How to Set Up Channel Scanning on a Sharp TV

Back in the days when there were only three networks and you changed the channel by walking over to your TV and twisting a knob, it was pretty easy to keep track of which station was on which channel. That's not the case anymore, with hundreds of cable and satellite channels to choose from as well as streaming services. That means new TVs from Sharp and other manufacturers often won't show you any channels at all until you've done a channel scan.

When you set up your TV for the first time, you see a menu that walks you through your settings. You are prompted to enter your language choice, country and time zone using the arrow pad on your remote. Next, you are asked to accept Sharp's end user license agreement, which covers the use of some of the TV's "smart" features and built-in software. As you keep going, you set up a network connection and are finally prompted to choose your main source of TV channels. That will often, though not always, be the ANT/CABLE option. Once you've finished these few preliminaries, you can go ahead and scan for channels.

Turn on your TV and press the "Input" button on your remote to open a list of signal sources. Choose the one you selected in your first-time setup. If that was ANT/CABLE, you are prompted to do a channel search. Use the arrow pad and "OK" button to accept the prompt and wait while the TV scans to find your channels. Once the scan is complete, the TV shows you a quick tutorial on how to watch live TV, including viewing your newly created channel list or loading it into a sidebar for easy access.

Sometimes your auto-scan can't find any channels, which is usually because your cable or satellite receiver isn't connected to the ANT/CABLE connector on the TV. You'll often find that connecting to the TV through the HDMI connector or component video connectors gives you a better picture or more flexibility in how you set up your system. In this case, you choose that input instead of ANT/CABLE and launch the auto scan yourself. You'll find it by pressing the "Menu" button on your remote and then using the arrow pad to choose "Settings" and finally the "Channel" menu. From there, you can select the auto scan.

If your Sharp TV's channel scan has a problem, you can often work around it by scanning manually. Suppose, for example, that the auto scan missed a channel that you know is part of your package. You can use the "Manual Scan" option in the "Channels" menu to add it yourself. On the other hand, if there's a channel your TV picked up that you'll never watch, you can use the "Channel Skip" function to pass it over. You can also create a "Favorites" list in this menu, so it's easy to find the channels you watch most instead of scrolling through page after page of the on-screen guide.

If you're connecting your TV to an antenna to receive your channels over the air instead of through cable, there are a couple of differences. First, in the "Channel" menu, there's the question of "Tuner Mode." It gives you two options, one for getting your stations over the air and one for getting them through a cable box. If the antenna is your main source of channels, choose the antenna mode and go on to do the auto scan as you normally would. If you're using cable or satellite as your main source and the antenna is just a way to add local stations, you may find it simpler to use the Manual Scan and insert your handful of local stations one at a time.