I hope this is the right forum for this question. I recently bought a Panasonic TH-42PZ77U (love it!) and yesterday I upgraded my cox account to HD + DVR and picked up the STB box. quick info:

Cox Cable in Northern Virginia (fairfax)
TH-42PZ77U
Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8240HD DRV STB
connecting to the TV via HDMI (just to test connected via component and the problem below is present in both connections).

I set up the box and it works fine through the HDMI sound as it should be etc and for Cox the HD channels in my area start at 701 (HBO which I subscribe to and get digital channel fine, 300). Its the strangest thing, I get about half the available HD channels fine and they come through wonderfully however about half give me the not authorized call cox blah blah blah screen. I get all the networks and mtv, nfltv and one other but no espn no tnt no hbo no discovery theater etc etc. I figured this could be simple and called after having one rep cut me off and the other one make me to the hd setup on the front of the box (already done and fine set to 1080i nothing to do with my problem) my rep sent the reboot message to my box and I let it do its thing. Same thing only about half HD ones that were there are great the others say not authorized.
Sorry to ramble been a long night, anyway she said that's all she could (send the reset order) and I'd have to have a tech come out. No I don't want to sound mean but I've bad experiences with them (not understanding basic home theatre setup etc) so I'd like to have all my info present (I'm gonna switch it to component to avoid the "we don't support that moment"). So basically I'm asking if anyone has had similar circumstances and if so how were they resolved. I have trouble believing its on my end so far. I'd be eternally thankful for any advice or info to have ready, I'm trying to avoid my 2 visits before someone who knows anything visits experiences of the past. Thanks for your patience with my full and tired late night Turkey day ramble :o
Scott