Hero's and Icons #29 now only in Spanish, WTF

[Josh.M]

I do not get channel 293, channel 29 is there and has the Hero's and Icons logo but is now in spanish. There is no english version of this channel that I can find. I guess I will need to call them on Monday.

Feel free to DM me your receiver ID and I can take a look

 

[Bobby]

I am on Western Arc

Thanks! I have this figured out thanks to Josh.M. The reason I don't see channel 293 is that I have a DISH local channel that carries H&I so it blacks out the national feed. So, it seems that the channel change is not set up correctly at DISH for H2Guy. I've asked Josh.M to drop in and maybe fix it for him.

 

[zippyfrog]

Thanks! I have this figured out thanks to Josh.M. The reason I don't see channel 293 is that I have a DISH local channel that carries H&I so it blacks out the national feed. So, it seems that the channel change is not set up correctly at DISH for H2Guy. I've asked Josh.M to drop in and maybe fix it for him.

Got it - basically the same setup when Dish had MeTV where here in Chicago, MeTV is a local channel, so the national channel was hidden/blacked out.

 

[That American Girl]

Got it - basically the same setup when Dish had MeTV where here in Chicago, MeTV is a local channel, so the national channel was hidden/blacked out.

Ah! That makes more sense then.

 

[Almighty1]

Thanks! I have this figured out thanks to Josh.M. The reason I don't see channel 293 is that I have a DISH local channel that carries H&I so it blacks out the national feed. So, it seems that the channel change is not set up correctly at DISH for H2Guy. I've asked Josh.M to drop in and maybe fix it for him.

Just out of curiosity, what is the DISH local channel that carries H&I as we are both in the SFO Bay Area even though I am in the actual city of SF and I didn't see 293 in the channel guide either. Thanks!

 

[KyL416]

Just out of curiosity, what is the DISH local channel that carries H&I as we are both in the SFO Bay Area even though I am in the actual city of SF and I didn't see 293 in the channel guide either. Thanks!

In San Francisco, H&I is on KTLN/68

 

[H2Guy]

Plot thickens, Gave Dish a call about the H&I issue and how in the Eastern Arc the chan is now 293 and works fine but not available for me in the Western ARC. After about 1 hour of diagnostics on both my 922's and my Wally even though the advanced tech support could not find a problem with my equipment nor programming they want to dispatch a technician (for a fee of course). I tried to query the tech to find out exactly what they think the problem was but didn't get an answer.

Personally, I am wondering when they rehomed CH293 from the de-commissioned satellite and moved it to 119 I am wondering if perhaps I don't have an LNB that can actually get that channel. Dumb question, could this be a bandwidth problem of my LNB?

All signals are fine, switch checks out good no errors other then the red X on the decomissioned sat on both the Wally and 922's.
Please understand this is a lot of speculation on my part at this point because I can't get a real answer from Dish. It made more sense when Josh said that 293 was just blacked out in my area but Dish says not the case.

I guess we will see once the tech arrives, anyway they did try to sell me an upgrade from my 922's again obviously unsuccessful, lol.

 

[Bobby]

Feel free to DM me your receiver ID and I can take a look

Plot thickens, Gave Dish a call about the H&I issue and how in the Eastern Arc the chan is now 293 and works fine but not available for me in the Western ARC. After about 1 hour of diagnostics on both my 922's and my Wally even though the advanced tech support could not find a problem with my equipment nor programming they want to dispatch a technician (for a fee of course). I tried to query the tech to find out exactly what they think the problem was but didn't get an answer.

Personally, I am wondering when they rehomed CH293 from the de-commissioned satellite and moved it to 119 I am wondering if perhaps I don't have an LNB that can actually get that channel. Dumb question, could this be a bandwidth problem of my LNB?

All signals are fine, switch checks out good no errors other then the red X on the decomissioned sat on both the Wally and 922's.
Please understand this is a lot of speculation on my part at this point because I can't get a real answer from Dish. It made more sense when Josh said that 293 was just blacked out in my area but Dish says not the case.

I guess we will see once the tech arrives, anyway they did try to sell me an upgrade from my 922's again obviously unsuccessful, lol.

Did you start that conversation with Josh.M as he requested. He works for DISH and has the ability to get this fixed for you. He is not a CSR who knows nothing. He has fixed several other similar issues.

 

[H2Guy]

Yes, I provided the details to Josh as requested,

Josh checked out 293 and said my area was under negotations for this channel.

I had called Dish about the status of the others that were not being received as well and I mentioned 293 as part of the list.

I originally wasn't even going to mention 293 because of what Josh told me but they wanted to know exactly what I thought I was paying for but missing I mentioned about H&I and 293 that's when he told me that my area is supposed to get 293 and there is more then likely a problem with my equipment and they need to dispatch a tech for.

Bottom line was the tech could not tell me exactly what the problem was or what the solution would be just it could not be done on their end.

 

[tjboston5676]

If it's truly blacked out, csr will rarely be able to give you a straight answer. Surely you have family or friends or even a Facebook group for your town that you can ask others to check the channel at their house.
Also it's possible to have a bad lnb and not all transponder work and only causing us dues on a handful of channels but this happens to be the only affected channel you watch.
Im in an eastern arc area so hard to check but if they are saying the channel should be there and is included in your plan, that's the only two things it could be, blacked out or bad lnb.

 

[H2Guy]

tjboston, great suggestion! I called a friend that lives about a mile away that has a Hopper and a better package than me, he has the same result, ch 29 in Spanish even though it shows Hero's and Icons and the programming incorrect as well, He can't tune to 293 also same as meand that channel doesn't exist for him either.

Bottom line, Josh and the others here are correct, blacked out in my area (or maybe even the western arc too). Gonna call back Dish again on Monday and tell them to forget the service call (and the fee they wanted to charge me tool for a service call obviously it will be a waste of time).

I hate to say it but Dish needs to get there Duck's in a row, it's so sad, they would have dispatched a tech, given me a bill and fixed nothing. I have to rely on experts on this forum to get the correct information because Dish tech support cannot seem to provide accurate or correct information over the phone. I must say it really pisses me off, H&I was one of my favorites and now it probably gone forever, so far the other 3 channels not available have been that way since the beginning of the year.

 

[DishSubLA]

Perhaps an error on the table Dish sent that maps channels in the STB. Perhaps this messed up table could be in a number of STB's until corrected with new table
OR
CORRECT table but programmed with incorrect restrictions (policy or misunderstanding of policy restrections rights) regarding mapping and what a particular subscriber is NOT allowed to view.

I believe in the past, other Dish subs have reported such a problem with messed up tables. Also, there have been a few TiVo DVR's that did not get the proper table update and those subs had to actually talk to engineers at local stations to iron the thing out so they could get their channel. Messed up tables are relatively RARE, but they do rear their ugly head from time to time.

 

[H2Guy]

Perhaps an error on the table Dish sent that maps channels in the STB. Perhaps this messed up table could be in a number of STB's until corrected with new table
OR
CORRECT table but programmed with incorrect restrictions (policy or misunderstanding of policy restrections rights) regarding mapping and what a particular subscriber is NOT allowed to view.

I believe in the past, other Dish subs have reported such a problem with messed up tables. Also, there have been a few TiVo DVR's that did not get the proper table update and those subs had to actually talk to engineers at local stations to iron the thing out so they could get their channel. Messed up tables are relatively RARE, but they do rear their ugly head from time to time.

Which leads me to come to the conclusion that having a Tech come out for a service call will be useless correct?

 

[Bobby]

Which leads me to come to the conclusion that having a Tech come out for a service call will be useless correct?

Very much so...

 

[H2Guy]

After about 2 hours and talking with at least 3 CSR's and repeating the same thing over and over I did manage to get to a resolution specialist who actually understood the problem and connected to my Wally receiver confirming the issue.

She mentioned that channel 293 was not in my market area and I should not expect to get it (as Josh had mentioned prior).

It was also confirmed according to her info Channel 29 should actually be Hero's and Icon's and not some spanish channel. I did mention about a friend that lives close by with the same problem and she would escalate the issue to Engineering thinking there may be a table or mapping issue.

She said the scheduled service call was a waste of time, cancelled that and removed the service contract a CSR had placed on my account which was a good thing, saved me a phone call later in the month. (or thank you!)

She advised me to check channel 29 from time to time to see if the problem gets resolved. I could call back in if needed, apparently they have no way for her to call me back with an update or for me to directly get back to her. (after the fire drill it took to get to her probably not I have no want to do that again)

One thing she did say was I should tell all of my friends or people that I know that watch H&I with the same problem to call it in. The more complaints that Dish gets the more likely it will be resolved quicker.... Oh well, I will give it a few weeks and see what happens, based on the track history probably I'm not expecting much. I would consider an external antenna to get back all 4 of the channels lost but being in the mountains precludes this.

All in all and considering the issues I have had with Dish over the last 6 months maybe after 15 years it time to Dump Dish and reconsider moving back to Comcast/Xfinity.

For me bundled with my Internet service already provided by Comcast I would actually save me some money too.

Frustration asside, I hate to say this but from the attitude and lack of expertise I get from some of the people I talk to at Dish I think they could care less if they lost another customer....

It just takes to much to get problems resolved and it's so sad to have to resort to experts on this forum to get good answers.

In the end its still up to Dish to get the issues fixed most of the time.

 

[KyL416]

It was also confirmed according to her info Channel 29 should actually be Hero's and Icon's and not some spanish channel. I did mention about a friend that lives close by with the same problem and she would escalate the issue to Engineering thinking there may be a table or mapping issue.
...
She advised me to check channel 29 from time to time to see if the problem gets resolved.

That CSR clearly has no idea what she is talking about. KUPT/29 dropped their H&I affiliation back in 2021 when Ramar sold their New Mexico stations to NBCU/Telemundo and Albuquerque's H&I affiliation moved to a subchannel of Hubbard's KOB:

Title (All As Amended)	Dates	Relevant Parties
Heroes & Icons TV Network Affiliation Agreement	10/8/21 to 10/7/25	KOB-TV, LLC

It looks like the problem is that their system incorrectly thinks that KUPT/29 is still affiliated with H&I, so it's blacking you out of the national feed on 293.

 

[H2Guy]

So at this point I should probably just write off that channel. I have told my friends to call in but at this point if Dish hasn't had enough calls do draw attention to this problem by now they just think its not worth the effort and shelve the report in the round file.

Honestly I don't know what to do with this anymore, Josh, any suggestions? BBB, FCC? or is that a waste of time too.

 

[Ray_Clum]

I would really like Dish’s OTA dongle that works on the Hopper to pull EPG data from the OTA signal of Dish doesn’t provide it over satellite. This will fill in a big hole for the non-Big 4 networks.

 

[KyL416]

In many areas you're lucky if you get more than 12 hours of PSIP data OTA, and the PSIP data doesn't include key metadata used for DVR functionality like unique episodeId and seriesId values that guide data providers like Gracenote/TMS, Rovi/TiVo and Red Bee/FYI assign to all content, which is how your Hopper knows the difference between series/movies/events with the same name, can keep track of shows that don't have episode titles like soap operas and magazines, and knows the difference between Games 1, 2, 6 and 7 of the NLCS which all have "Diamondbacks @ Phillies" as the episode/event title. Even if they recoded their DVR software to fallback to episode titles instead of those unique ids, there is no official episode title field as part of the PSIP specs. Some local stations might include it as part of the program description field, but others, including many network O&Os don't list it at all.

While people here may be able to accept the limitations, the average viewer won't realize why none of their series passes work properly on these channels. And good luck to the CSRs who have to deal with those customers as they won't be able to see this PSIP data first hand, and are already in the dark about the local stations they do carry if they are also insisting that KUPT should still have a network they dropped 2 years ago.

 

[sam_gordon]

In many areas you're lucky if you get more than 12 hours of PSIP data OTA, and the PSIP data doesn't include key metadata used for DVR functionality like unique episodeId and seriesId values that guide data providers like Gracenote/TMS, Rovi/TiVo and Red Bee/FYI assign to all content, which is how your Hopper knows the difference between series/movies/events with the same name, can keep track of shows that don't have episode titles like soap operas and magazines, and knows the difference between Games 1, 2, 6 and 7 of the NLCS which all have "Diamondbacks @ Phillies" as the episode/event title. Even if they recoded their DVR software to fallback to episode titles instead of those unique ids, there is no official episode title field as part of the PSIP specs. Some local stations might include it as part of the program description field, but others, including many network O&Os don't list it at all.

While people here may be able to accept the limitations, the average viewer won't realize why none of their series passes work properly on these channels. And good luck to the CSRs who have to deal with those customers as they won't be able to see this PSIP data first hand, and are already in the dark about the local stations they do carry if they are also insisting that KUPT should still have a network they dropped 2 years ago.

Once again, someone who thinks it's better to have ZERO guide data than 12 hours worth.

Regarding the "key metadata", where do you think the metadata comes from? The channel sends the data to guide providers. Do you think it's actually programmed to send metadata x, y, and z to guide providers and only metadata x to PSIP generators?