HD locals for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, PA timeframe??

For what it is worth a local dealer sent me this response to my question on the spot beam question.

Yes, there is a spotbeam issue with the HD locals, however Dish is working on solving the issue as we speak. Unfortuantely, they were unaware of any problem with transmission until we brought it to their attention. I am confident they will resolve the issue shortly. Please stay in touch and I will provide you with any information I receive.

K_MAN - good information. Sounds like you actually found a retailer that knows something. My local Dish retailer also reps Direct and only want to push me to switch. Can you please share the name of the retailer you are talking to? I would love to talk with them.
 
I found something interesting.

If I go to the Dish website and put in my Lewisburg address, it shows my locals available in SD and then right below that it lists ABC-HD in a box under the heading of HD locals are not available in your area. If I put in a random address in Wilkes-Barre, it shows the same locals, but the ABC-HD channel shows up in the available list.

Not sure if I explained that very well, but if you go there and try it you will see what I mean. The point I am making is that even on the Dish website they acknowledge we can't get the HD locals in the western part of the DMA. So there is no way they just found out that there is a problem.
 
Farmdog, I have been dealing with Hans Cedardale in Hughesville. I signed up with Dish online and they called before they came to install my dish and answered a lot of questions that were not explained online or by Dish customer service.
 
I found something interesting.

If I go to the Dish website and put in my Lewisburg address, it shows my locals available in SD and then right below that it lists ABC-HD in a box under the heading of HD locals are not available in your area. If I put in a random address in Wilkes-Barre, it shows the same locals, but the ABC-HD channel shows up in the available list.

Not sure if I explained that very well, but if you go there and try it you will see what I mean. The point I am making is that even on the Dish website they acknowledge we can't get the HD locals in the western part of the DMA. So there is no way they just found out that there is a problem.

That is interesting since around the time I saw WNEP on my channel guide and it would not come up I looked at the website and it said it was available. So they did make a change to take it off.
 
Yes, that's a whole new look for the local channels qualification page. I just tried Montgomery a few days ago and it had WNEP listed as available, now it doesn't. They must have had a lot of complaints.

It's a little odd that they have CW and PBS also listed in the "not available" box because they normally don't supply those to anyone. They put them on a while ago for a few markets that don't have all 4 of the others, and then this week they put them on for a couple of markets that do, but I don't see where they'll have the space for them in all markets anytime soon because they can't even provide HD locals at all to quite a few markets yet.
 
Farmdog, I have been dealing with Hans Cedardale in Hughesville. I signed up with Dish online and they called before they came to install my dish and answered a lot of questions that were not explained online or by Dish customer service.

Thanks K man. I spoke to someone up there today and he tells me that it is some type of programming problem with the eastern arc dish and that Dish is working to resolve it. He suggested I hang in there and hopefully they will have it worked out in a few weeks. I'll believe it when I see it.
 
Thanks K man. I spoke to someone up there today and he tells me that it is some type of programming problem with the eastern arc dish and that Dish is working to resolve it. He suggested I hang in there and hopefully they will have it worked out in a few weeks. I'll believe it when I see it.
Thats BS , Its got nothing to do with eastern arc. This is a 61.5 satellite spot beam issue. This isn't just effecting Eastern arc customers . This is also effecting wing dish customers.
 
Thats BS , Its got nothing to do with eastern arc. This is a 61.5 satellite spot beam issue. This isn't just effecting Eastern arc customers . This is also effecting wing dish customers.

Yes, the retailer I was talking to confirmed that the signal strength for the spot beam is too weak for the wing dish customers. He has a wing dish at his showroom and he told me can get the channel sometimes, but it frequently drops out.

What he was telling me was that, once they work out the Eastern arc programming issues, the HD spotbeam signal should be picked up better with the installation of a new eastern arc dish. Is that BS.....I have no idea. Just a few levels above my understanding of how all this works.

Maybe someone on this board who is better informed than I could weigh in?
 
Since 61.5 is part of the Eastern Arc, I'd be surprised if they'd put the HD locals on one of the other two satellites. If they did, they'd still have to leave them on 61.5 for people who don't have EA dishes. At least I would assume they would want to do that rather than change everyone's dishes.

If he meant that a different dish would give a better signal from 61.5, I have no idea. In theory a bigger dish will always give you a stronger signal, but since the 61.5 LNB won't be the central one on the EA dish I don't know whether it works that way.

It would be interesting to see what would happen with a bigger dish aimed solely at 61.5, but since my dishes are on the roof I'm not going to try it.
 
Does anyone who has talked to the engineers know whether Dish ever even switched over to picking up the digital channels instead of analog for SD, as they were supposed to have done months ago? WSWB still has poor resolution and color fidelity compared to the other locals. It sure doesn't look digital to me. So it wouldn't suprise me if they held off on switching til they were ready to carry the HD versions too.

And what of Fox? Someone, maybe someone from the station, said a while ago that Fox was demanding that they carry MyNetwork. If this is so, why doesn't Dish either go ahead and carry MyNetwork (because it's only SD in this market so far) OR fight it since neither Direct nor Comcast carry MyNetwork?
 
As anyone noticed that the SD of FOX, CBS, and WBRE are a little better or is it to the point that I'm imagining better quality???

I just started noticing it this week. Any ideas?
 
As anyone noticed that the SD of FOX, CBS, and WBRE are a little better or is it to the point that I'm imagining better quality???

I just started noticing it this week. Any ideas?

Got this from the Ch. Engineer at WBRE:

Dishnet started carrying our digital signal on 11/3 . I assumed this meant they would carry the HD version as well as the downconverted HD version. What they did was change their receiver from picking up 22/28 analog to WBRE-DT/WYOU-DT (digital 13 and 11). This is the information I have at this time.

Gary

Gary Talkiewicz-Chief Engineer

WBRE-TV
62 South Franklin St.
Wilkes-Barre, PA 18701-1201
Gtalkiewicz@pahomepage.com

 
Dang, I didn't remember the Tech Chat was on. I just watched a re-run and I can't believe they have a problem with a quarter of Pa not being able to get an HD feed and they don't address it. I come here for info but I'll admit I don't speak Satellitese and am sometimes over my head tech wise. So does anyone really know what the deal is? Is this new "Eastern Arc" going to solve the problem?
 
November 19th, 2008. Still no new local hd.

OTA does not come in for me for FOX and WBRE signal is poor.

Are we ever going to get more local hd on 61.5. Watching uplink report each week and seeing other areas get there locals. what's up dish, contract running out soon.

Sorry just venting. Does anyone have any inside info on when.
 
Judging by the fact that WSWB is looking even worse than usual, I don't think they're even picking up the digital signal for the SD version of it yet. They've only got 3 months to go, what are they waiting for?
 

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