Does your home television have to be ON and programmed to the specific channel for it to work?

Question

For instance, I will be deployed in march, will my home TV have to stay on the whole time I am gone?

Answer 1

No.  Your TiVo or DVR will autotune your TV even if it isn't on and record whatever it's supposed to

Answer 2

Your DVR will be programmed to start recording whenever you set it. The problem that you might run into, is that you might run out of space on the DVR before you return home. Once this starts happening, it will start deleting the oldest shows on the DVR to allow space for the newer shows.