Can i hook up my own comcast cable box?

It is not "illegal" for you to outright own your own box, but the providers are not obligated to authorize it, which you will have to do to use it. You see, the American cable providers generally just do not sell boxes themselves or through retail outlets, nor do the primary box manufacturers (Motorola, Pace, Cisco) sell boxes to the retail chain; they only sell to the providers. Any "primary" box you may buy is bought essentially second-hand, and not the provider's problem. The only exception is an "open cable" cablecard box, in which case they have to supply a card for it on request, and may charge to rental and installation/activation/service fees for it. If it is a brand of box that your provider uses, chances are it is not an "open cable" compliant box, so your provider will just say no. A TiVo HD or Moxi is a 3rd party box you can buy and use with a cablecard from your provider.

If you're paying for basic digital cable, there should be a local ABC channel somewhere on the line-up, but it may not be on channel 7 anymore. In addition, digital cable does not get "snowy". Cable companies are required to support OCAP compliant boxes. They require a CableCard which must be rented from he cable company. Those boxes are available, but not from Comcast. if you have an actual Comcast box, it is almost surely stolen. If the boxesyou have are not OCAP, no cable company is required to support them. The answer above is not accurate. Almost all Motorola boxes have a serial number that begins with "M". The others begin with "GI". There is no relation to which cable company purchases the box and the serial number on the box. Any non-CableCard box on EBay is, again, almost surely stolen.

I don't know if you can or can't hook up a cable box, but from what you describe, I don't think it will help you. That's because all new cable boxes are digital, and only work if you're paying extra for digital cable and if they're correctly programmed for your active account. The one you're thinking of getting wouldn't be, and therefore wouldn't bring in any additional channels from the ones you're currently getting just on your TV. I actually have, like you, Comcast basic cable and Internet. I don't have a cable box, but my TV still can tune in about 20 cable channels, including half a dozen high-def network channels (it's an HDTV). Almost all HDTVs come with two digital tuners - one that can get over-the-air HD (ATSC), and another that gets unscrambled digital cable (clear QAM). If your current TV isn't HD, consider getting one - yes it'll cost more than some free cable boxes that probably won't work, but it will almost certainly get you a bunch of channels you couldn't get before.