I think last March, I was driving through the West Bank area and noticed a bunch of folks had SuperDish 121's in their front and/or side yards on short poles. Then a few weeks later Dish moved the locals to 110.
On New Orleans HD. There was a short discussion of that on another thread I read a few minutes ago at
http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=84688. They were talking about DirecTV going to offer NOLA HD during 2007.
A couple of months back I believe Dish was offering either Free or Reduced Cost for OTA antenna for those who had HD and lived in certain area's, including NOLA. This gives the impression that Dish will not be adding NOLA HD stations anytime in the future - if at all.
National Programming:
Yes, all of the (national) HD Programming (not Local HD) that is on 61.5 is also available on 129. However 61.5 also has some SD "public information channels" like the "Pentagon Channel" which are not on 129.
CBS-HD East was on 61.5 and CBS-HD West was on 148, but I heard that Dish is no longer providing these 2 HD networks; either do to the DNS law suit or no longer any business benefit.
Provided you are not looking for some international programming and probably have a DP34 Switch....
I think I would use the Dish 500 for 119 and 110; and then get another Dish 500 with 1 DP Dual LNBF in the center for 61.5.
Ref your neighbor getting a Dish 1000+...
Did he need 118.7 for internationals? In not, it seems like he would have gotten a regular Dish 1000. Or maybe the Dish 1000.2, but I think they just started shipping them.