61.5 Spotbeam Question

[rick9999]

HI,

I recently hooked up my 61.5 dish but have a question about the spot beams. I am trying to figure out how they work and how you tell which spot beam you are getting a signal from. According to the maps on this site I live in the green area for Transponder 15, Spot Beam 4 and between the yellow and red lines for Transponder 15, Spot Beam 3. I am getting a signal when I look at that transponder on my 625 and after a little bit it says spot beam, but how do you know if its 3 or 4?

Also on the maps, what does the area between the green and red lines represent, and the yellow line? Do you need a bigger dish outside the green line?

SatelliteGuys.US - Subscription 61.5°W

 

[Voyager6]

HI,

I recently hooked up my 61.5 dish but have a question about the spot beams. I am trying to figure out how they work and how you tell which spot beam you are getting a signal from. According to the maps on this site I live in the green area for Transponder 15, Spot Beam 4 and between the yellow and red lines for Transponder 15, Spot Beam 3. I am getting a signal when I look at that transponder on my 625 and after a little bit it says spot beam, but how do you know if its 3 or 4?

Also on the maps, what does the area between the green and red lines represent, and the yellow line? Do you need a bigger dish outside the green line?

SatelliteGuys.US - Subscription 61.5°W

What are you trying to do with a 625 and the 61.5 sat? Almost everything at 61.5 is mpeg4 which your 625 cannot receive. There are some channels on TP10 that are available to a 625. The Baltimore/Washington area is served by spotbeam 4. The Baltimore locals are on TP 9 and DC on TP 5 & 9. These are in mpeg4 (SD & HD) which cannot be viewed with your 625. On tp 15, you are probably picking up spotbeam 4 as spotbeam 3 is for the NY area.

 

[rick9999]

I go back and forth to the NY area a lot and have at times left my address the same and picked up NY locals. I didn't know if I would be able to get the HD NY locals here on the 61.5. So I was trying to see if I could get spot beam 3. I am just outside the yellow line according to the map.

 

[garys]

Not going to be able to tell that while you are using a 625. You would need to be using a Vip receiver.

 

[Voyager6]

I go back and forth to the NY area a lot and have at times left my address the same and picked up NY locals. I didn't know if I would be able to get the HD NY locals here on the 61.5. So I was trying to see if I could get spot beam 3. I am just outside the yellow line according to the map.

The spotbeam maps for 61.5 are dated. E* has shifted the orientation of E12 so the spotbeam areas are not the same as depicted on the maps. It appears that the spotbeams were shifted to the north and west. You can read about the effort to remap the spotbeams here. There will be very little chance of you receiving the NY spotbeam unless you are in the upper NE corner of MD.

 

[TheKrell]

Not going to be able to tell that while you are using a 625. You would need to be using a Vip receiver.

He can get the transponder signal strength on a 625, since it can handle 8psk. (Also 311 if he has one of those lying about.)

SD channels still available to mpeg-2 receivers include the HHS channel, the Pentagon channel, 3ABN, and of course the ever popular 9902 channel. Of course those are on a conus beam...

 

[rick9999]

Is it possible to pick up or be in 2 different spot beams on the same transponder?

 

[TheKrell]

In general, adjacent spotbeams have different transponders to prevent this from happening. If there are some adjacent spotbeams that do have the same transponder, I think your receiver would pick the strongest and ignore the weakest.