Dish Seeks to Move Echostar-5 to 129 W

[rocatman]

Dish has filed an application with the FCC to move Echostar-5 (E-5) to 129 W, a Canadian DBS slot. E-5 is currently at 119 W but not being used for programming. It appears that Dish has had an agreement for this move in place since May 14, 2004 with Ciel, a Canadian satellite company. Ciel has an agreement with Industry Canada, I assume a part of the Canadian government to have an interim satellite in place by August 25, 2005. Dish may have use of the 50 percent (16 TPs) of the 129 W slot until December 31, 2008. I always wondered why the 129 W orbit location still appeared in the setup menu for my Dish receivers. I knew that Dish had used it for locals for Philadelphia a while back but it looks like Dish will be using DBS from there. I can not see the FCC blocking this since DirecTV received approval for use of the Canadian slot at 72.5 W recently. Here are a couple of links but they are quite long and I hope they work. There is also a lot of reading here.

http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/...erC/File+Number

http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/...erC/File+Number

 

[bcshields]

That 129 slot has a crappy line of sight issue in the northeast. Ugh.. when dealing with the prototype superdishes at 129 more than half had no line of sight.

I hope they move some pointless programming there, or use it for locals.

 

[BFG]

How the heck can they move that thing? I thought its condition is practically space junk?

 

[rocatman]

I believe the previous use by Dish of 129 W was with a Ku band satellite, not DBS. Dish could also use it in conjunction with the 148 W location to complement additional programming at 61.5 W from the Rainbow-1 satellite.

In regards to Echostar-5 (E-5), it has had some failures with solar array strings, momentum wheels (used for station keeping) and some TPs but I believe it is still useable. You might be confusing E-5 with E-4 at 157 W. E-4 is basically space junk. Here's a link that provides info on the E-5 failures:

http://www.sat-index.com/failures/index.html?http://www.sat-index.com/failures/echo5.html

 

[mike123abc]

129 would be a good spot for the west coast HD LIL solution to 61.5 spot beams... Dish has satellites everywhere now... Just would be nice to know what they are planning on doing with them all...

 

[James Long]

The DBS Sky looks good!
157 - 32 TPs E4
148 - 32 TPs E1 & E2
129 - 32/16 TPs until 2008 E5 (moved)
119 - 21 TPs (5 as 25 spots) E7
110 - 29 TPs (5 as 25 spots) E6 & E8 - E10 coming in the fall
101 - No E* Transponders
72.5 - No E* Transponders
61.5 - 22 TPs (w/R1 & E3) plus use of 6 from SA and possibly 2 from FCC
Not too shabby.

JL

 

[BFG]

yep all that space and nothing to do with it because there's no compelling content in existence

 

[houselog442]

just more room for more Al jazeera! lmao

 

[BobaBird]

I hope they move some pointless programming there, or use it for locals.

The difference being?

 

[bcshields]

The difference being me not putting up 129 dishes in delaware.

 

[James Long]

The difference being me not putting up 129 dishes in delaware.

Do you have a hard time getting 119?

I don't expect anything on 129 to be national ... then again, it is a nice place for a full power bird.

JL

 

[bcshields]

119 elevation is about 24-29 degrees here. We have quite a hard time getting it in.