Frequency scan

As you must tune your DVB card to the right frequency to be able to recieve something, you should better know which frequencies are in use at your place of residence. Note that the used frequencies for North America, Europe and Japan differ, as it always differed and most countries stayd in their old scheme of channels to make a slow switch from analog to digital possible.

The handiest tool for scanning frequencies is scan which is part of the dvbtools; it's specially handy as it uses pre-configured sender lists for many locations, then tunes into the frequencies and lists the names for all available PIDs (for usage, see First steps with a budget DVB card).

Moreover, if you want to find lists with the typical frequencies, see here (these links are not all great, but here we go):

• http://www.vdr-wiki.de/wiki/index.php/Kanal_DVB-T - DVB-T channels in Europe
• http://www.wohnort.demon.co.uk/DAB/
• http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/terrestrial/tuning/