New AMC-14 and E-3 Info

[kstuart]

Umm just so I'm clear... echo has a new bird going up in a week?

Once it's successfully up, will this mean new channels within a month or something??

There are some threads on all this, but here is the summary:

- after March 31st, Dish Network gets two more transponders at 61.5 that were previously used by "Sky Angel" (which is moving to Internet distribution).

- Some time after April 7th, AMC-14 will take over from EchoStar 3 at 61.5 and will be able to provide service on transponders that EchoStar 3 could not utilize.

between those two events, Dish Network will suddenly have several new transponders available at 61.5. Also (IIRC) AMC-14 is higher power, so more bandwidth per transponder can be utilized.

- And, Dish has been building uplink centers to use the spot beams on EchoStar 12 satellite at 61.5 that previously were not used. This will allow them to provide several cities HD locals on one transponder, whereas currently each city takes up a whole transponder (roughly). This process started two days ago.

We know from simple math, that Dish has space for 6-12 new HD channels at 129, but previously they did not have the space at 61.5 to mirror them.

So, in mid-April, we may see some new HD locals at 61.5, and some new national HD channels at both 129 and 61.5.

PS Speculation is that E* will create a new MPEG-4-only service at 77 W and 86 W, using old satellites freed up by the launches of AMC-14 and E*11 in near future - but there is no hard evidence to confirm that. E* has been doing some testing of E*4 satellite at 77 W, but currently only has licenses to operate in Mexico from that location.

 

[John Kotches]

You know how many miles is between each tenth of a degree? I wouldn't worry about them banging in to each other at all.

We can do the math on it pretty easily...

Clarke belt distance (radius / r) is 22,236 miles. 3600 tenths of a degree in a circle.

Circumference of a circle = pi * 2r

pi (3.141) * 22,236 * 2 = 139713 miles give or take.

There are 3600 tenths of a degree in a circle.


139713 / 3600 ~ 38.9 miles.


Cheers,

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

PS Speculation is that E* will create a new MPEG-4-only service at 77 W and 86 W

Bzzz...

This is not correct.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

We can do the math on it pretty easily...

Clarke belt distance (radius / r) is 22,236 miles. 3600 tenths of a degree in a circle.

Circumference of a circle = pi * 2r

pi (3.141) * 22,236 * 2 = 139713 miles give or take.

There are 3600 tenths of a degree in a circle.


139713 / 3600 ~ 38.9 miles.


Cheers,

See plenty of room for an item that less then the size of a school bus.

 

[Drone35]

Bzzz...

This is not correct.

Care to correct this, were all ears!

 

[vegassatellite]

We can do the math on it pretty easily...

Clarke belt distance (radius / r) is 22,236 miles. 3600 tenths of a degree in a circle.

Circumference of a circle = pi * 2r

pi (3.141) * 22,236 * 2 = 139713 miles give or take.

There are 3600 tenths of a degree in a circle.


139713 / 3600 ~ 38.9 miles.


Cheers,

Clarke Belt is 22,236 miles from Earth's surface. The diameter of the Earth at the Equator is 7,926 miles. So the diameter (d) of the Clarke Belt is 52,398 miles ((22,236 * 2) + 7,926). pi *d = 164613.172

164613.172/3600 = 45.726

So there's 45.726 miles in a tenth of a degree in the Clarke Belt.

With 0.15 degrees spacing, the actual distance would be ~ 68.59 miles.

 

[kstuart]

Bzzz...

This is not correct.

I was quoting speculation from some guy named Scott... admittedly a few months old...

In order to correct someone, you have to say what the correct answer is !

PS I hope you are not being pedantic about the exact slot (probably 87 W rather than 86 W)

 

[jegrant]

I think 61.5 will be one of the slots. No actual info, just my own voices inside my head. After all, that is where all those spot beams will be located.

 

[Smith P.]

I could see those "two MPEG-4 sats and one dish" as E12 and AMC-14 parked at one orbital position - 61.5W.

 

[ralfyguy]

I could see those "two MPEG-4 sats and one dish" as E12 and AMC-14 parked at one orbital position - 61.5W.

So how would you hit that with a DP Dual or single? The 622/722 needs at least a DPP Twin, or something else DPP to work. If it's a single dish solution, nobody wants a D1000 with three "heads" to hit one location. Maybe they come up with a DPP Dual now.

 

[RandallA]

So how would you hit that with a DP Dual or single? The 622/722 needs at least a DPP Twin, or something else DPP to work. If it's a single dish solution, nobody wants a D1000 with three "heads" to hit one location. Maybe they come up with a DPP Dual now.

It's just one orbital location, a DP Dual or single will be enough. They'll have 2 satellites at 61.5 just like they do now at 110.

 

[flyingsquirrel]

I was talking to someone who works in engineering at a competitor to Dish, and they "ceased worrying about Dish as a competitor months ago".

He said AMC 14 would help them in the short term with local markets in the eastern quarter of the US. But that's it.

He said he would be surprised if there were any national HD from this before June or July, because they don't have uplink capacity in the right places.

He also said he heard that E11 would be delayed by several more months for technical reasons (Sunspots?), though he did not know why.

What this competitor IS worried about is the new Echostar forming a partnership with Dish and Directv to provide ALL LOCALS for all subscribers of both services. In the long term that would free up LOTS of space as well as digital locals for all markets in the US.

So maybe AMC 14 is not the panacea we all think it is.

 

[mdonnelly]

Clarke Belt is 22,236 miles from Earth's surface. The diameter of the Earth at the Equator is 7,926 miles. So the diameter (d) of the Clarke Belt is 52,398 miles ((22,236 * 2) + 7,926). pi *d = 164613.172

164613.172/3600 = 45.726

So there's 45.726 miles in a tenth of a degree in the Clarke Belt.

With 0.15 degrees spacing, the actual distance would be ~ 68.59 miles.

I just tried an approximation using trig:
sin(0.15) * 22,236miles = 58.21miles

 

[mdonnelly]

...
He said he would be surprised if there were any national HD from this before June or July, because they don't have uplink capacity in the right places.
...

How many places do you need to uplink national HD from? I smell BS.

 

[navychop]

Maybe we should leave any specifics about Eastern Arc in the Pub.

 

[ralfyguy]

It's just one orbital location, a DP Dual or single will be enough. They'll have 2 satellites at 61.5 just like they do now at 110.

I know, but a DP Dual by itself, hooked straight to a 622/722 won't work.

 

[RandallA]

I know, but a DP Dual by itself, hooked straight to a 622/722 won't work.

Ahh, I see. It will work with 2 cable runs but you're right it won't work with a DP Separator and a single cable run. They'll need to release a new DPP Dual lnb like you said.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I was talking to someone who works in engineering at a competitor to Dish, and they "ceased worrying about Dish as a competitor months ago".

He said AMC 14 would help them in the short term with local markets in the eastern quarter of the US. But that's it.

He said he would be surprised if there were any national HD from this before June or July, because they don't have uplink capacity in the right places.

He also said he heard that E11 would be delayed by several more months for technical reasons (Sunspots?), though he did not know why.

What this competitor IS worried about is the new Echostar forming a partnership with Dish and Directv to provide ALL LOCALS for all subscribers of both services. In the long term that would free up LOTS of space as well as digital locals for all markets in the US.

So maybe AMC 14 is not the panacea we all think it is.

I have suggested for years that both sat providers work together to provide all locals to the country. THey could even spin off the company as an independent third company that is 50/50 owned by both DISH & DIRECTV. But there would be the different encoding systems that each provider uses that would prevent this from working . Unless both sat companies used similar enoding mpeg 4 systems it wouldn't work. But if they could do this it would provide the benefits of a merger without an actual merger. THen both companies could free up bandwith and use it for more hd channels.

 

[dlsnyder]

The FCC, in turning down the merger back in 2002 (?) stongly suggested that the two should find a way to work together on providing locals. This may be just the way to do it, as long as all the STBs out there on both systems have a common format that they can share.

 

[flyingsquirrel]

What's interesting to me is that the National Association of Broadcasters' request to make all HD "Must-Carry" may push Direct and Dish to the very merger solution that the NAB fought so hard against in the first place. NAB wants all HD channels to be carried by All satellite providers in all markets by 2010. The only way that's remotely possible is if Dish and Directv combine forces for HD LIL.

Taken a step further, let's say you set up a single entity not only to distribute the local HD channels, but also to negotiate retrans rates. Now the broadcasters have less bargaining power because they went from three bidders (cable, Dish and Direct) down to two. Not good it you want to maximize rates.

By the way, in the HD arena, the encoding systems used by Dish and Directv are very similar. At a certain level, MPEG4 is MPEG4, more so than with MPEG2. From what I have been told, all existing MPEG4 boxes that Dish and Directv use could be "harmonized" to see local channels from a common source through software update. The base Codec chips are essentially the same.