The day is full of WTF...

[capri0mni]

Okay, what would cause 80% of a television's channels to suddenly go on the blink and switch to other channels, mid-program?

Okay, so at around 6:45ish pm, I wanted to switch from the PBS station to ABC (from channel 15 to channel 13); the television skipped all the way back to NBC (10), as if abc didn't exist.

So I pulled up the Automatic Channel Setup, where the TV scans all frequencies, and automatically stores only those with a strong signal. Starting at 3, it skipped through everything until it got to the 65. It usually comes to the end of the frequency line at 83, but today it kept going until it got 125, dutifully storing half a dozen evangelical Christian and shopping network station along the way.

So far, PBS has switched from 15 to 66. CW has switched from 27 to 78, MyTV switched from 33 to 84, Fox has switched from 43 to 94, Ion has switched from 49 to 105. CBS is still on 3, NBC is still on 10, and ABC is a ghost of its former self (lots of snow and static, but if you listen carefully, you can hear what show is supposed be on -- no, just double-checked. It's back to normal, but PBS is not -- where are we in the solar flare cycle, btw?).

[Eta: Okay, lizziebelle twigged it in replies, sort of: My TV had switched from over the air TV to Cable reception and I didn't catch on. (I finally did figure it out at the end of the day, and got all the presets back to normal) The funky stuff started happening while I was at the computer, with the TV playing in the background. I suspect it did have something to do with a teeny-tiny power surge. Those happen, sometimes, around here where it's not enough to turn the power off, but it will switch my radio from FM to AM (or from the radio tuner to the tape-player mode... yeah, it gets wierd here on a regular basis). Since it happened at 6:45 on a hot early evening, it might have been Dominion Power switching loads to handle all the AC coming on, and people cooking dinner on electric stovetops... or something.]

Comments

[lizziebelle.livejournal.com]

It sounds like your cable system switched around its lineup.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Well, it can't be my cable system, because I have never, ever signed up for a cable subscription.

I get all my TV through rabbit ears antenna...

Besides, why would a cable company switch things around in the middle of a half-hour block, instead of during the between program breaks.

[uncacreamy.livejournal.com]

Cable company fooling around?

[uncacreamy.livejournal.com]

Aha. This is the problem. Since you don't have cable, you're watching analog channels. Those are all going away, per the government. I think what you're seeing are the changes that belong to that.

[lizziebelle.livejournal.com]

Well then... that *is* weird!

[nathanrsfba.livejournal.com]

Somehow your TV has changed from broadcast mode to cable mode. (It's a user-changeable setting. Possibly you inadvertantly changed it when doing automatic setup.) Cable TV uses a different set of frequencies than over-the-air stations, so some channels will show up in different slots, while others may disappear entirely, if your TV is in the wrong mode.

I was anal-retentive enough to actually look up the frequency lists for both, and the changes you described do match. Ch. 15 on UHF is 66 on CATV, 27 UHF is 78 CATV, and so on. Though what really tipped me off is the fact that automatic setup scanned all the way up to 125 when previously it only went to 83. (83 is where over-the-air channels end.)

Though that doesn't explain what happened to 13. (Channels 2-13 are the same for both over-the-air and cable.) I'm guessing that the local ABC station was having technical difficulties at the time, so when you changed channels the TV skipped over it automatically (as modern TVs are wont to do) when it detected no signal.

Without knowing the make and model of your TV I can only guess where to go to change it back, but probably it's in the vicinity of where you went to active automatic setup to begin with.