A long time ago, when I heard that the HD channels could be divided into several channels if a broadcaster wanted to, I wondered if they'd even work something out where local broadcasters would carry the channels we now know as cable/satellite.

It'd be a great solution for people like me who live in areas with so many trees blocking the satellite, it's just not possible to cut them down. (Especially when most are on neighbouring properties.) It'd also help do away with cable outages, tho' we almost NEVER have that happen here.

Anyway, I actually found a webpage last night that seems to be for a company that's doing this very thing. They're offering (only in three areas towards the US West Coast, right now) cable channels, carried by local HD terrestrial broadcasters.

Have any of you heard about this? Can you fill me in on more details? Is this something we'll be seeing more of, or is it a flash in the pan?

There are companies offering digital broadcast services. Here, they offer a small package of popular cable channels, they are located in the UHF bands as are all digital and HD channels. One HDTV channel can carry several SD digital channels in the same band, but not both.

How can trees block satellites?!? Are they so close and so big? (Can't imagine where I am. I have a satellite dish at home located right about 3-4 meters from where I am sitting but trees next to it don't seem to interfere.)

Depends a bit on the band being used, but they lower the signal strength. So that means more frequent problems with weather fade and such. Our current sat services use multiple sats with many transponders. So you may have a strong signal on one and not on another. Here, the difference between a signal lock and no signal lock is about 20% on the signal strength.