What happened to 129 sat and Philly locals

[abospaum]

Last night our signal from 129 was weak. The signal would stop for a few seconds and the video feed would pause or go blank. The signal strength indicator showed 0 but only on 129. All of the Philly locals ended completely blacked out for a couple of hours.

During the outage the screen turned blue and said that they were experiencing technical difficulties. They couldn't or wouldn't say what. Eventually, the signal did come back.

When I first called them they didn't even seem to know there was a problem until enough of us in the Philly area called them. They were telling me that my network locals are on 110 and not 129. I think that was the case in the past but I thought they moved all Philly locals to 129. When we got them on 110 they used to be located at 8150-8156 but these too were blacked out last night.

What could have happended? When this happens why can't they allow viewers in the Philly area to pick out the national feeds. If they don't have the Philly feeds to offer aren't they compelled to give the option of national feeds?

Any info would be helpful

[TNGTony]

The major nets from Philly are at 110. The independents and additional PBS and so forth are on 129. Take a look at http://ekb.dbstalk.com/dishlist.htm or http://ekb.dbstalk.com/19.

Looks like the POP had a fiber problem getting the signals back to the head end so all philly locals were flaky last night.

See ya
Tony

[Jacob S]

Why didn't they just put those extra channels on 61.5 like they do with all the other markets? What makes Philly special to have to have 129 to do this?

[JohnH]

In the Grand Scheme of things, there was not room at 61.5 to put the Philadelphia overflow channels.

It is not legal for them to send national channels to just any old person who looses local nets. You have to qualify as living in a "white" area for the local nets OTA.

[DmitriA]

Then how come since the introduction of the Philly must-carry locals they have put up at least a couple of foreign channels up on 61.5? No space for locals but plenty of space for additional international channels?

[Mike123abc]

There has always been room on 61.5 for the extra Philly locals. I think dish was trying an experiment instead to see how well Ku-FSS would work with a triple dish (either that or they had a big special on those dishes).

[Chaos]

I'm with Mike. Especially knowing that the 121 bird is going to use this same setup, we were the best possible test platform. Especially since Philly pentration is so low because of Comcast Sports Net.

[Brett]

Stations like WMGM and WTVE requested their mustcarry. But of course, when it came to actually getting their signal over, they said no thanks we cant afford it. But E* was under pressure they had to make room for all these bonehead mustcarries, so reserved space on 129. This puts the stations like NJN and WGTW at a disadvantage. E* thought it was more mustcarries than it actually was. Stations that request mustcarry, then back out (by not delivering a quality signal) should be fined, or their licenses revoked. There are plenty of companies that could take over their place of their precious spectrum they control.

[Jacob S]

Does the dish at 129 support 110, 119, and 129 or just the 129 slot?

[Chris Freeland]

Originally posted by Jacob S
Does the dish at 129 support 110, 119, and 129 or just the 129 slot?

All three.

[chelsea]

How about Lexington, is this another experiment?
Why is WTVQ-ABC Lexington on the Ohio spotbeam and
WKYT-CBS Lexington, WLEX-NBC Lexington & WKDY-FOX
Lexington all on the Conus nation wide beam?

[Jacob S]

What is the size of the dish being used at 129? Is the dish round or oval like the Primestar dishes were and like the new SuperDish is going to be?

[abospaum]

The Philly Dish used for 129 is just like the old Primestar dish but a lighter color. There are three LNB's on it but I'm not exactly sure what kind. They automatically include a SW-64 with the set-up and its all free of charge.

One warning is that because the dish is much bigger most techs do not want to install them on a roof or chimney like my Dish 500. They installed in a ground level which means for a lot of people the angle required to pick up 129 can be really tough. Thankfully I have a huge backyard with very few trees anywhere nearby.

I still don't understand then why all of my locals went out if some are on 110 and some are on 129. Also how am I not in a white area if there are no signals coming out of Philly? I am saying that there should be contingency plans.

[Jacob S]

If 129 is a lower powered satellite then the signal should not be blocked as easily by trees.