It's not looking good. I wonder if those rocket scientists know that Canada is part of North America?
Dish Files to Launch AMC-14 to 61.5 W
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I don't remember seeing beam charts for Ciel 2. Are they out yet? I'm curious to see if Ciel 2 fixes the northeast problem at 129. If so that could truly be a conus HD bird once a healthy one is there.
Guesstimate as to how long it would take E-6 to repark at 129 if the bird just dies?
Guesstimate as to how long it would take E-6 to repark at 129 if the bird just dies?
I don't recall seeing any docs for this bird yet either. I'm sure it will have excellent NW coverage as it is designed for 129 and I'm sure the Canadians want the signal in their neck of the woods too since it is their bird and slot.
The AMC-14 has some interesting features.
It has one transmit beam for all of CONUS.
It has four receive beams so it can be served by both Cheyenne and Gilbert in two different modes.
It has "hardy" fuel tanks that are extremely unlikely to leak.
It was to be launched early this year but was delayed by this year's Proton launch failures.
And of course it will let them used all of the spectrum they own but Echostar-3 and Rainbow-1(Echostar-12) can't use due to failures (E3) or design limitations (E12).
I wonder what will become of Rainbow-1/Echostar-12 when AMC-14 is launched?
It has one transmit beam for all of CONUS.
It has four receive beams so it can be served by both Cheyenne and Gilbert in two different modes.
It has "hardy" fuel tanks that are extremely unlikely to leak.
It was to be launched early this year but was delayed by this year's Proton launch failures.
And of course it will let them used all of the spectrum they own but Echostar-3 and Rainbow-1(Echostar-12) can't use due to failures (E3) or design limitations (E12).
I wonder what will become of Rainbow-1/Echostar-12 when AMC-14 is launched?
I've said a few times that AMC-14 would go to 61.5 to pick up the slack from Echostar3 and allow E12 to go into spotbeam mode.
But, doesn't E12 need 15 separate regional uplinks to effectively use its spotbeams?
Is it going to use a small subset, then, for locals that must use 61.5 like NYC and Washington DC DMAs?
I'm glad they're on the ball on using the spots on E12 but they're terribly hamstrung by the silly uplink arrangement.
Actually I wouldn't call it a silly uplink arrangement. It is a highly efficient uplink arrangement that was required for Voom to do LiL with the small set of licenses they had at 61.5.
Thats great news, They need to replace echostar 3. This will now allow then to use those frequency's that they are authorized for but unable to use because of the failing transponders on Echostar 3. I can see them doing spots on the voom frequency's as once was planned when voom was in operation and national hd on the new bird, effectively maximizing the usage of both birds and making that slot 100 percent effective money making machine. Glad I bought some more stock in Echostar! I have a feeling this time next year I will be making a profit! LOL
Actually it appears from some of the recent FCC filings that Dish is adding large dishes to their various uplink centers to support the E-12 spotbeams. These include sites in New Jersey, Virginia, Georgia, Illinois, Texas and South Dakota. Now all of these might not be for use with the E-12 spotbeams but I have to believe many are for that purpose. I don't see Dish using the E-12 spotbeams for the west coast, but they also have created a problem with putting so many of the HD RSNs at 129 W. I can't see many subscribers too happy with having to have a Dish 1000 to get 129 W as well as a separate dish for 61.5 W.
Don't forget they have Echo6 as a spare up there to cover 129 if it bites the dust. And no they won't move it now and put into service as it is also a spare for 119 and 110.
Wish I had a few million spare dollars floating around in space.
Maybe they will put the 129 RSNs on the 2 extra TPs they get by moving AMC14 to 61.5. It still seems odd to me that they would move AMC-14 to 61.5 to cover 2 TPs, especially since they are moving the internationals off and Sky Angel off to free up space.
Moving from 129 to 61.5 is not good for the West. Plus LA, Chicago, Denver, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, and other HD locals are also on 129. That's 5 transponders plus the HD RSN's.
They could duplicate the 129 RSNs, not move them off of 129. It is looking more and more like a lot of the eastern markets may get LiL via spot beams on 61.5. Some of them may have RSNs on 129 and duplicating them on 61.5 would help.
Currently Dish uses 4 TPs at 61.5 W to provide HD locals to four cities. Just using those 4 TPs in spotbeam mode, Dish could offer HD locals to probably 50 cities. After AMC-14 is launched to 61.5 W, Dish will gain an additional 4 TPs, the two that E-3 can not provide signals for and the two that they will gain from Sky Angel. In addition, if some of the 19 TPs provided by AMC-14 are in double power mode, Dish can reduce the error correction which increases the useable TP bandwidth. This may allow Dish to put more HD channels per TP perhaps maybe 8 or 9. The same is true for when the E-11 satellite is launched to 110 W. E-11 will have even higher powered TPs than AMC-14 does operating in double power mode. The big problem with moving RSNs from 129 W to 61.5 W is the changeout of subscribers dishes from a single D1000 to a dual dish setup although I know a lot of folks would prefer that arrangement because of the signal problems with 129 W.
Well if Dish does what it filed it would do (i.e. break 61.5/77/86.5 east sats away from 110/119/129 west sats) they will need to provide the 129 RSNs over on the east sats.
It will be interesting to see how Dish competes with itself, especially now that it is going to have separate stock...
I think for the FCC filing the error correction numbers are only examples. I don't think it would be a problem for Dish to use any error correction they wanted and if these are not examples I think Dish could could amend their filings for the reduced error correction justifying it with use of the higher power signal.
Is this some of the same information you are talking about?
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-279234A1.pdf
Who is Ciel's Canadian customer, and what are their plans for this sat? I am sure both
ExpressVU and *C have subscribers in the eastern provinces, even in to Newfoundland. Is 129 going to be able to cover that far east, or is it mainly meant to cover the praries and BC?
ExpressVU and *C have subscribers in the eastern provinces, even in to Newfoundland. Is 129 going to be able to cover that far east, or is it mainly meant to cover the praries and BC?
Yes, although there are specific detailed FCC filings for each earth station.
In regards to the Ciel-2, I don't know if any there are any Canadian customers and Dish is certainly hoping that there are none because they then get full use of Ciel-2. Dish will get use of at least 16 of the 32 TPs. I can't see someone trying to use 129 W for eastern Canada, the Line of Sight (LOS) problems would be really bad. Recognize the farther north one goes the worse the LOS problems get so the LOS problems are farther west in Canada than in the U.S. for 129 W. For clarification, the problems for folks in the Northeast U.S. for receiving signals from 129 W can not be fixed by a new satellite there. The satellite is just too low in the sky in that area and it is hard to have a clear LOS without trees or other buildings in the way and there is also a great deal more atmosphere that the signal has to go through.
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