I've had cable for years, and have been watching mostly local HD broadcasts through QAM. I realized that I was paying for something I was hardly using, so I experimented and set up an antenna and found that I can receive all the local stations beautifully.

I was all ready to cancel cable, when I found out that my Panasonic DMR-EZ17 doesn't seem to be able to pick up ATSC broadcasts. It claims to support it, the setup mode says it's searching for digital channels, but when I try to tune in, for example, WPLG-DT by entering "10-1" after it's done programming, it says "Channel not available".

I made sure it was set to "antenna", unplugged and replugged it, and verified that the TV connected to its ANT OUT jack could receive the channel (if it's passing through the signal, why can't it receive it??). The EZ17 can pick up analog NTSC broadcasts fine, and works great in analog cable mode on the cable system.

I am baffled. Is there a hidden setting or anything special I need to do to get the EZ17 to pick up ATSC? This is the one last stumbling block to dropping a $63 a month cable bill, though I'm tempted to chuck the damn thing in the trash and get an HD capable PVR instead. :P

I don't know what to say, but I have an EZ17 and it gets the ATSC antenna signals. You do have to go into the Setup menu and select Channel > Antenna, which it appears you did. When you use the remote channel up/down button, does it stop at any digital channel or just the analog ones? IOW not entering the channel number directly.

I had several EZ-17's and found it to be a extremely buggy model. One of the many that I bought had the problem of NO ASTC channels. The analogs came in just fine, just no digitals. I tried every reset under the sun but couldn't get digitals to work. I don't have cable so I can't say if QAM worked but I know ASTC didn't work. I promptly exchanged it and the replacement worked fine (as far as ASTC). Apparently there can be a bug with the unit where it gets analogs fine but not digitals:(
You could just buy a CECB for ~$10 after coupon and hook that up to your EZ-17s line input. It's what I finally did after such bad luck with the EZ-17s, tied it to a older ES series that didn't have the digital tuner. The CM-7000 will give you the best PQ while the Zinewell will be able to be programmed to change channels by itself for unattended recordings.
You could also try your luck with the replacement for the EZ-17 which would be the EZ-28, it's a fair amount more reliable IMO. Or if you wanted to switch brands you could check out the sticky on the Philips 3576 or Magnavox 2160. They have a digital tuner and a HDD for much longer recording times among other things.