[wegotdatwood]

I originally signed up with Dish (blindly not knowing anything) and they came out to set it up and a tree branch was in the way. They said they couldn't install, so I called to cancel.

DTV came out after I called them and they could. The teach said DTV has 7 and Dish has 3 satellites.

Was he telling the truth? or full of crap?

 

[Davenlr]

Dish has more than 3 satellites, they are just located in different directions. Apparently the tree branch wasnt in the way of the DirecTv satellites.

 

[HoTat2]

DIRECTV currently has 11 satellites in operation, 5 Ka band and 6 Ku.

Though the status of 1 Ku one, old DIRECTV 1R at 110w, is not active and was initially headed for disposal, but is now in the process of being transfered to another service.

Not sure about dish, but according to the EKB they own or lease space on some 14 satellites divided among two (Eastern and Western) orbital arcs.

http://www.dishuser.org/satellites.php

 

[fleckrj]

I think the technician might be confusing satellites with slots. The "slot" is longitude at which the satellites are parked. There can be more than one satellite in the same slot.

With DirecTV, one dish can receive the signal from the 99, 101, 103, 110, and 119 slot. As has been previously posted, the DirecTV satellite in the 110 slot is not being used at the moment. Some west cost locals, a few music channels, and some foreign language channels come from the 119 slot, but the vast majority of DirecTV subscribers only need to be able to see the 99, 101, and 103 slots.

I am not as familiar with the location of the Dish satellites. It is likely that the tree that blocked line of sight to the Dish slot is not blocking the DirecTV slots.

 

[veryoldschool]

Couple of things:
110 is still broadcasting, but who knows what.

The SAT count isn't as important as the transponder count.

 

[veryoldschool]

Using Lynsat for echostar:
61.5º 17 tps
72.7º 32 tps
77º 7 tps
110º 29 tps
119º 21 tps
121º 6 tps
129º 32 tps

144 total

Using my DirecTV receiver:

99º 30 tps
101º 32 tps
103º 46 tps
119º 11 tps

119 total

Feel free to add more to this.

 

[HobbyTalk]

Dish also has sats at 72.7 (32 tps), 118.7 & 129 (32 tps).

For the common Dish customer they will use either 61, 72.7 & 77 or 110, 119 & 129 to get all of their programming. 118.7 is used for international programming.

 

[veryoldschool]

Dish also has sats at 72.7, 118.7 & 129.

72.7º 32 tps
118.7º is grouped in 119º
129º 32 tps

 

[carl6]

Dish also has sats at 72.7 (32 tps), 118.7 & 129 (32 tps).

For the common Dish customer they will use either 61, 72.7 & 77 or 110, 119 & 129 to get all of their programming. 118.7 is used for international programming.

Yes, with Dish you have an eastern arc and a western arc. Typically a Dish customer only gets service from one of the arcs.

And, as noted before, the majority of DirecTV customers only get service from 99, 101 and 103.

Both companies also offer private channels for business use. So you can't really do any valid comparison of the two based on the number of satellites in orbit, or even the number of orbital slots used (regardless of how many satellites are at a given slot).

 

[veryoldschool]

Now for the usefulness of these:

61.5º has an EL of about 27º in Denver & 14º on the west coast.
72.7º 34º Denver & 22º west coast
77º 37º Denver & 25º west coast

99º 37º west coast & 35º east coast
101º 38º west coast & 35º east coast
103º 39º west coast & 34º east coast
110º 30º east coast
119º 24º east coast

121º 23º east coast
129º 38º Denver & 18º east coast

61.5º, 72.7º, & [maybe] 77º, need to be repeated on 121º & 129º

 

[veryoldschool]

International programing is a bit of a wildcard, as I didn't count the 95º SAT, but DirecTV uses 119º for some of it.

 

[HoTat2]

DIRECTV currently has 11 satellites in operation, 5 Ka band and 6 Ku.

Though the status of 1 Ku one, old DIRECTV 1R at 110w, is not active and was initially headed for disposal, but is now in the process of being transfered to another service.

Not sure about dish, but according to the EKB they own or lease space on some 14 satellites divided among two (Eastern and Western) orbital arcs.

http://www.dishuser.org/satellites.php

Couple of things:
110 is still broadcasting, but who knows what.

The SAT count isn't as important as the transponder count.

To clarify;

I was referring to DIRECTV-1R at its present relocation of 110w since relieved of its duties of providing local channel service at 72.5w, is inactive and was initially to serve as a backup to the active though unused at the moment, DIRECTV-5 (Tempo-1).

However, later DIRECTV apparently changed their mind and filed for D1R's disposal. Now DIRECTV has postponed that plan and filed for an additional STA to allow time for negotiation with an unspecified firm for its transfer to them for some other unknown service.

 

[yosoyellobo]

Using Lynsat for echostar:
61.5º 17 tps
72.7º 32 tps
77º 7 tps
110º 29 tps
119º 21 tps
121º 6 tps
129º 32 tps

144 total

Using my DirecTV receiver:

99º 30 tps
101º 32 tps
103º 46 tps
119º 11 tps

119 total

Feel free to add more to this.

Could you translate this into channel count.

 

[veryoldschool]

Could you translate this into channel count.

That gets much harder.

 

[Christopher Gould]

Transponder counting isn't prefect either if the Ka are wider bandwidth than the Ku. Am I correct.

 

[veryoldschool]

Transponder counting isn't prefect either if the Ka are wider bandwidth than the Ku. Am I correct.

Right, not much of this is "perfect".
The spaceways have large bandwidth TPs, but the others "I think" are very close in bandwidth [in MHz].

 

[maartena]

Could you translate this into channel count.

It's like saying.... "Dish has 7 buses and DirecTV has 5 buses". But, Dish may have 7 buses that can carry 30 passengers, where DirecTV has 5 buses that can carry 45, giving DirecTV the ability to carry 15 more passengers.

What the load is on each satellite, and what its capacity is, is a whole different ballgame. There are a few topics in both the Dish and DirecTV forums that try to analyze what is happening with all the satellites.

Both companies can carry thousands of HD channels, but 80% of those are configured on local spot beams for local market channels.

 

[hasan]

It's like saying.... "Dish has 7 buses and DirecTV has 5 buses". But, Dish may have 7 buses that can carry 30 passengers, where DirecTV has 5 buses that can carry 45, giving DirecTV the ability to carry 15 more passengers.

What the load is on each satellite, and what its capacity is, is a whole different ballgame. There are a few topics in both the Dish and DirecTV forums that try to analyze what is happening with all the satellites.

Both companies can carry thousands of HD channels, but 80% of those are configured on local spot beams for local market channels.

...and 80% (or more) are not worth watching, so it makes the whole numbers game downright silly, if not irrelevant.

The real issue is which service carries the "must have" or majority of "want to watch" channels. Whose bus is bigger or has more seats, or bigger seats actually counts for next to nothing.

It's all about content, not quantity, so the channel count/transponder count/bandwidth stuff is, for the most part a red herring. (although a discussion of bandwidth vs quality of picture can be a meaningful discussion)

Of course, this is all nothing more than my opinion, but it struck me as funny that consumers can be impressed by raw numbers, losing sight of the fact garbage in = garbage out, no matter how many cans might be available.

 

[evan_s]

Yeah. Trying to make any comparison based on sats or orbital slots or tps is gonna fail. As has already been mentioned Dish basically has 2 set of sats with the majority of the programing duplicated on both sets. Locals, international channels and some small interest channels are only on one arc or the other.

Also as has been pointed out DirecTV's KA tps are wider then the standard KU tp and actually have 2 different widths in use. The spaceway tp's are 68mhz if memory serves and the d10/11/12 tps are 40mhz while ku tps are 32mhz.

Beyond that you have to consider the encoding type, amount of FEC (forward error correction) and Symbol rate to finally end up with an actual usable bandwidth for the provided video.

Ultimately at thing point I think both providers have enough HD to have the majority of what most people want in HD. Individual interests may make one better than the other for some people but both should be sufficient for most.

 

[HoTat2]

... Also as has been pointed out DirecTV's KA tps are wider then the standard KU tp and actually have 2 different widths in use. The spaceway tp's are 68mhz if memory serves and the d10/11/12 tps are 40mhz while ku tps are 32mhz. ...

To note:

The Spaceway Tp. bandwidth is 62.5 MHz, D10-12 is 36 MHz ± 2 MHz guard band and Ku is 24 MHz.