Austin on 61.5 and 129?

[Mister B]

I recently returned from spending the Holidays in Austin, TX. I noticed that some DISH users are pointed at the western arc and others are eastern, even in the same neighborhood with no apparent line of sight issues. I now see on the "List" that indeed Austin has a spot-beam on 61.5 and 129. Why would this be when bandwidth is so limited that there is no access to the OTA sub-channels and many national networks still are not provided in HD? I have read the posts about the few eastern cities that are both conus and on a spot-beam, but are there other cities on two spot-beams as well? I am just curious, my friends were driving me around and I was looking at satellite dishes!

 

[MikeD-C05]

IF you look at the OTHER SITES header on this website and then THE LIST, you can select the 61.5 sat and the 129 sat and see if Austin is on both satellites. I have my hd locals for Houston on both 110 and 61.5. Hd locals for Beaumont/ Pt.Arthur, Tx is on both 61.5 and 129 as well. DISH does this so there is more than one look angle for the satellites. IF you can't use western arc dish for 110/119/129 sats you might be able to use eastern arc dish for 61.5/72.7 sats.

 

[rvvaquero]

In order to make use of the eastern arc satellites, DISH had to make a gradual transition. There's no way they were going to go out and upgrade tens of thousands of existing customers' equipment. So, they have done this through attrition...........new customers and other upgrades which required an installation visit.

 

[Mr Tony]

At one time there were a lot of cities on both arcs. Minneapolis is one of them too

I wonder if it had to do with using the spotbeams available on the 61.5 satellite (when they launched it a few years ago)

 

[bobvick]

Around me, Birmingham, Huntsville, Mobile, Memphis, Nashville, and Atlanta are on both arcs.

 

[Mister B]

So, the eastern arc dishes in the Austin area are probably the newer installations?

 

[ChadT41]

Most likely.

 

[Mr Tony]

So, the eastern arc dishes in the Austin area are probably the newer installations?

Probably. But you still could do a WA install

 

[stvcmty]

Austin has a spot-beam on 61.5 and 129. Why would this be when bandwidth is so limited that there is no access to the OTA sub-channels and many national networks still are not provided in HD?

There are a few different things going on all related to your question.

Sub channels are not typically carried by satellite providers unless one is a major network for a DMA, such as CW or MyN being shoved on the same OTA RF as one of the big 3 or Fox. Only the main channel of an OTA broadcast is covered by must carry for stations that use must carry to get onto satellite. A station could make satellite carry its sub channels as a condition of getting the main signal. The lack of sub channels is as much about contracts as bandwidth issues.

Once Dish uses a transponder frequency from a given orbital slot for spot beams, it makes sense to use it over and over again as much as possible across the country. So the frequency on 61.5 that is doing locals for Austin is doing locals in other markets too; the same is true for 129. So unless there is a market near Austin that would benefit from the spot beam frequency being used from 129 or 61.5, dish is not being specifically wasteful by having Austin on both. (On the other hand having CONUS nationals duplicated on EA and WA is extremely wasteful, but the only way around that would be to use dual dish installs everywhere with 72.7, 110, 118, and 119 being used for CONUS content and locals to be either on 129 or 61.5. That would almost give dish as much bandwidth as DTV, but it would require 2 dishes and the accompanying LOS nightmare involved).

 

[Mister B]

Well, that is all very interesting. I think another advantage in Austin at least is there are a lot of medium sized scrub oak trees everywhere. I am sure many homes are blocked in one direction or the other. Of course, everywhere seems to have a lot of trees to those of us here in far West Texas. Mesquite only gets about 3 feet tall here!