Where's channel 507?

[yaderhey]

I was watching my dad's TV in Racine the other day, and I noticed that he had access to channel 507 (through Time Warner).

But that station isn't available to me here in Milwaukee.

Am I missing something?

[Mark Strube]

What was on 507?

[LoadStar]

In theory, 507 in the Milwaukee area would be WMLW in digital (the numbers in the 500 range mirror those in the analog range... e.g. 30, which is ESPN, is 530 in HD; Fox Sports on 31 is 531 on HD). It's even listed that way on the channel lineup on timewarnercable.com/milwaukee - yet I've never seen it actually show up on 507.

WMLW is definitely carried in digital on the cable network, as you can pick it up with an ATSC tuner, but it isn't assigned the 507 "slot" on cable boxes, for whatever reason. (Theory - they don't want to confuse customers by putting a very NON hd channel in the "HD" channel number range, and they don't have anywhere else to put it)

[gparris]

Grandfathering in the access to the analogue Chicago stations including WLS channel 7 for the southern area counties, channel 7 is this channel instead.
This is why 507 rears its ugly head in the midst of the HD channel guide rather than putting it in the analogue section where it truly belongs like Milwaukee has.

This is the explanation...the Chicago analogue access thing...some idiot at TWC thought it would be cute to place it in the middle of the HD channels.:mad:

[RLJSlick]

Yeah that's sounds about right. 507 has some ok programing on it, but it is one ugly station.

[gparris]

Yeah that's sounds about right. 507 has some ok programing on it, but it is one ugly station.

What I meant is was very stupid to stick it as channel 507 when you are scanning HD channels and end up with some digitized analogue basic channel right in the MIDDLE of the HD channel block.
That is very ugly and just, well, wrong.
For the unsuspecting HDTV owner who doesn't know any better, they could conceiveably (and very possibly)
think channel 507 is an HD channel - and it is anything but and I think that scenario is even worse in some cases than an inconvenience.

Some are confused enough about HD as it is and then TWC did this deliberately.

What was TWC thinking, anyway, placing this channel as 507?