Not receiving QAM channels

I live in the Houston area and have comcast cable with two DVR cable boxes. i recently hooked up a sony LCD tv with a QAM tuner and did a scan for all channels. It picked up the golf channel only which was 68.15. Why am I not getting the other qam channels? It was the same result at my previous address which was about a mile away. I also tried it with another lcd tv that I have hooked up to one of the cable boxes and still no channels over qam. Does Comcast broadcast over QAM in houston?

So the Sony LCD is connected to one of the DVRs or is it connected directly to the wall RF connector?

You should contact your cable company and ask them.

Generally, cable companies do not provide technical support for reception of QAM channels (without a cable box or CableCARD). They support the service, to the extent required by law (and that's remarkably little) but they don't publish guides or help people figure out how to get their own personal equipment to receive those services. The mandated means of supporting a customer using their own equipment to receive cable television services are:
1) An analog tuner (conditionally mandated through 2012, and only applicable to local broadcast channels);
2) CableCARD (unconditionally mandated in perpetuity; and applicable to all linear channels).

You can expect, without a doubt, that Comcast does use QAM to transmit digital cable in Houston. However, while unlikely, they could encrypt QAM entirely. (That's a reflection of the "conditional" aspect of #1, above -- if they provide analog support for reception of local broadcast channels.) If they've done so, then your QAM tuner won't be able to find those frequencies.

Here, they used to encrypt practically everything including the SD QAM versions local broadcast channels (referred to as "ADS"). I think we were able to pull in Style and maybe one other channel via QAM in-the-clear. I haven't checked recently, but a friend sent me a note to "check now" a few weeks ago, implying that things have changed in this regard. They're preparing our area for Project Calvary, to be deployed here on October 20. Rumor is that in most areas where the project is deployed they've turned off encryption of QAM for local broadcast channels, at least, and perhaps even expanded basic channels. This is because, currently, by law, they're not allowed to use the privacy mode built into DTAs, so everything that the DTAs (which are an essential aspect of the deployment of Project Calvary) are supposed to tune in must be in-the-clear, blocked only (if applicable) by physical traps on the incoming line.

Originally Posted by CptlA

So the Sony LCD is connected to one of the DVRs or is it connected directly to the wall RF connector?

Yes, it is connected directly to the coax connector. I have two tv's hooked to cable boxes where I receive the normal HD programing from Comcast and one hooked up in the garage with no box directly to the coax connector and another in my kids room with no cable box. If I do a scan it finds 65 analog channels and no digital channels on both tv's. It used to find one digital channel which was the golf channel on 68.19.

These cable companies use HD like it's a pay channel to get you to pay 10 or more a month for their boxes, which you can't buy!!!!!!!!!!!
I think like the other guy mentioned, by law, if they provide the channels in the clear on analog then they are not obligated to provide them on qam. I think what the law says is than any channels that broadcast/originate locally through their boxes must also be broadcast in the clear for reception without a box. It doesn't matter whether it's digital or analog, or SD or HD as long as you can receive it someway without the box.
it's definitely a scam!

Not a scam. Rather, simply consumer market economics: If something is worth more than something else, then you pay more for it. 1+1=2 kind of stuff.