Earlier this week, I was getting excited about adding a new over-the-air broadcast channel to FTAList. KNWS (Katy / Houston TX) was in the clear on AMC 21, where it joined all those great PBS feeds. But KNWS isn’t a PBS affiliate. It’s thoroughly independent, providing daily doses of The Cosby Show, Rosanne and Cheaters. Just as I prepared to update the database and send a tweet about it, I made one last check. KNWS was gone. Darn it!

And the weird thing is that almost the same thing happened the next day. CNN, of all things, popped up in one of the Veterans Administration slots on Galaxy 18. This time, I knew that there was essentially no chance that this would last long. Sometimes satellite operators copy a signal up through a slot like that just to make sure it’s working, and this looked like one of those times. Still, just as I was about to send a tweet about this one, CNN was gone. Nice while it lasted.

Although I’ve seen similar temporary channels while blind-scanning the skies, these two tips both came from posters at Ricks Satellite forum. Even though I can’t point at a new “permanent” channel right now, at least I can remind you to check Ricks for the latest in temporary channels, especially sports feeds. It’s great for Ku-band, but if you have a big C-band dish, Ricks is as good as it gets.