my sons dorm as analog cable and several HD provided as clear qam. the tv he has only will tune analog and ATSC so he can't get the HD channels. The university provides no cable box since they are "in the clear". if I buy a digital cable box on ebay will i have activation issues? there is no way to activate a box on this system. however, nothing is scrambled. is activation required to get scrambled channels or any channels at all?

my sons dorm as analog cable and several HD provided as clear qam. the tv he has only will tune analog and ATSC so he can't get the HD channels. The university provides no cable box since they are "in the clear". if I buy a digital cable box on ebay will i have activation issues? there is no way to activate a box on this system. however, nothing is scrambled. is activation required to get scrambled channels or any channels at all?

Has your son run a "cable" channel scan on the TV in order to find the clear QAM sub-channels? Perhaps the TV will receive the HD channels and display them in Standard Definition.

Any USA cable company box purchased on eBay will most likely be property stolen from a cable company. Since cable company boxes have unique electronic identification numbers, have been configured for a specific cable company and require activation by and through that company, the purchase and attempted use of such a converter box will present a number of problems for you and/or your son.

the tv is an hdtv. yes tried scan. it will not find the digital hd channels. no qam tuner.

Just to confirm capabilities, what's the make/model of your son's TV?

If you are sure that the campus provides digital (HD/QAM) channels in the clear, you can purchase any legitimate QAM tuner. As an example:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4283254&CatId=4641

Personally, I'd sell the TV and get one with a QAM tuner, but I suspect you want a way to get this TV to work. Find something with a QAM tuner that can hook up to the TV. There are standalone tuners (although not many), DVD recorders, and TiVo (expensive, yes, but it'll work.)

Buying a cable box off of eBay is a good way to buy a doorstop and not much else.

There are used clear-QAM capable HD tuners (not cable boxes) on EBAY and other sources made by LG, Samsung, etc.
That can provide a clear QAM HD tuner for a TV that doesn't have one built-in.
Sometime back I bought a used LG model that had a HD tuner (OTA+clear QAM) and upconverting DVD player all-in-one unit.