NYC HD Locals

[RobR7]

The official HD channels for the NYC area are at 6300-6303, but it seems that the regular channel numbers 2, 4, 5 & 7 come in HD as well. (Is it possible 6ks are slightly better in PQ?)

Now since I have two dishes, I'm hoping these two sets of channels are coming in from two different Sats so I can make "just in case" recordings for the must have shows. I used to do this with D* with the SD versions but with the one dish. I'm hoping if one is blocked, iced, etc... the other can pick up the alternate sig.

Am I smoking the happy pipe?

[garys]

The vip's can map down whatever set you want or have none. The default is for HD. If you are thinking that if mapped down 5 is lost due to signal loss that 6303 will be ok, this will not work because software is putting same channel at both places and both locations will not have anything recorded (and doubt pq would be different, if it is you may have another type of problem). If you are thinking using 8103 as a backup, then yes it is possible to have that as a backup, but it will not be HD. Hopefully if one dish 'ices up' that both aren't. Either way you may still be smoked up.

[RobR7]

Ah... my mistake, I thought these were channels mirrored amongst different sats and not software pointers. I can go about and still use the SD trick I suppose or maybe if I get a better OTA antenna for backups.

The angle of my last dish made it more prone to icing as melted snow or rain, etc... got to pool up in the dish. Also, with my two dish config one actualy clears the treeline better than the other (also where the orig dish was). I'm just looking into a few tricks to keep the wife from asking about cable again cause we missed a show... ;)

[garys]

The trick you are trying to accomplish, if you can get your ota would help and would not use up an existing tuner (being you are talking about dvr and mapped down hd channels, you have a 622). Only other way would be if you have distant locals which air same program at a different time then your locals. However, if you are wanting the programs in HD then you are left with what you currently have plus the ota. As far as losing signals, ice and snow do not effect the signal quality to the point you lose the signal in most cases. Only time would be when you have a heavy 'wet' snow. You would only have to clean the dish and the signal comes back. The only time where loss of signal is during heavy rain storms. No one has figured out how to get around that. Of course I'm not counting loss of power, a home generator would take care of that or wire down, with dish the wire would be from dish to receiver (with cable - who know how long till you get your signal back. Good luck.

[RobR7]

Trust me on this one, ice was the biggest disruptor of sig I had when I was with D*... and going up three floors to clear it off wasn't fun. Either way of course I had to go up there, but not something I liked to do at night, especially if we were talking about ice. ;)

Anywho... was just a thought. :) Thanks.