Echostar 14 update

nelson61

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Things are moving along. Yesterday, Dish/Echostar filed applications for communication between E14 and their various ground stations.
 
Is there a specific Launch Date yet?
Not yet. According to the latest posted launch schedule, E14 is set for Early March 2010.
Planned Russian space launches

2010
Date – Satellite(s) – Rocket/Upper stage – Cosmodrome – Time
January 28 – Raduga-1M (Globus-1M) – Proton-M/Briz-M – Baikonur
February 3 – Progress M-04M (No. 404) – Soyuz-U – Baikonur – 03:45:31 UTC
February 11-20 – three Kosmos (Glonass-M) satellites – Proton-M/DM-2 – Baikonur
February 12 – Intelsat 16 – Proton-M/Briz-M – Baikonur
February 25 – CryoSat-2 – Dnepr – Baikonur – 13:57 UTC
February – Gonets-M No. 2, Kosmos, Kosmos – Rokot/Briz-KM – Plesetsk
February – Prisma (Mango), Prisma (Tango), Picard – Dnepr – Dombarovskiy
beginning of March – EchoStar 14 – Proton-M/Briz-M – Baikonur
 
What dish?

Will my existing dish receive this?

Don't know what dish & since it isn't know for sure where it's going then it's a guess. Gunter's is only reporting March of 2010 but not the exact date. There 2 sats to go up on the 18th via the shuttle and that is only date certain listed in March. 2 possible guesses though 77 & 61.5. Then that could give them something to move to 148 to hold it's place.
 
Don't know what dish & since it isn't know for sure where it's going then it's a guess. Gunter's is only reporting March of 2010 but not the exact date. There 2 sats to go up on the 18th via the shuttle and that is only date certain listed in March. 2 possible guesses though 72.7 & 61.5. Then that could give them something to move to 148 to hold it's place.

E-14 is designed for 119 to replace E7. Compared to satellites such as E10 and Ciel2, E7 has a very poor spotbeam utilization, but it was the first Echostar spotbeam satellite.

Shuttle?? Scroll up a few posts... "EchoStar 14 – Proton-M/Briz-M – Baikonur"

Also 72.7 already has a brand new bird.
 
correct my post

E-14 is designed for 119 to replace E7. Compared to satellites such as E10 and Ciel2, E7 has a very poor spotbeam utilization, but it was the first Echostar spotbeam satellite.

Shuttle?? Scroll up a few posts... "EchoStar 14 – Proton-M/Briz-M – Baikonur"

Also 72.7 already has a brand new bird.

You got to my post before I had switched it to 77. Although 119 doesn't surprise me either as I was looking at it no long after I posted. Then 15 is most likely going to 61.5?
 
after E14... what will happen to E7?

So Echostar 14 is just about ready... what will DN do to Echostar 7, will it continue servicing 119 along with E14 or will it move to another orbital position?
 
What kind of upgrade is this?

More Bandwidth?
I am assuming better quality and technology?
Ability to add more channels?

Sorry for the silly questions, I don't know anything about the satellites but am going to learn.

Thanks, ;)
The addition of many more spots will fill in the gaps in coverage that some areas have. E* may be able to clear off a TP or two from 119. Until E* goes all mpeg4 or strikes a deal with D* to acquire TP's at 110/119, there can not be any huge increase in TP space. Right now, the only way to clear CONUS TP's (for new HD channels) is to use spots for all locals.
 
The addition of many more spots will fill in the gaps in coverage that some areas have. E* may be able to clear off a TP or two from 119. Until E* goes all mpeg4 or strikes a deal with D* to acquire TP's at 110/119, there can not be any huge increase in TP space. Right now, the only way to clear CONUS TP's (for new HD channels) is to use spots for all locals.

I believe there are very few if any locals on CONUS TPs especially at 119 W where E-14 is going. E-14 should have increased power for CONUS TPs over that of E-7 which would reduce rainfade. The big upgrade of E-14 is its spotbeam capacity although not all of it might be useable for Dish until the conversion to at least 8PSK on the CONUS TPs if not MPEG-4 for the Western Arc. Without this conversion, the number of spotbeam TPs for E-14 is limited to 5, the number that E-7 uses for spotbeams at 119 W unless CONUS programming is moved from 119 W to 110 W. It needs to be recognized that as Dish converts to 8PSK and later MPEG-4 on the Western Arc, the number of CONUS TPs at 110 W and 119 W can be reduced since Dish can greatly increase the number of SD channels per TP. Dish needs to do this to allow for more TPs to be freed up for use as spotbeam TPs to provide HD locals. This is where the need for E-14 comes in because of its major increase in spotbeam capacity over that of E-7.
 
Even with just 5 TPs initially available for spot beams on E-14, I suspect they will have a lot more capacity since there will be many more smaller spots. The E7 spots are pretty large and sparse. A technical marvel at its time, now outdated.

I think a lot of it will probably be held in reserve. Dish needs to build up its backup capability in case of satellite failure. If they lose spots (or even a whole satellite) at either 110 or 129 they will be pretty stuck. They need to start building up reserve spot capacity.
 
Weren't those D* birds the ones originally intended for internet use, and were "repurposed?" Or have I got them confused with birds launched later?

BTW, it's been many years since the shuttle was allowed to be considered for commercial satellites. Didn't seem cost effective, anyway.
 
Is dish making more of a burden to have to support Six satellites? Seems like having two arcs is going to be more trouble than it's worth at some point. Isn't direct trying to reduce it's dish count? Maybe digi or someone can point me to the error of my thinking.
 
Most installs are only one dish. The eastern arc allows them to provide signals to customers that had line of sight issues before. Some cant even get signal from DirecTV, but they can get eastern arc fine.

E14 is needed as it will replace the E7 and its large inefficient spotbeams. E14 will allow them to provide more local HD markets. Plus they need as many satellites as they can get. If they had a failure right now they would be in a world of hurt.