tests.
I know the 9242 is old(er), and that all of the newer receivers don't have the capability but I was wondering if anyone is able to get the OTA signals to feed into the 9242 as "advertised" (actually I don't think Bell "advertises" it or most features on the box) or is this a lost cause especially with the move to digital OTA. I thought I read somewhere that the tuner in the box was ATSC compatible. Anyways, I only recently picked up a 9242 (have 6131's) and was wondering about this capability, especially if you are able to record those channels.
A phone call to Bell support leaves me with "oh what's that!.... oh wait, let me talk to someone... oh we don't support that" which kind of gives me the idea that perhaps the feature is gone... as in we couldn't make it work so its an old box and service and we don't really care or maybe the support is ????... :-(
Anyways, right now, when I attempt to scan for local channels with the ant hooked up (was working to the tv), the 9242 starts for a "second" at channel 2 and then resets. :-( This is my second 9242 as Bell did replace my other unit ... but I never attempted to do this on the first unit so I don't really know if it ever worked.
Picking up ota channels should work well. I had 3 9242's using the ATSC tuner with no problems. Make sure you're connected to the correct input...there are 2 antenna connectors 1 for uhf remote and 1 for ota which is exteme left in back.
I am connected to the right "spigot".... the rf antenna is working and in one spot while the coax antenna feed is on another. Initial attempts resulted in the "local scan" flying thru the "channel spectrum" as it appeared to have no signal. That ended up to be true. Bad cable. Rechecked things by reconnecting antenna and new cable back to tv direct. Check signal strength... TV gets lots.
Reconnected back to the 9242. After a system "reboot" (hold power button for 5sec), the local scan page now shows "channel 2" (base band channel for start of scan maybe) and then a few seconds later, it "shuts down" and reboots. After a few attempts, I figured I would call bell to see if the feature was an "illusion" since I don't have a manual and their "help pages" don't show anything about it. Get to Bell and I get the "oh never heard of this...yidda, yidda". So I thought would at least find out if there are some "real life users" of the feature and then at least, I know I not "hallucinating" on a bad batch of "drugs"... It would be nice to get it working but I don't get a good feeling from bell support that it will happen. Maybe cause its saturday.
One thing that seemed strange while it was attempting the scan, is that the page never puts up any "spectrum choice" (ie. air, catv, etc) so I assume its going to do the "whole 9 yards" but not sure if there is a encoding differences between the two that need to be identified. On a "tv based" scan, there are usually a couple of settings that need to be selected to help direct the scan "spectrum" and decoding.
My old 9242 was doing the exact same thing when trying to scan for OTA channels. I couldn't find any help on this issue so figured it was an issue with my receiver. It worked in the past and yes, you could set times for OTA channels. That was my intent as I had cancelled my Bell service and was going OTA. After cancelling, I proceeded to start using the OTA and that's when I noticed that I could no longer scan for channels.
:-( the thing that is bothersome is the "reset / reboot" and the fact that bell support knows nothing about the feature or claims it is not supported. The unit doesn't do a "reboot" when you try it with no signal input. If you give it signal, the "scanware" gets hosed. I know the 9242 isn't the "best kid on the block". That can probably be said for any the bell sat box offering although maybe the newer units are stripped down enough to be OK.
Further, I have read a few thread about 9242 (and others) that have capacitor issues. I have "peeked" inside the two units (first one replaced as freezing / reboot) and have seen "suspicious" caps (visibly bulged to varying degrees). I guess will try once more with bell support to at least see if I can understand what is expected especially around the "screen displays" / "progress displays". I haven't been tracking the counters / analysis diagnostic page thru this but maybe looking there to see if anything "pegs" during the attempts to scan.
Yes, the 9242 needs a satellite dish connected with a good satellite signal. That was always a requirement for OTA on the 9242. Bell never did support OTA but Dish does/did so it should work. The difference between Dish and Bell is that the former supplied OTA information for the guide but Bell never did.
my 9242 is hooked up to sat service and works fine on the sat signal side. Exdilbert, you are saying that the ota feature was never supported by bell.... :-( I guess then somewhere along the way, they "drifted" away from some firmware path maybe such that it no longer works well / at all.
The tuner in the 9242 is an ATSC digital tuner. It functions just fine if you attach an antenna to the OTA antenna input.
Go to MENU 6 (system setup), 8(local channels) and scan for channels.
Then edit out all the stuff you don't want, like the holy roller channels, unless you want those.
The 9242 does not show a guide for the OTA channels they just show in the guide as digital channel. Timers have to be set manually.
that's the way I was trying to get the channels scanned... BUT... everytime the scan starts, after about 2 seconds, the 9242 "stops" and reboots. IF the "ota feature" is NOT supported / recognized by bell, then I probably can't get them to help with this. :-(
thanks for the "confirmation" of the operation. At least, I know I am not dreaming. So I even tried just doing the "Add channel" in the local channel sub menu. After the screen switch to the add screen, before I could select a channel number to scan, the unit reboots. :-( So basically, any thing that I try in the local channels menu (scan or add channel) results in a reboot. I am suspecting a box issue and possibly a capacitor problem in the circuit area. This replacement box was sent by Bell but I don't think they actually check anything out... its just another "recycled box" in their "stash". I have found the document in their site for the 9242 setup which outlines the feature operation / setup so hopefully they will meet their "obligation" to provide support for it.
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