Not to throw cold water on this, but here goes:
For those of you who are getting locals soon, that's great for you, especially if you have a 61.5 dish.
But there is no word on when National Locals are to be launched. Or where. And for some of us there are ominous developments over the last couple of weeks.
When will we have new national HD? Not much said on that. I would have liked to hear that they were launching national locals in April or May, but I did not hear that, so I assume they aren't planning on it. Only thing that has been indicated from Dish as a timeframe has been "before the next Charlie Chat", which I believe is in June. All Jim seemed to indicate is that they are still on schedule. So if they launch any National HD before the second Monday in June, they will have met the commitment, which is not much of a commitment.
Especially since Dish is about 10-15 channels behind Directv now (depending on how you count), and will fall further behind at the end of the month when several ABC-ESPN-Disney properties launch in HD on Directv.
And this Eastern Arc thing is not a good idea for some of us. For me, it's real bad. Is Dish really planning to put Chicago, Milwaukee and Green Bay HD locals on 61.5? Anyone who lives within about four miles of Lake Michigan is going to have real problems with that in the Winter. When all the low priority locals were on 61.5 a few years ago, I could not get them at night during winter (Chronic fog at the shoreline). The signal just died.
Around that time I also tried to get Voom installed. But The installer could not get a signal. (There are no tree problems, by the way).
Most people are looking at 129-110. Are they going to repoint thousands of Dishes in the Chicago Metro Area? Really? And how long will that take?
I guess this is good enough news that I am not jumping ship yet. But I am not buying anything that would extend my commitment, either, since my commitment is over now.