[Prof Yaffle]

Just a thought - and I don't know if the config files are re-read unless you restart tvheadend, so this could be a non-starter - but you could manually switch idle scanning on and off with a cron job that edits the relevant config file. Yes, it's a clumsy workaround, but if tvheadend spots the change then it'd be an easy sed job... /home/hts/.hts/tvheadend/dvbadapters/<adaptername>...