Ok, simple question for an expert. I have basic Comcast Cable service in Minneapolis and two Samsung LCD TVs that can pick up both OTA HDTV via antenna and cable channels via cable.

I recently bought a Samsung H260 tuner for my projector in the basement and attached to the cable outlet and let it scan. It picks up about 5 broadcast stations (2,5,9,17,23) in HDTV but will not pick up the other two majors (channel 4 and 11 in our area).

It does not pickup anything else except for a couple of Comcast advertising stations at the high channel end although the autosearch leaves about 100 channels listed that do not work. If I hook it up to an antenna, it picks up all the OTA channels like the other TV's.

Should the H260 be able to pick up all HDTV broadcast channels from the Comcast service and why would two major stations no be picked up?

Never mind - I went back and rescanned all the cable channels trying each one of the three methods and finally all the HDTV network stations appeared.

I went through the exact same process a few weeks ago and I could not get those two stations to appear. Must be related to the position of the planets somehow.

Arghhh! Channel 4 and 11 have disappeared again. No signal found.

How can a HDTV signal come and go with a cable hookup? Is it Comcast messing with me or is it the Samsung tuner?

Any ideas?