I think if Dish were smart, they'd replace that sat at 129 ASAP rather than having to have West coast subs add a big dish just to help prevent drop-outs on the low-side of the wobble.
The 129 orbital slot is owned by Ciel, a Canadian DBS company. They are launching a new bird for that slot in late 2008. My understanding is that Echostar will be leasing transponders on the new satellite. Of course late 2008 still puts us 2 years out on a definite solution.
It is improved over my original Dish 500 w/ I bracket. I am at least 5 percentage points higher. I hadn't looked at the numbers right before the upgrade, but I no longer have the dropouts on Monsters HD every 20 minutes like I used to.
Our clouds here are always around, but typically thinner than an Oklahoma storm cloud, although we've had heavier rains than I recall this month. I moved up here from Corpus Christi so I'm used to heavy clouds.
