Echostar 18 Launch Approx 4:15 EDT June 18 2016

[Troch77]

EchoStar 16 presently at 61.5W is one of their newest and barely out of the baby stage after going into service in early 2013. Conus and 70 spot beams and no reports of any problems.

Okay, so why does Dish feel they need a backup?
I heard there were some spot beam issues.
New doesn't mean squat
DIRECTV 10 had and still has issues right out of the gate.

But Hey if Charlie would rather expand capacity on EA to back up a perfectly good satellite ,3 year old satellite, than back up the much older E10 and E12 then one has to wonder...
Samsung Galaxy S6 Active

 

[nelson61]

But Hey if Charlie would rather expand capacity on EA to back up a perfectly good satellite ,3 year old satellite, than back up the much older E10 and E12 then one has to wonder...
Samsung Galaxy S6 Active

Perhaps they want E16 at 110W where it could move more rapidly to 129W if needed since it supports both Conus and Spots. 129W is the "must have" satellite in the western arc and is out there all by itself.

 

[Troch77]

Doesn't that waste unnecessary fuel to do these ridiculous moves.
That's poor planning IMO.
How many miles is it to move from 61.5 to the 129?
I would say millions

Samsung Galaxy S6 Active

 

[navychop]

Once in that orbit, moving takes very little fuel. Especially if you do it slowly.

 

[nelson61]

Doesn't that waste unnecessary fuel to do these ridiculous moves.
That's poor planning IMO.
How many miles is it to move from 61.5 to the 129?
I would say millions

Samsung Galaxy S6 Active

When they want to move they only need to either raise or lower the altitude and it will then "drift" East or West to the new location where they then move back to stationary altitude.

If they have time, they only change altitude a few km. If urgent, they make a bigger altitude change which will increase drift speed.

Longitudinal distance of desired move has 0 effect on fuel required.

 

[Troch77]

When they want to move they only need to either raise or lower the altitude and it will then "drift" East or West to the new location where they then move back to stationary altitude.

If they have time, they only change altitude a few km. If urgent, they make a bigger altitude change which will increase drift speed.

Longitudinal distance of desired move has 0 effect on fuel required.

But why not just position E18 there in the first place if that's where it's needed?
Instead of sending E16, as you already stated is 3 years old to the 110 or even 129.

That doesn't sound smart at all.

I can see them moving another older backup like E10 to the 129, and adding E18 to the 110.

I have a feeling if E16 had a catastrophic Failure the EA would be more screwed if the Ceil on the 129 went down on western arc.
Considering all eastern arc locals would be eliminated.
Yous on the west would maybe be inconvenienced with less HD that's about it.
There are a lot of SD locals still floating around on the 110 .
Us East coasters can't get locals from anywhere but the 61.5
Guess we'll see soon enough what the plans are.
Should be interesting.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Active

 

[nelson61]

.


Yous on the west would maybe be inconvenienced with less HD that's about it.

129 provides something like 90 percent of the conus HD channel packages and something like half of the spots for the West arc. I guess some might think losing it would be not be inconvenient but I doubt any of them have a Western arc dish..

 

[nelson61]

Ariane 5 assembly complete.

Launch next Wednesday - June 8 4:30 PM Eastern

http://www.arianespace.com/mission-update/ariane-5-flight-va230-echostar-xviii-brisat-integration/

 

[Claude Greiner]

Keep in mind dish has no insurance on these satellites once they are launched and into their final orbit.

Charlie decided to go the self Insure route when I believe he tried to file a claim for echo star 4.

I think the whole eastern are thing is a big waste of bandwidth, considering they got lots of markets they can't make up their mind if it's eastern or western arc such as detroit.

At one point we had locals on 110, 118.7, 129 and 61.5.

They should have just put the SD on 110 and HD on 129.

What a waste 118 was

Can't tell you how many times I scammed then for a 118 Dish, since the cost was $284. I used to do dish movers and go to the customers old house to get the Dish since they would automatically pay $284 for a new one.

When a dish cost is $50 like today, it's not worth going back to the old house to get the old one.

I even at one point harvested 118 dishes off burned down abandoned houses in detroit at one point.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I think that it is smart to have some locals on both arcs ,because if you can't get the western satellites due to trees, or other obstructions , you can go eastern arc and still get your locals in hd. My parents have always been western arc sats since we had them go to DISH and the neighbors oak tree had grown so big that it was affecting their signal on 110 and 129 sats. I moved them to eastern arc dish and lnb and their signal hasn't dropped at all, and they still got to stay with Houston locals ,since they prefer their news for some reason, because Houston , like Beaumont, is on both arcs.

 

[nelson61]

launch window updated: 4:30 to 5:15 PM Eastern Daylight (20:30-21:15 GMT)

 

[nelson61]

Detailed launch schedule.
This two satellite launch will set a record for the heaviest Ariane 5 launch to date.

http://www.arianespace.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/VA230-launchkit-EN-2.pdf

 

[charlesrshell]

launch window updated: 4:30 to 5:15 PM Eastern Daylight (20:30-21:15 GMT)

What channel will the launch be on?

 

[MikeD-C05]

What channel will the launch be on?

Dish doesn't carry that channel any more because of asking to much for their carriage.

 

[ChrisK114]

Are there any plans for this satellite to help with HD picture quality? I just came from Directv and am really disappointed in the picture quality of some of the HD channels.

 

[MikeD-C05]

Are there any plans for this satellite to help with HD picture quality? I just came from Directv and am really disappointed in the picture quality of some of the HD channels.

I can tell you that when you switch from Directv to DISH , you need to look at your picture settings and adjust it to more your liking. The contrast and black levels are different with Directv, than DISH uses. DISH is more smoother to hide the flaws in the picture and Directv seems to use more sharpness which shows more flaws in the dark scenes. But once you adjust the picture to your liking , you will adjust to the DISH hd picture within a week or two. I had both hd services back in 08 and I noticed this when I did a side by side comparison on the two services. Once I adjusted the inputs to match each satellite service, I noticed they looked more alike. But in the end, I still thought that Directv hd was a little sharper than DISH. But in the end I felt I loved DISH cutting edge receivers better than Directv's, so I dropped Directv and stayed with DISH. That and the prices were lower with DISH than Directv.

 

[rharkins]

Oops. Launch postponed and delayed:

http://www.arianespace.com/mission-...ane-5-mission-with-echostar-xviii-and-brisat/

 

[nelson61]

Launch scheduled for June 16 2016

http://www.arianespace.com/mission/ariane-flight-va230/

 

[Jon J]

Ergen let out a huge sigh of relief that they discovered the anomaly before rather than after launch.

 

[charlesrshell]

Ergen let out a huge sigh of relief that they discovered the anomaly before rather than after launch.

I just wish Charlie could find a channel to show the launch!