3 Lexington Channels currently uplinked

[JohnH]

CBS, NBC and FOX are on 110 Tp 19 CONUS. No Channel numbers, yet.

[JohnH]

Channel numbers now assigned. 9206, 9207 and 9208 respectively. :)

[jch464]

this isn't one of those when will my city be carried questions, but rather a (I think) must carry question.

WKYT the CBS affiliate in Lexington has what they call a sister station in Hazard, KY, WYMT, which is probably 75 miles from Lexington. Same owner, They share the same newscast on weekends and the same website on the net, they are also CBS. Would they fall under the must carry?

Also the FOX aff. is in Danville, 20 miles, will they try to carry the FOX as well?

[jch464]

my bad, i thought you listed ABC, NBC and CBS, not fox. I guess there are some probs with ABC

[TNGTony]

JCH, yes the Hazard station does fall under must carry. since they carry different programming line-ups for a good portion of the day and night, they do qualify for must carry. Check out http://ekb.dbstalk.com/19 There all the Lexingon area stations that qualify for must carry are listed. At the bottom of the page is an explanation of the must carry rules too.

See ya
Tony

[JohnH]

The ABC station(9205) is on Spotbeam Tp 10

Have not found the PBS station(9211), yet.

[TNGTony]

John, More than likely it will be a remap of the Louisvile station. Most of the PBS stations in KY are KET repeaters.

See ya
Tony

[JohnH]

No mirror. It's the mother ship.

9211 WKLE-TV 46 on Tp 2 at 61.5 http://www.ket.org/

Go figure the postioning of channels for this Market. :)

[TNGTony]

Hmmm...I wonder if it's a mirror of WCVN Covington (Cincinnati DMA) or vice versa? Again, when I get home I'll have to check. WCVN is a 100% full time repeater of KET1 and it's already at 61.5 on 8160.

Thanks John

See ya
Tony

[jch]

EchoStar Reaches Agreement with Gray Television, Cordillera Communications for Satellite TV Carriage of Local TV Stations

LITTLETON, Colo., Feb 19, 2003 (BUSINESS WIRE) --

DISH Network Now Offers All Major Local Channels in Colorado Springs, Colo.; Tucson, Ariz.; Lexington, Ky.
EchoStar Communications Corporation (Nasdaq:DISH) and its DISH Network announced today agreements with Gray Television, Inc., and Cordillera Communications, Inc., for carriage of their local TV stations via satellite in Colorado Springs, Colo.; Tucson, Ariz.; Lexington, Ky., and Omaha, Neb.

As a result of these agreements, DISH Network will provide carriage of CBS-WKTY in Lexington and CBS-KKTV in Colorado Springs, both owned by Gray Television of Atlanta, Ga. Also as part of these agreements, DISH Network will provide on Feb. 20 Gray Television's NBC-WOWT to customers in Omaha, Neb.

DISH Network also reached an agreement with Cordillera Communications of Plano, Texas, to provide its TV stations NBC- KVOA in Tucson, NBC- KOAA in Colorado Springs and NBC- WLEX in Lexington.

With these agreements, DISH Network will offer all major local channels in Colorado Springs, Tucson and Lexington beginning Feb. 20. DISH Network previously launched local channels in these markets without all four major networks.

"Residents and customers in these cities now have a truly affordable alternative to cable," said Michael Schwimmer, senior vice president of Programming at EchoStar. "Customers in Colorado Springs, Tucson and Lexington now have access to both DISH Network's satellite TV package offering the lowest all-digital price in America and all their local channels."

As of this week, DISH Network offers local channels to a total of 59 cities nationwide. A Dish 500 antenna is required to receive the local channels via satellite.

DISH Network makes satellite TV simple and affordable and offers consumers the lowest all digital TV package price in America at only $24.99 per month for over 50 channels.

[bencjedi]

I don't believe it! Dish Network is finally going to offer locals in Lexington, KY?!?! I thought Louisville would come first. This is great news considering all the ice and power outages currently ravaging the city. Unfortunately with no power since Saturday night I can't even check this out. I would prefer to keep my NY and LA distant networks for the time-being. Do you think Dish Network will catch up with me and force me to now get my locals from Lexington? I have a Dish500 system, so it shouldn't be a problem, but I think the logos and screen indicators (temperature, local newsbreaks) are extra annoying here when compared to the NY stations.

[JohnH]

Well, Louisville did come first and Locals have nothing to do with Distant Nets unless you are receiving distants by conditional waivers.

[bencjedi]

Originally posted by JohnH
Well, Louisville did come first and Locals have nothing to do with Distant Nets unless you are receiving distants by conditional waivers.

I guess I was just unaware that Louisville got theirs.

Yes, I have waivers for FOX, NBC and CBS. Will I lose them now that Lexington locals are available? I prefer the distant stations over the Lexington locals due to less annoying channel banners and screen indicators from the distants. Also the west coast stations have saved me from conflicts that TiVo and my DP7100 could not get around. I think I will just lay low and maybe Dish won't notice I am still using waivers instead of the locals.

[JohnH]

The key word is "conditional". The locals may not have this condition in their carriage contracts.

[bencjedi]

How do I make these channels appear on my dishplayer? Or would they only appear if I subscribed? I thought they appeared for testing purposes until they officially 'went live' today. Just wondering how you guys knew about these channels without them appearing on your guide. I checked for them last night when my power was finally restored here in Lexington. Do you have hacked smartcards or something that display all the channels, even if not currently publically available?

[JohnH]

You must subscribe to see them on your guide. There are receivers which will read the system data and show what is up there. The DISHPlayer hidden guide would most likely list them as well. To see this guide, turn off power with remote, wait for the green indicator to stop flashing, disconnect the satellite antenna cable, turn power back on, go to settings/channels and surf away. It is not recommended to use this method as damage to the system could occur.

[TNGTony]

Just to let everyone know, the hidden guide generally does not show the channels until the day they are scheduled to launch to subscribers. There are some exceptions though such as the Monterey and Huntsville locals which have been listed in the hidden guide for several weeks.

The other thing, if you plan to check out the hidden guide, be sure that the unit is on a real channel (not the PTV screen) when you turn it off. Otherwise there is a possibility the trick won't work.

See ya
Tony