What If?

blockisle9

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Jul 1, 2004
217
0
If something happened to one of the satellites that broadcast most of my programming, (Say complete failer) what would that mean to the service? Are there back-up plans?
Thanks
Lenny
 
You don't have to worry they have the older satellites for back up that can carry the main channels but some city's would lose their local channels.
 
They have a spare floating around somewhere. Failing all else, there are other satellites to rent from should it be needed.
 
My question is : Do they have more than one satellite assigned to the dbs slot? For example the 61.5 sat for Dish is the same slot as Vooms sat at 61.5. Also are there more than one satellite at the 110 and 119 dbs slot? I think Directv must have more than one satellite at the 101 dbs slot as well. Does anyone know about this and can they explain how this works? Thanks
 
A customer pissed me off about getting rescheduled (not home) once and I gave her directions to her local library.

Talk about pissing someone off... whew.
 
Geronimo said:
61.5 is the same slot but DISH and VOOM each have their own satellite there. As for what is where. Her isa link to a table. Enjoy

http://www.lyngsat.com/tracker/america.html

So I see several slots with multiple satellites there. So I guess it is possible for Dish to have 2 or 3 satellites in the same slot? The same for Directv. I wonder because I hear Echostar 10 will go to the 110 slot as well when it launches next month. If that is the case why dont they just keep launching satellites into the same slots and providing all the service they need? Why would they need more than one or two slots if they can put for example two satellites at 148 slot like Dish did or two at 110 etc?
 
MikeD-C05 said:
So I see several slots with multiple satellites there. So I guess it is possible for Dish to have 2 or 3 satellites in the same slot? The same for Directv. I wonder because I hear Echostar 10 will go to the 110 slot as well when it launches next month. If that is the case why dont they just keep launching satellites into the same slots and providing all the service they need? Why would they need more than one or two slots if they can put for example two satellites at 148 slot like Dish did or two at 110 etc?

Because E* only owns 29 Frequencies at 110 and no matter how many satellites they place their they can only use those 29, however 5 of those frequencies are used for spot beams. With a spot beam satellite if they have enough up link facilities they can keep re-using those same 5 frequencies. E10 is a spot beam satellite with 45 Spot beams, E* recently announced the purchase of land in Spokane Washington for a 3rd up link center and they will need one more in addition to this to handle all 45 spot beams.
 
So you can put up as many satellites you want in the dbs slot. It is the transponders that matter. As long as they don't go over their 29 transponders they're okay. Cool.
 
There are a lot of limits. Satellites have to be spaced apart in orbit, it is currently about .2 degrees. So, there really is a limit to the number of satellites allowed into a slot.

Spot beams do reuse the same transponder over and over, but there are limits there too since the beam can only be focused so small (Ku is about 500mile diameter) because of the size of the antenna that can be sent up (larger sized antennas make smaller spot beams). Then there has to be spacing between the spots so they do not interfere with each other. So, you can only use a transponder frequency so many times, 5-8 times is about max.