Satellites and 61.5

[Link]

Why is it that Directv has enough space to provide its local channnels at 101 and 119, plus all regular channels at 101, but Dish Network makes people have a dish pointed at 61.5 or 148 to get some local stations in addition to 119 & 110?? Plus the CBS HD is at 61.5. Why? You'd think 119 and 110 had enough space for the locals and regular channels.

How is it Directv who seems to carry as much as Dish with more pay per view stations, can accomplish this without having to make half the stations on another satellite location???

[cking2]

Why is it that Directv has enough space to provide its local channnels at 101 and 119, plus all regular channels at 101, but Dish Network makes people have a dish pointed at 61.5 or 148 to get some local stations in addition to 119 & 110?? Plus the CBS HD is at 61.5. Why? You'd think 119 and 110 had enough space for the locals and regular channels.

How is it Directv who seems to carry as much as Dish with more pay per view stations, can accomplish this without having to make half the stations on another satellite location???

Simple...DTV has three sats at 101...the three sats with 54 CONUS and 44 Spot beams at 101.

Later

Rick

[cdru]

And the fact that DirectTV has fewer total locals then what Dish does (currently). It's not exactly comparing apples to apples.

[JohnH]

Simple...DTV has three sats at 101...the three sats with 54 CONUS and 44 Spot beams at 101.

Later

Rick

Nah, that doesn't fit. There is only 32 frequencies at 101. The big difference is that DirecTV 4S is a phenominal spotbeam satellite. DirecTV 7S will be one also, if and when it gets to 119. You probably don't notice it, but with DirecTV you don't get the full picture.

[boba]

Also DISH has some very profitable/expensive ethnic programming that takes up space and unknown to many people they also offer business video conferencing.

[Mike123abc]

DIRECTV went first class with its spot beam satellites. Each satellite provides 44 transponder frequencies. They only have one satellite up now providing 44, when D-7S goes up they will have more, how many more is unclear at this time since it depends on the number of uplink sites they are going to do.

Dishnetwork went econo class. E7 and E8 each have a maximum of 25 beams for spots. So, Dish has less than 50. Dish then added 105 and 121 non spot beam, but it gives them 64 more transponders worth for locals. Dish is using some of them for internationals on 121, so it is unclear how many will end up with locals. Dish has another spot beam satellite on order for 110. I have not seen any specs on it yet, it could be better or the same than E7/E8. Dish is ahead in local markets because of the 50spots + 64 - internationals is currently more than DIRECTV.

[James Long]

E* has 50 transponder licenses at 119-110
D* has 46 transponder licenses at 101-110-119

D* has gone spotbeam crazy, serving 64 local markets on their current satellites with 41 more coming. 105 local markets will be the limit for their current constallation. D* is looking at 72.5º for additional markets, just like E* went to other birds.

A FCC ruling is pending deciding if E* can continue to split markets and offer some channels on a different bird within the same market. There have been many complaints that the "wing" dish is hard to get and not well promoted.

If D* had more slots/transponder licenses they probably would have spread out more. E* has 46 *additional* transponder licenses on their three wing locations (plus six that they lease). That doesn't count the 105/121 FSS transponders. D* has been forced to do what they can on three orbits. If D7s had not been as delayed as it is they probably would have gone for other sky space earlier. They have cut a deal for some FSS bandwidth, so we are likely to see D* follow in E*'s footsteps with 2nd dishes or even bigger dishes.

Stay tuned!

JL

[JohnH]

At last count 29 plus 21 equal the big Five OOH(50) for E* at 119/110. :D

D* is also working on a deal for additional DBS bandwidth at 72.5. Can you say "second dish" for locals. :)

[IanF]

E* has 50 transponder licenses at 119-110
D* has 46 transponder licenses at 101-110-119

D* has gone spotbeam crazy, serving 64 local markets on their current satellites with 41 more coming....
Apologies for the newbie question, but could someone explain the difference between a transponder feed and a spot beam? I can make some assumptions based on the names, but as I learned with "hot dog", "mincemeat" and "girl guide cookie", assumptions based on the name are not always a good idea... :)

[JohnH]

Transponders are located in the satellites and are devices which take a specific uplink frequency and convert it to a specific downlink frequency. Then it is amplified and transmitted to the Earth. Spotbeams may have more than one transponder, but the antenna focuses on a smaller area than what is called a ConUS(Continental US) beam. On the DISH Network signal test screen, they say "Spotbeam", but they actually mean "Transponder on a Spotbeam".

[JulienPDX]

I had DISH a while ago and now i have DirecTV

I still dont understand why DISH has to carry ALL local stations in an area when DIRECTV doesn't. We have about 25 local channels in Portland, OR but only the network affiliates are carried with DirecTV.

I personally dont give a crap about local channels and think that the satellite companies could certainly save a lot of space if they simply got rid of them altogether. If I need news, I turn to CNN or read a newspaper..and I dont care too much for "network tv" and its censorhip rules. I prefer pay-tv where I can see what i want to see when I want tos ee it.

[JohnH]

I had DISH a while ago and now i have DirecTV

I still dont understand why DISH has to carry ALL local stations in an area when DIRECTV doesn't. We have about 25 local channels in Portland, OR but only the network affiliates are carried with DirecTV.

I personally dont give a crap about local channels and think that the satellite companies could certainly save a lot of space if they simply got rid of them altogether. If I need news, I turn to CNN or read a newspaper..and I dont care too much for "network tv" and its censorhip rules. I prefer pay-tv where I can see what i want to see when I want tos ee it.

Portland, OR has nowhere near 25 channels that qualify for must carry on Satellite. -LP and -CA stations do not qualify. I suspect DirecTV carries about the same number of channels as DISH Network in the Portland, OR local package.

[IanF]

Transponders are located in the satellites and are devices which take a specific uplink frequency and convert it to a specific downlink frequency. Then it is amplified and transmitted to the Earth. Spotbeams may have more than one transponder, but the antenna focuses on a smaller area than what is called a ConUS(Continental US) beam...
Cool: thanks John! If I read this properly, the spot beams allow E* (or D*) to use a particular downlink frequency for multiple, unconnected regions: for example they could use the same freq for Boston & Seattle locals since the spot beams wouldn't overlap?

[James Long]

Apologies for the newbie question, but could someone explain the difference between a transponder feed and a spot beam?
Transponder feeds cover the entire coverage of the satellite, usually the entire US (plus Hawaii and Alaska on the newer birds) one pair of transponders from that location feeds to all subscribers.

Spot beams cover smaller portions of the country. To put it simply, instead of E* using one pair of transponders they use five pairs on the same frequency, carefully making sure that the spots don't overlap. E* has five spotbeam transponder frequencies at 110 and five at 119, each containing up to five spots each. D* has a different arrangement of spotbeams.

The FCC licenses each company for each transponder frequency. It is up to the company whether they use that frequency as one big beam or as spot beams. (That's why my counts are of transponder licenses.)

The licenses are for a channel at an orbital slot. Currently the slots are at least 9º apart, allowing a dish to tune different transponders from one satellite or another reusing the same frequencies. There are proposals to place satellites closer together, which may cause problems with current and older dishes. The dishes need to be focused better to avoid picking up the proposed new birds as interference.

JL

[Bobby94928]

Portland, OR has nowhere near 25 channels that qualify for must carry on Satellite. -LP and -CA stations do not qualify. I suspect DirecTV carries about the same number of channels as DISH Network in the Portland, OR local package.

Ya know, it's a slow day here in rainy Northern California, so I decided to check this out. DishNetwork provides 7 local channels to Portland. DirecTV provides 8. The difference is that DirecTV has the PAX channel KPXG 22. So, our originator has his head in a dark place. Not only do we not even come close to 25 local channels, DirecTV has more than Dish.... :lol:

[Mike D-CO5]

Dish uses the national feed of Pax instead of uploading all the local Pax stations.

[chelsea]

After Directv 5 is transferred from 119 to the 72.5 position, 3 more sats are coming. They'll be KA, with the first two at 99 & 103. The first KA is scheduled for this year. All 3 KA sat's will be spotbeamed for HD locals, each have space to do 500 HD's, giving a total of 1500 High Defintion chanels.

[James Long]

After Directv 5 is transferred from 119 to the 72.5 position, 3 more sats are coming. They'll be KA, with the first two at 99 & 103. The first KA is scheduled for this year. All 3 KA sat's will be spotbeamed for HD locals, each have space to do 500 HD's, giving a total of 1500 High Defintion chanels.
Not forgetting that FCC approval is still required for 72.5. It is a likely outcome, as 72.5 is a DBS slot and won't directly interfere with the US DBS slots.

KA will require bigger antennas, and a bird with that many spotbeams will be a power hog. But it is a nice dream.

JL

[Mike Richardson]

You would need one hell of a satellite to deliver 500 soptbeamed HD locals from one bird. DirecTV can currently only put 2 HDs per TP and (even that is a stretch). Each city would need at least 2 spots, for ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX. And if you assume must carry then some cities will need 4 or 5 spots.

I personally think we'll see some top markets get HD locals within the next 5 years. New York and LA even have a head start with CBS. Perhaps that is what Charlie will do with his side slots. Move all the internationals to 121 then use the sides for locals. I'd rather have an extra 18" dish instead of an OTA antenna. 3 HDs per transponder (since locals are always more compressed ;) ), 21 TPs at 61.5, is 63 HDs, roughly 10 markets. 32 TPs at 148, is 96 HDs, roughly 16 markets. Assuming 6 HDs per market.