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Spot beams

V

visionman

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Jul 22, 2010
54
0
Lowville, New York
How can I find if I am within a spot beam? I'm in upstate NY (Lowville, 13367). My locals include Utica NBC channel WKTV. I cuurently only get this station in SD from a wing dish. I noticed yesterday on "The List" that there is an HD version on sat 61.5 with a spot beam of 29. I am about 45 miles north of Utica. Would I be able to see this signal? If so, I wonder why I never knew before now just finding it by accident? What would I need to do to get it turned on?
 
61, 72,77 & wing at 119. That's where I noticed Utica channel in HD. My locals are all coming from 119 (spot A15). Watertown has all networks except NBC so they added Utica WKTV but on 119 it is only SD. Should I be able to receive spot A15 also to get NBC HD?
Thanks for your interest
 
Krell: actually none except all locals have been coming off wing at 119. I already get all in HD with OTA. If I could get NBC in HD (from 61.6) I'd be tickled..
 
I'd disconnect that wing dish if you aren't using it, and run a check switch and see what happens. If that doesn't fix it, our accounts have a flag for EA/WA, so maybe a CSR such as DIRT can update your account.
 
Bobby: I used your link and observed. I then changed your search to Watertown because that is my dma. It shows I am getting my locals from spotbeam 50 on 61.5. (Very interesting!) But, if you do this you can see WKTV IS infact coming from spot 50 BUT it's SD ?? If it's available in HD via spot 29 can I get two spot beams? Why would they separate the beams?
 
WKTV is in HD in the Utica DMA, but only SD in the Wattertown DMA. I'm afraid I don't understand why. How about "moving" to the Utica DMA? This requires a call/chat or PM to a Dish CSR.
 
Bobby: I used your link and observed. I then changed your search to Watertown because that is my dma. It shows I am getting my locals from spotbeam 50 on 61.5. (Very interesting!) But, if you do this you can see WKTV IS infact coming from spot 50 BUT it's SD ?? If it's available in HD via spot 29 can I get two spot beams? Why would they separate the beams?
 
Looks like all of you investigated quicker than I could.. It does seem strange, doesn't it? I can see sb 29 would be marginal for some people but the receiver would automatically select SD if HD wasn't available, wouldn't it? Maybe I should try a move. Thank you EVERYONE for all the help. You're great.
 
An update.. I emailed the Operations Manager at WKTV and asked why the HD feed was not available and if it ever would be. He said they in fact DO give Dish the HD feed but Dish down converts it to save bandwidth. He said HE too has Dish and is frustrated it is only SD but said he can receive it OTA. He said Direct does give their customers the HD version, and suggested I contact Dish and ask them if they will ever make it available. Is there a good way to do that?
 
The most that they will give you at dish, is to submit a programming request for you. Makes sense, if it is an out of market channel, that they are moving for you.
 
I am in Watertown and the spot beam channels are not good. To look at football games is the most awful thing to look at. It’s about time that some pressure be put on Dish to start giving us the HD large screen display. After all isn’t this what we are paying for. Maybe the FCC can do something about this?
 
What in the hell, would the FCC have anything to do with that. Dish claims to offer locals. And they do. It's not saying that you should be happy about receiving SD, but to say the FCC should be involved is just plain ignorant. Can you get them OTA? The reason the FCC has no play bere(amongst others), is there is also competition. DTV, maybe cable providers, online streaming of channels, fiber, etc. if you are in the boonies, then it would make sense that they do not have the bandwidth to offer hd in a very small market. Etc.
 
There are a lot of markets in the #29 spot beam and it is surrounded by Albany, Buffalo and New York City. I would imagine that something had to give.

It may be notable that DIRECTV splits the 13367 Zip code and offers Watertown (WWTI, WWNY, WHEC and WNYF) in Lewis County and Utica (WUTR, WTVH, WKTV and WFXV) in Herkimer County.
 
I've tried to contact Dish via email twice but they do not respond. I'm looking into Direct now. The picture quality is better and all their networks are in HD.I don't care for the Direct receiver hookups though. It will cost a lot to wire all of our TVs. Our neighborhood is growing up now and there's a good chance cable will be moving in in the near future.
 
Harshness, I am in Lewis county. The Herkimer county line is some 15+ miles away in a remote area. I know Directv offers WHEC out of Rochester to my area. Can you tell if WHEC through Dish is HD or SD?
 
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