Quetzsat 1 Successfully Launched!

[Scott Greczkowski]

Still not good for folks in Maine.

[nelson61]

I dont get anything from 77 here in Connecticut.

Quetzsat will have about double power in your area - something like 3 dbw more than Echostar 8.
But, they also talk about cross polar interference affecting reception in a small fringe area of the northeast .

[nelson61]

Satelliteguys Quetzsat 1 Satmaps


Quetzsat West

Quetzsat East

[simonhwsn]

The details for Quetzsat 1 have been filed.
No spot beams
24 transponders for Dish USA [...]
8 transponders for Dish Mexico

Does this means that Dish Mexico won't be able to increase its current available space, no new HD for us?

[Tampa8]

Satelliteguys Quetzsat 1 Satmaps


Quetzsat West

Quetzsat East

Thanks, as always very informative maps.

[ckinninger]

The details for Quetzsat 1
No spot beams
24 transponders for Dish USA with stronger signal on northern edge and larger Conus area coverage when compared to Echostar 8.
8 transponders for Dish Mexico

This looks to me like a straight swap for E*4 (8 Transponders for Dish Mexico), and E*8 (23 Transponders USA). Notice there are NO northern border locals on E*8 now and Quetzsat1 will not cover those areas.

Since Quetzsat1 won't cover northern border areas of USA it is useless for national programming. This might mean that any locals markets that are not going to be covered by Quetzsat1 could be setup with a 2 orbital dish (a la dish500) for only 61.5 and 72.7.

[simonhwsn]

Satelliteguys Quetzsat 1 Satmaps


Quetzsat West

Quetzsat East

One thing called my attention now, Am I misunderstanding these maps or the same beams cover both United States and Mexico? and if it does, why?

[nelson61]

The lack of spot beams on Quetzsat 1 makes one wonder whattheir long range plans are for the 77W slot. Why would they construct it with North American beams if they just were goingto use it for local into local service?

Some background facts:
Internationals moving off 61.5W freeing up bandwidth at 61.5W (announced).

Echostar 15 goes to spare status upon launch of Echostar 16(they noted in a filing that E16 would replace “the satellites” at 61.5W)
Echostar 16 will probably have ~50 spot beams and Conus,similar to their other newer spot beam/Conus satellites, providing three times the spot beam capacity of Echostar 12 (34 or so more spots than today). Is this enough for their spot beam requirement?

Dish will have access to the remaining 7-8 transponders onNimiq 5 at 72.5W by year end (assuming the Directv lease ends at that time).
Echostar 8, with its 32 transponders, will move to 86.5W inFeb 2012 with two beams. One will cover southern US markets (avoiding Canadian interference) and a Mexico beam.

Quetzsat 1 at 77W will have two North American beams that extend from close to the Canadian border down to Panama with 32 transponders (presently 8 Dish Mexico and 24 Dish)
Echostar 8 and Quetzsat 1 will be separated by 9.5 degrees which will fit a single dish antenna .

A mashup of the ~50 dBw reception contours of the 4 beams onE8 and Quetzsat shows the approximate reception areas for those beams (attached). The green contour is the E8 Southern Conus beam.
And, my guess for the future:

Dish/DishMexico may have a single dish solution with 64 transponders covering North America, from Panama up to the Canadian border. No one else has that capability.
Could it be they plan on creating a major network covering the entire market? They could easily combine both Spanish and English programming on the two satellites, toss in the major Mexican networks, nationals from a local city in the US and have a dynamite network with 20 million or so Spanish/English customers and still have capacity for some US local into local transmission.

And, no significant problem with cross border transmissions since, unlike US and Canada, US and Mexico have a bilateral agreement allowing access to each other’s markets.
Time will tell

[ckhalil18]

Here's what bugs me about what's happening with 61.5. They just launched Echo 15 there last year and they now they plan on launching Echo 16 next year at the same location, thus replacing Echo 15 and making it useless at that orbital. My question is that after E* launches Echo 16, can't they move Echo 15 to another orbital that needs more capacity (say 129 for example)? I know moving Echo 15 to another may decrease the life of that satellite but at least it will be in use after it would get moved. Making Echo 15 just another orbital spare just seems like a waste of capacity to me.

[nelson61]

Can't put more milk in the bottle than it will hold. The other satellites are already using 100 percent of their licensed bandwidth (minus the 148w slot).

If anything, they need another spare spot beam satellite for backup.