Dallas/Ft. Worth HD-LIL: Which orbital location will they be?

[120inna55]

Whenever the DFW HD locals are made available, which location will they be on? 61.5, I hope.

 

[Satch0922]

I can't answer your question but Dish told me last night that we are a month or two away from getting the locals in HD.

 

[MikeD-C05]

NO they should be on the 129 slot. Anywhere south of Victoria , Texas can not see the 129 satellite or the following dmas: Harlegin, Corpus Christi and Laredo. The rest of the state CAN see the 129 satellite. You will need a Dish 1000 to see your hd locals.

 

[120inna55]

Hmmm...

I was under the impression that 61.5 mirrored 129. Do I have to go the Dish1000 route or can a Dish500 be put in place of my 300, or perhaps another 300? It's just very difficult and tricky to have all the LNBs in one place on my roof given the tree environment.

 

[astrosfan]

129 and 61.5 do mirror each other generally on the big networks, I believe that locals go on ONLY one or the other. Also is true of some of the international channels. I live northwest of San Antonio and have both Austin and San Antonio Locals(though only 2 fron SA which seems pretty weird). So I expect I'll get the dish 1000 for 129et al. But I've heard no official announcement on this issue and you would think they would have already decided so people can get the right dishes.

 

[120inna55]

So, is it a reasonable strategy to simply stay put for now, since my HD-LILs aren't even available, yet. Then when they do become available, assuming they're on 129, simply aim my current 300 that's pointed @ 61.5 to 129? Will I lose something by switching off 61.5? I seem to recall having to make a decision on CBS-HD E or W, prior to the 61.5 install. Of course with HD-LIL's it won't matter to me.

 

[MikeD-C05]

You're hd mpeg4 locals for Dallas will be on the 129 slot. The big four sd locals are on the main bird dish 500- 110 or 119 sat. The lesser locals in sd will be on the 129 slot as well for Dallas . The idea is to get all your locals ( analog ones only since no rules for hd yet ) on ONE Dish like the Fcc ordered . Dish must be in compliance with this new rule by the End of May 2006. This is why they want the new echostar 10 sat up and running so they can end the split locals on the top 36 markets. The Dish 1000 satellite dish will accomplish this by putting all your sd locals for Dallas and a bonus for you is to have your hd locals on one satellite Dish.

 

[120inna55]

But is the Dish 1000 entirely necessary? Can I not just point my current Dish 300 (61.5) to 129 when the HD-LILs are available? At that point, will 61.5 be necessary?

 

[MikeD-C05]

The 61.5 sat will be usefull for the rest of the country that can't see the 129 sat. They need to come up with a three satellite slot for the east coast and the rest of the country that can't see the 129 slot. Yes you could just point your second dish to the 129 slot and still accomplish the same thing as the Dish 1000. Most people don't want two dishes on their house. If you could get everything with one dish it cuts down on switches, numerous satellite dish combinations like the superdish, and a side sat dish etc. Directv has a 5 satellite dish slot, single dish combination that they are using now , so even the competition is doing it too.

 

[120inna55]

Yes you could just point your second dish to the 129 slot and still accomplish the same thing as the Dish 1000. Most people don't want two dishes on their house.

This is great news to me, though. I don't want anything messed with, because the dish installation was so difficult on my house. It's hard to explain, but because my house is so "tall" with a metal roof and very close tall trees, the line of site windows were very difficult to obtain. As a result, the Dish 500 and Dish 300 are on opposite sides of my roof. Given the orientation of my house, they are not eyesores. I just didn't want to have to mess with yet another relocation. Hopefully the 300 will be able to easily aimed towards 129. I guess we'll see.

 

[MikeD-C05]

You may not need the second dish because with the Dish 1000 you can see all three satellites from the same space as the Dish 500 . When you aim the Dish 1000 and get it peaked on the 119 satellite , you will also get the 129 slot. The skew and azmuith and elevation were a little different than the traditional Dish 500 . You will get less strength on the 110 and 119 satellite with a dish 1000 but you will get the 129 slot as well. I did my own install and used the directions that came with it and it was easy.

I get signal strengths that vary on the different transponders of :

119 / 90-95 strength
110 / 85- 98 strength
129 / 75 -87 strength

I'm in the southeast part of Texas , 90 miles from Houston dma. These are good signal strengths. You might do as well if not better if you use two dishes because you can peak the dish 500 for the strongest signal for 110 and 119. The side dish toward 129 might be easier to peak as well by someone who knows what they are doing. I tried to do my side dish pointed at 61.5 toward the 129 slot but I kept getting the 119 slot no matter what I did.

Good luck and I hope it works out for you the way you want it to.

 

[120inna55]

I won't mess with any of it until the DFW HD-LILs are actually available. Then I'll just pay a local guy to move the 61.5 dish to the 129 slot. I just noticed that you're in Nederland. My wife has relatives down there.

Thanks for your help.

 

[KeithInDallas]

But is the Dish 1000 entirely necessary? Can I not just point my current Dish 300 (61.5) to 129 when the HD-LILs are available? At that point, will 61.5 be necessary?

I have the same situation... two dishes, a 500 getting 110 & 199, and a second dish pointed at 61.5. My understanding is the only thing NOT mirrored on 129 is CBS East Coast (NY) HD. So the 129 will be necessary for the the Dallas LiL's, and if you want to have the CBS east coast feed as well, you would still need the 61.5 dish (but I see no reason you can't receive 129 on a seperate dish instead of a 1000 if you want).

I have wondered if they would still make the east coast feed available once they have the LiL HD's available, but since the whole deal with the CBS is that its an O&O, my guess is that it will be... but it's just a guess. I will be interested to see how it works once the locals are available.