No Local Channels on Western Arc?

rip77

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Jul 14, 2021
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United States
Has this come up recently for anyone else? I did an install today where the only LOS was western arc, so I made a call in to Dash to modify my needed equipment.

Dash informed me that the customer would be unable to get local channels on Western Arc, I spoke to them and they accepted but quite honestly I thought the Dash representative was just misinformed. Turns out he was right. I swear I have never had this before, it used to be that with Western Arc here you would only get locals on SD, but you would still get locals.

Does anyone know what's with the change? Or am I missing something that I don't know about?

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It varies by location. The link below lists the sats for all DMA's:

The site is claiming the locals should come in on 119, but this didn't happen. Are you aware of any incidents with locals being removed from specific arcs? I find this very strange. Every channel besides local was there, and both Dash reps said it would be unable to get locals. Just confused on why this would happen all of a sudden.

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The site is claiming the locals should come in on 119, but this didn't happen. Are you aware of any incidents with locals being removed from specific arcs? I find this very strange. Every channel besides local was there, and both Dash reps said it would be unable to get locals. Just confused on why this would happen all of a sudden.

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Which DMA?
 
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Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, PA.

Only noticed this as of today, previously you could get these stations SD on WA.

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Interesting! The list gets updated frequently, so I'd expect it to reflect any recent changes soon.

Does the customer site have a LOS to the 61.5 sat? A side dish could resolve the issue. Is there OTA reception there?

On edit: I assume you tried channels other than WNEP (16) that's part of the Tegna take down...
 
Interesting! The list gets updated frequently, so I'd expect it to reflect any recent changes soon.

Does the customer site have a LOS to the 61.5 sat? A side dish could resolve the issue. Is there OTA reception there?
Technically the customer does have EA LOS. Unfortunately there is no way it's going to be me putting it up there, as it's a 3-story town house with a rather steep roof, and there's not any way I'll get up there.

Back of the house to get EA is also inaccessible unfortunately, and even if I would have managed to get back there, cabling would be a nightmare.

Unsure if you are a Dish technician or just a hobbiest, but I don't forsee Dash modifying my equipment needed to needing two dishes, but if you know a way to get them to do this if you could tell me I'd appreciate it. There's been several situations where I believe a wing dish would have helped but I can only use equipment I get put on the work order.

Customer isn't the most technical person either, doubt they really care too much about it but it would be nice to know for future reference, I appreciate the help.

Edit: Also, no OTA available.

Edit 2: Yes, and am aware of the takedown. Even with this though, typically the channel does show up and it just airs one of Dish's programs explaining the takedown.
 
Technically the customer does have EA LOS. Unfortunately there is no way it's going to be me putting it up there, as it's a 3-story town house with a rather steep roof, and there's not any way I'll get up there.

Back of the house to get EA is also inaccessible unfortunately, and even if I would have managed to get back there, cabling would be a nightmare.

Unsure if you are a Dish technician or just a hobbiest, but I don't forsee Dash modifying my equipment needed to needing two dishes, but if you know a way to get them to do this if you could tell me I'd appreciate it. There's been several situations where I believe a wing dish would have helped but I can only use equipment I get put on the work order.

Customer isn't the most technical person either, doubt they really care too much about it but it would be nice to know for future reference, I appreciate the help.

Also, no OTA available.
No, I'm not a Dish technician, just a Dish customer with a fair amount of experience installing and aiming dishes, including wing dishes, for myself and others. If Dish won't supply the equipment needed to overcome the LOS issue in this case, then obviously you're stuck with what you have to work with. Fortunately I don't have those limitations...
 
No, I'm not a Dish technician, just a Dish customer with a fair amount of experience installing and aiming dishes, including wing dishes, for myself and others. If Dish won't supply the equipment needed to overcome the LOS issue in this case, then obviously you're stuck with what you have to work with. Fortunately I don't have those limitations...
Alright understood, I do still appreciate the help.

I suppose I could ask the customers to do that on their own and I'll set it up, but I feel like most people would rather just miss some channels rather than spend their own money on equipment.

Question about wing dishes though, can you use a different style of dish to wing another? Example: main dish being a Hybrid LNB, with the wing dish being a DPP LNB, would this work? And would this affect tuners? As in would a hopper 3 be able to work on this and use all 16 tuners or would it only be able to use the amount a DPP LNB can provide?

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Alright understood, I do still appreciate the help.

I suppose I could ask the customers to do that on their own and I'll set it up, but I feel like most people would rather just miss some channels rather than spend their own money on equipment.

Question about wing dishes though, can you use a different style of dish to wing another? Example: main dish being a Hybrid LNB, with the wing dish being a DPP LNB, would this work? And would this affect tuners? As in would a hopper 3 be able to work on this and use all 16 tuners or would it only be able to use the amount a DPP LNB can provide?

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I believe the "IN" port switching disables the wing dish switching since it's intended for single satellite reception. And yes, all 16 tuners should work. Most of the wings I've done were 300 dishes with a single DP LNB.
 
Question about wing dishes though, can you use a different style of dish to wing another? Example: main dish being a Hybrid LNB, with the wing dish being a DPP LNB, would this work? And would this affect tuners? As in would a hopper 3 be able to work on this and use all 16 tuners or would it only be able to use the amount a DPP LNB can provide?
This would work, because the Hybrid LNB uses whatever DP signal is on the input port as a 4th LNB of sorts, and the receiver will see a Hybrid LNB that oh so happens to be providing 4 sat feeds to its 16 tuners. The problem with your idea is the DPP LNB, and this is only something I've heard and not tested for myself, it will draw too much power from the IN port and damage over time either the receiver or LNBF's, so its ill advised. If you can get your hand on a Dish 300/500 and use a DP Single/Dual that would be the best way to do it. Another option is a DPH42 with one DPP LNB providing 110/119/129 and the 61.5 output of another DPP LNB, but here your talking a DPH42 and a extra 1000.2 that you would have to get somewhere.
 
Your mention of the 3-story town house roof reminded me of an installation I did a couple of years ago on a 60' high metal barn roof. The barn was being converted to a house and business. One of the neighbors owned a tree service business, and I used his 75' boom truck (with him at the controls) to set the peak mount and aim the dish. Not one of my favorite installations! ;)
 
This would work, because the Hybrid LNB uses whatever DP signal is on the input port as a 4th LNB of sorts, and the receiver will see a Hybrid LNB that oh so happens to be providing 4 sat feeds to its 16 tuners. The problem with your idea is the DPP LNB, and this is only something I've heard and not tested for myself, it will draw too much power from the IN port and damage over time either the receiver or LNBF's, so its ill advised. If you can get your hand on a Dish 300/500 and use a DP Single/Dual that would be the best way to do it. Another option is a DPH42 with one DPP LNB providing 110/119/129 and the 61.5 output of another DPP LNB, but here your talking a DPH42 and a extra 1000.2 that you would have to get somewhere.
Not going to do this, but it's all interesting to me so I'll ask, would it take two feeds from each DPP LNB to the DPH42 switch? Then it would have two hybrid outputs correct?

Also curious on why you know so much about these systems, as it seemed you implied in a previous post you don't install them, unless I misunderstood you.

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Your mention of the 3-story town house roof reminded me of an installation I did a couple of years on a 60' high metal barn roof. The barn was being converted to a house and business. One of the neighbors owned a tree service business, and I used his 75' boom truck (with him at the controls) to set the peak mount and aim the dish. Not one of my favorite installations! ;)
Above and beyond for doing that man, you must not fear heights at all, I typically think I'm decent with heights but my main fear is the ladder itself possibly slipping or something along those lines. Especially when it's up against unstable material or the house is surrounded by gutters.

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Above and beyond for doing that man, you must not fear heights at all, I typically think I'm decent with heights but my main fear is the ladder itself possibly slipping or something along those lines. Especially when it's up against unstable material or the house is surrounded by gutters.

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60 years ago as an 18 year old, I had a summer job changing light bulbs and painting radio and TV towers. I had to do the top sections at night after the stations shut down. So no, not much fear of heights, but a healthy respect for them. The worst part of working from the boom truck was the way it bounced and swayed any time the basket was moved. It beat the heck out of working on a slippery metal roof though!
 
60 years ago as an 18 year old, I had a summer job changing light bulbs and painting radio and TV towers. I had to do the top sections at night after the stations shut down. So no, not much fear of heights, but a healthy respect for them. The worst part of working from the boom truck was the way it bounced and swayed any time the basket was moved. It beat the heck out of working on a slippery metal roof though!
I suppose that would get you acclimated to them pretty quickly, and yeah I imagine at heights like that it would feel insanely unstable, but I imagine it would be even worse on a metal roof.

I'm around 18 myself, so haven't particularly had much experience with heights yet, highest I typically will go is a two story roof unless I have a different way of accessing it other than just my extension ladder. Not even a big fan of going up to two stories, though.

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Not going to do this, but it's all interesting to me so I'll ask, would it take two feeds from each DPP LNB to the DPH42 switch? Then it would have two hybrid outputs correct?
Actually, both outputs on a DPH42 will always provide a Hybrid signal. Whatever satellites you insert will be replicated on both outputs, that is the point of the switch. As for the question, yes, you can mix and match inputs, if you felt crazy enough you could connect a WA LNB to port 1/2 with 119/129, port 3 with a EA with 77, and 4 with a 500+ on 118.7. Both outputs would have a hybrid signal carrying 119/129/77/118.7, which makes absolutely no sense, but you can do it. Just make sure you use the correct outputs on the LNB side, for WA I think the order is 119/110/129 and EA 72.7/61.5.
Also curious on why you know so much about these systems, as it seemed you implied in a previous post you don't install them, unless I misunderstood you.
I don't install them for a living, but I've installed my own system (DPH42+2xH3's+2x4KJ+1xWJ) and also done maintenance on various family members installs, most of what I know is experimenting and reading manuals/forums like this one to figure stuff out. I've also played around a lot with this kind of stuff since I was a kid, back in the early 2000's when even a drizzle of rain would mess up reception my father would send me out to wipe the LNB off to get his 2800 receiver back up and running faster lol. There is also the fact that I'm a massive tech nerd, and I'm currently majoring in computer networking in college.
 
Actually, both outputs on a DPH42 will always provide a Hybrid signal. Whatever satellites you insert will be replicated on both outputs, that is the point of the switch. As for the question, yes, you can mix and match inputs, if you felt crazy enough you could connect a WA LNB to port 1/2 with 119/129, port 3 with a EA with 77, and 4 with a 500+ on 118.7. Both outputs would have a hybrid signal carrying 119/129/77/118.7, which makes absolutely no sense, but you can do it. Just make sure you use the correct outputs on the LNB side, for WA I think the order is 119/110/129 and EA 72.7/61.5.

I don't install them for a living, but I've installed my own system (DPH42+2xH3's+2x4KJ+1xWJ) and also done maintenance on various family members installs, most of what I know is experimenting and reading manuals/forums like this one to figure stuff out. I've also played around a lot with this kind of stuff since I was a kid, back in the early 2000's when even a drizzle of rain would mess up reception my father would send me out to wipe the LNB off to get his 2800 receiver back up and running faster lol. There is also the fact that I'm a massive tech nerd, and I'm currently majoring in computer networking in college.
Quite the setup, you probably couldn't actually get a dish technician to set that up for you.

I'm hoping to install my own soon, currently working on fishing RG6 through my house, which is a major pain considering I live in a town house so it's two stories and a finished attic, so running cables from attic to basement is proving to be difficult when trying not to make any unnecessary holes.

Cool that you're studying networking though, I was interested in it before and still am but find it hard to study anything along with work. Back in high school I got CompTIA certified in A+, Network+, and Security+ which I know in no way compares to an actual degree in it, but it's something lmao.

That's what actually made me interested in being a satellite technician, although I rarely use any real networking skills when installing these systems. Of course they are a network, but it's not really one you have to think about or even configure much.

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Above and beyond for doing that man, you must not fear heights at all, I typically think I'm decent with heights but my main fear is the ladder itself possibly slipping or something along those lines.
Oh no kidding. My best friend borrowed his painter's tall ladder to reach up 3 stories to his roof, which was very steep. I got up on the top of that ladder and decided that, were I to slide down that roof, there would be nothing to stop me until I hit the cement. No thank you! My friend was crazy enough to do it himself with me steadying that ladder.
 
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Oh no kidding. My best friend borrowed his painter's tall ladder to reach up 3 stories to his roof, which was very steep. I got up on the top of that ladder and decided that, were I to slide down that roof, there would be nothing to stop me until I hit the cement. No thank you! My friend was crazy enough to do it himself with me steadying that ladder.
Yeah no thank you. Not a chance I would ever be doing that. Back when I was in training I supported a ladder for the guy training me, was about 30 ft up where he mounted the dish. No chance I would ever be doing that.

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