Local channel reception

[fivecatz]

What determines the reception of which local channels a receiver gets?


A neighbor has a satellite system and when he takes a second receiver with him to his vacation home, he can get the local channels from his hometown. The vacation home is 500 miles away from his hometown.

Is the reception set in the receiver (the receiver doesn't know where it is physically located)?

Is it based on the positioning of the dish?


Just curious....thanks

[scooper]

A bit more info is required -

WHICH CITY locals is he getting ?

IS he on D* or E* ?

Most cities are on spot beams, which means if he leaves your spot, reception will stop. However, if your locals are NY or LA (add Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, and Denver), these are on CONUS beams. There are also some 119 on D* and some locals on 110 from E* that are still on CONUS beams.

[fivecatz]

He is on Dish Network and gets Tampa (his hometown) local stations at his vacation home north of Atlanta.

Sorry, I don't understand D* or E*

[Nick]

Locals eligibility is based on the subs address of record. Once that is established, the DBS provider has no way of knowing if the receiver has been moved. There is no 'uplinked' data returned to the provider via the satellite.

However, for locals to be received at another location, the alternate antenna must still be within the footprint for that DMA.

[scooper]

D* = DirecTv
E* = Echostar (or Dish Network)

Apparently, his vacation home is still within the current footprint of whatever he receives the Tampa locals on. Since most of the Tampa stations are on 110, they are still on CONUS beams (see this http://www.dbstalk.com/dish_network.htm ). This will be changing shortly when E8 comes on line.

[fivecatz]

Thanks both for the info.

Nick, by "with the footprint for DME" do you mean that the alternate antenna would have to be set to the Tampa coordinates?

Sorry to be stupid, but I can't figure out how he can do it with Dish and I can't do it with Direct ---and he's not talking :-).

Thanks again.

[scooper]

Fivecatz - you're being real dense -

As explained - For DirectTV - Tampa locals are on a spotbeam. These spots are typically 250 miles (or less) in radius - meaning if you go 300 miles away, you probably can't get them.

For Dish, RIGHT NOW, Tampa locals are on a transponder that goes to the whole CONtinental US (CONUS for short). This is why your friend CURRENTLY can get the Tampa locals from his vacation house north of Atlanta. However, Echostar just launched a new satellite, with more spotbeams on it. One of those spotbeams will probably be aimed at Tampa. Once that happens, your friend will not be able to get Tampa north of Atlanta either.

All this is done from the satellite. Dish aiming is done strictly on which satellite you're aiming at and your location on earth.

[Nick]

"do you mean that the alternate antenna would have to be set to the Tampa coordinates"

No. The azimuth (az) and elelvation (el) coordinates change as the geographical location of the receiving antenna (dish) changes. There are predetermined az and el coordinates for each Zip code which are programmed into the receiver. All the user has to do is enter the proper Zip for the physical location of the dish, then aim the dish to those settings.

Keep in mind that the receiving dish is looking a fixed point in the sky, As you move around the surface of the earth, the az and el angles to the sat change.

For example, If you were walking the streets of NYC looking up at the top of the Empire State building as you moved around the city, the horizontal and vertical angles, or 'look' angles would constantly change as you moved from on place to another.

Hope this helps. :)

[fivecatz]

yes, scooper I AM dense (and old too), but I've read and re-read your earlier replies and I don't see where you had already

"explained - For DirectTV - Tampa locals are on a spotbeam"

Must be blind too - lol.

Thanks again to both Nick and scooper