Transponders, spot beams and other mysteries

[10056753]

I see lots of discussion about transponders and spotbeams and satellites. I am not very technical, so bear with me. Is there a way to change the transponders that your dish is using? for instance if i see that transponder 12 on 110 has the best "reception", can I tell dish to use that one?

If so, how do i do this (pvr 501). if not, why is everyone so interested in the various readouts from the different transponders?

Thanks in advance and sorry for being ignorant.
Chi

[Mark Lamutt]

Dish maps the channels to the satellite transponders, so we have no control over that. This is really a bad analogy, but you could think of a transponder as a transmitting antenna - each transponder transmits the channels that are assigned to it. Why are people so interested in various signal strengths from the various transponders? IMO, it's just interesting stuff to talk about. :D

[10056753]

thanks mark. that helps.