Receiving channels out of area

[mtnpoker]

I recently took my receiver with me on a trip to California from Colorado. I used an RV stand and Dish 500 dish. Everything worked fine, but I was unable to view a few Denver local stations, like PBS (channel 6 0r 8206). I could still watch local Denver channels for the networks.

As far as I can tell, these unavailable channels were on satellite 119, transponder 5. Why would I not be able to view just those channels, ( I get a message that says I cannot view this channel outside of the viewing area), and how does the satellite know where I am?

 

[LER]

Spot Beams. I suspect the big 4 are on ConUS transponders and the others are on a spot beam.

 

[garys]

Right, spot beams are roughly about 300 mile radius around the specific market.

 

[kc0zhq]

on the Denver locals, ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox/CW are conus and the rest are spotbeam

 

[nmfiredawg]

What they said. I know spotbeam barely makes it to ABQ NM for those channels. At least the main ones are on Conus.