Anyone thought about the future of AMC-2

[mike123abc]

All the news has been about AMC-15 launching to 105 to replace AMC-2... Has anyone thought about what AMC-2 will be doing after AMC-15 checks out and takes over?

It occurred to me that Echostar has 2 more Ku-FSS slots leased (was in their annual report)... I wonder if AMC-2 will start drifting towards one of those 2 slots and suddenly a new SuperDish would be born. It is possible in a little over 2 months a whole new satellite location could suddenly open up for LIL. Yes I know AMC-2 is weak, and the coverage of the CONUS is not that good, but it serves about 2/3rds of the US (east and west coast), and I am sure that there are a lot of markets under its footprint.

Dish has been pretty quite about those 2 satellite slots it has leased, other than saying that they are building satellites to place there over the next 2 years. They could move AMC-2 to one slot, then next year when their new satellite launches, move AMC-2 again to the last slot.

This is all assuming SES will allow Dish to continue leasing AMC-2. But, considering the amount of business that Dish is giving SES and that AMC-2 is pretty much worthless (it would probably be turned off after Dish is through to be a backup maybe).

Lets see, Dish could open up a whole new slot for LIL, next year the new slot gets its real satellite and E10 launches. Dish moves the wing stations over to E10 and probably has a lot of room left over to move the big 105/121 markets to E10. I could see them having all 210 local markets up by the end of next year...

 

[reedl]

Knowing that SES has AMC-1 at 103w, AMC-4 at 101w, AMC-3 at 87w, AMC-5 at 87, AMC-6 at 72W, AMC-8 at 85w I think that AMC-2 will probably be kept around at 105 for both C-Band usage at that slot (since AMC-15 has no C-band capability), and as an in-orbit spare for the other satellites.

The coolest thing is that I have been to the Woodbine, MD earthstation where they control some of the AMC satellites from. It is cool to see all the screens with the pitch, roll, and yaw graphs on the screen. They also control the satellites from there, including sending the commands to fire the jets, etc.

I wish I could upload pictures of the Spacecraft control area, but that is off-limits to pictures.

Reedl

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I am hearing that in the fall some new HD could appear on 105.

If that is the case what about all those people who have 121 SuperDish's?

 

[mike123abc]

I am hearing that in the fall some new HD could appear on 105.

If that is the case what about all those people who have 121 SuperDish's?

They will have to rely on the magic of the DPP44! And possibly the cascade of switches to see 5 satellites at once (of course only the 811 and 921 would work for that, the 6000 gets left out in the cold).

If as you posted in a different thread that DIRECTV is about to get really agressive on the HD front, Dish is going to have to do something like 105 to get the capacity to match. The way I calculate 105, Dish could put 24 - 32 HDTV channels on 105 if they do not add more LIL. 24 channels would be pretty much uncompressed, 32 would be 4 channels in the space of 3.

I currently have my market on 121, but I guess I will go out and put up another Dish to point at 105 just in case

 

[Cyclone]

Has anyone thought about what AMC-2 will be doing after AMC-15 checks out and takes over?

I think it will make a terrific light show one night over the south pacific.

 

[dispatcher_21]

My question is, if they do add HD on the 105, would I get upgraded to the Superdish for free since I am an existing HD pack subscriber or will I have to pay the $100.00+ to be upgraded?? Since I have been a customer for only 3 months, I would be pretty pissed if they made me pay for an upgrade.