I won't do it myself, but have the local Dish installer. Another thread said that transponders 5, 7, 9 and maybe 10 and 12 were spot beams for Alaska. Will the installer be able to align the dish if these are not turned on yet?
Ceil 2 is Alive and Powerful
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I won't do it myself, but have the local Dish installer. Another thread said that transponders 5, 7, 9 and maybe 10 and 12 were spot beams for Alaska. Will the installer be able to align the dish if these are not turned on yet?
I don't know if they are on yet. Several beams in the US are not even on yet. I would guess that those are not on yet either. It would be hard to point without a signal to point to unless the guy is really good with a compass....really good.
I'll ask him tomorrow.
I'll also keep an eye on this thread. Will anyone in the lower 48 be able to tell when the Alaska transponders are turned on?
If it's a spot beam, no. You have to be able to "see" the beam to tell that it's on
They might be able to tell by guide data, and the channels being made available, but not by observing the spot beam itself.
Keep an eye on the uplinks. Some beams aren't being turned on until they are used.
For instance there are two beams from 129 over my area. No signal from them yet. And one is scheduled based on the retailer chat for HD locals on Feb 18th.
I check the uplinks every day, thanks for providing them.
I'm curious to see when they turn on the Alaska transponders and what they'll do with them.
AKGolf, I am planning on swinging my old 148 antenna over to 129 in the next day or so, depending on the weather. I will post my results when I am able to get up on the roof.
I am hoping Dish does not take as long to add more national HD channels to our Ceil2 spot as they did to add content to the AK 110 spotbeam.
I am hoping Dish does not take as long to add more national HD channels to our Ceil2 spot as they did to add content to the AK 110 spotbeam.
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Sounds good, I'll wait to see what you get before I have someone come out.
From what I've read in these forums there are 5 transponders for Alaska that can hold 7 HD channels each. That will be a lot nicer, but a far cry from what the lower 48 gets.
Using a 1.8 meter,,, 6 foot anderson dish. i used to get a pretty decent signal on 129 just it was off and on due to the wobble. everyone here in my area of caribbean uses the 6 foot at 61.5 for the HD but there are a few channels missing such as TLC, science channel..
NW - minor update
TP4-5 are suppose to be the spots for this area...Seattle-Spokane. No 129transponder shows "spotbeam" at this time. 4-5 show NO reading. 15 which was showing "spotbeam" for over a month with a signal of 45 (old sat) is now showing 57 with "transponder" staying "transponder"...so I'm assuming that is Ciel2.
Told you it was a minor update.
Is a big "spotbeam" shift expected today-tonight-tomorrow, or is the spot shift expected to last several weeks?
TP4-5 are suppose to be the spots for this area...Seattle-Spokane. No 129transponder shows "spotbeam" at this time. 4-5 show NO reading. 15 which was showing "spotbeam" for over a month with a signal of 45 (old sat) is now showing 57 with "transponder" staying "transponder"...so I'm assuming that is Ciel2.
Told you it was a minor update.
Is a big "spotbeam" shift expected today-tonight-tomorrow, or is the spot shift expected to last several weeks?
I too will look forward to your results. What size antenna were you using for 148? Just wondering if a 6 footer will pick up the conus beam along with the spot beam. Seems like the map I saw showed the beam hitting eastern AK but not this far west. (Soldotna)
My 148 antenna is only a 24" dish. I originally put it up for the old national CBS HD feed. It should be ok for the spot beam, but don't have any hope it will work on the conus TPs. Unfortunately, the breaks on my truck decided to go out on me this morning, so my trip up on the roof is going to put off for a little while
My 148 antenna is only a 24" dish. I originally put it up for the old national CBS HD feed. It should be ok for the spot beam, but don't have any hope it will work on the conus TPs. Unfortunately, the breaks on my truck decided to go out on me this morning, so my trip up on the roof is going to put off for a little while
That's what I got my small dish for, looks like we'll still get some use from them.
I've got a large Dish pointed at 110(4-6ft?), a medium size(?) at 119 and a small(30") at 148.
I posted signal strengths in the Uplink Center. I hope Dish allows us to subscribe because we can get transponders 17-32 with a six foot dish.
I tried to to swing my 24" antenna over to 129 on saturday without any success. I was fighting my SW64 switch and was not sure that the spot beams were lit up so I did not spend a lot of time with it. (On a side note, I was able to lock up on nearly all the 110 tps with the 24" dish, although there was not much margin on the conus beam. I am currently using a 1 meter antenna for 110 with plenty of signal strength.)
I was sure hoping that we would get lucky with a 3' or 4' dish on the ceil2 conus tps. I have a toriodal 90 antenna I bought several years ago as an experiment hoping to use it as a large "dish 500" antenna. At the time, it did not have enough gain for 110, so it went into the shed. I thought that maybe it might work now for 119, 110 and 129, but in looking at the numbers you posted with the 6' antenna, I'm not sure its even worth trying.
I realy don't have the space or want to spend the money on a 6' antenna just for 129. If Dish doesn't expand our national HD package with the Ceil2 AK spot beam soon, I may seriously look at moving over to Direct.
I doubt they will let you subscribe to the national HD on 129 as thats in an unsupported coverage area...outside of the satellite's designed coverage area. So I doubt they will want to support you watching that signal since something could change on the bird...little lower power..etc..that would cause you to lose them even with an 8 foot dish. Then they would have customer(s) complaining that they removed the channels.
I can see where that would be a problem, but years ago before they put up the new sat at 110 I installed that six foot dish so that I could get the sports channels. There was no problem getting activated for those even though they were not available to the average Dish customer in Alaska. They could still say the Alaska HD package consists of a certain number of channels, but if I have the capabilty to get them don't block them. Most customers wouldn't know.
I would hate to lose the locals, but if it means I have access to a ton of new HD I'll be packing. I still have the OTA channels.
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