E* schedule for HD LILs in rural locations??

[bhelms]

Howdy all. I'm in good old rural central PA. I don't think we have a local market area here unless you're talking about the hog market (no aspersions to pigs or you fellow H-D owners!).

Seriously, the E* website sez I belong to the Johnstown-Altoona market and I am now receiving the listed channels. But this does not tell me anything about when they'll be available in HD, presumably off 61.5 which I receive. 3 of the listed channels are currently OTA in HD (I can only receive one reliably) and at least one other is imminent. Can anyone point me to a resource that will tell me when those locals are scheduled for HD inclusion from E* ?? TIA and BRgds...

 

[BFG]

Not this year.

 

[BrettTRay]

Don't hold your breath!! Its time to upgrade the antenna, add a pre-amp, antenna rotor, and good coax because it ain't going to be anytime soon. I live in a top 40 market but dish has somehow decided that they will by-pass our market and put up a market with less tv households than us. How does that make sense, so who nows? Knowing dish, they will skip some of the bigger DMA's and put your market up next week!!!!

 

[wparrott]

I feel your pain! I've been chomping to get a 622 but will wait for network channels b/f switching. I'm in the fringe area of the Raleigh/Durham, NC market and as I understand it, we should be able to get HD locals sometime in the 2nd quarter of this year. I'm too far away to get HD's OTA, with the exception of PBS (yeah!) which happens to have a transmitter about 18 mi. from my house.

Has anyone had any luck getting a waiver in my area so that they could get HD from other network affils.?

 

[BrettTRay]

I get all my locals in HD but there are a couple of them that drop out quite often until I can get my new antenna up and my Rohn 25g tower up but it would still be nice to be able to get them via satellite also.

 

[bhelms]

Tks for the replies, guys! Per my earlier posts in other threads, I have variable OTA luck with my current 25+ year old RS VU-160, rotor, B-T hi-gain preamp and a maze of cables (6/U QS) and such. Plenty to play with. The fact that I can sometimes get 3 more subchannels (1 is HD) tells me I'm right on the verge of a solution. I'll continue tinkering with what I have for a bit longer before sinking more $$ into the OTA solution, but if E* is still several years away then I'm more inclined to invest in it. Another factor is the reportedly superior OTA performance of the 622 vs. my 811. Decisions, decisions...!

 

[K4LK]

Don't hold your breath!! Its time to upgrade the antenna, add a pre-amp, antenna rotor, and good coax because it ain't going to be anytime soon. I live in a top 40 market but dish has somehow decided that they will by-pass our market and put up a market with less tv households than us. How does that make sense, so who nows? Knowing dish, they will skip some of the bigger DMA's and put your market up next week!!!!

I live in the 13th largest (Tampa) and we're not even on the list for all of 2006

 

[YuriLuzr]

You mention a "List", where is this list? Was wondering when the San Francisico area might get HD LiL?

 

[BFG]

This year, probably in the next couple of months.

These will be added in 2006

Planned:
San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose, CA
Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX
Detroit, MI
Houston, TX
Seattle/Tacoma, WA
Phoenix, AZ
Cleveland/Akron/Canton, OH
Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, FL*
Sacramento/Stockton/Modesto, CA
Orlando-Daytona Beach, FL*
St. Louis, MO
Pittsburgh, PA
Baltimore, MD*
Portland, OR
Indianapolis, IN
San Diego, CA
Charlotte, NC
Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, NC
Milwaukee, WI
Cincinnati, OH
Greenville/Spartanburg, SC/Asheville, NC
San Antonio, TX
Norfolk/Portsmouth, VA
New Orleans, LA
Memphis, TN
Oklahoma City, OK
Buffalo, NY*
Providence, RI/New Bedford, MA*
Louisville, KY
Jacksonville, FL/Brunswick, GA*
Austin, TX
Tulsa, OK
Springfield, MO
Spokane, WA
Burlington, VT/Plattsburgh, NY*

*This market will not use a dish 1000
Markets listed in order of size

 

[rdinkel]

Do we expect Dish to continue on to other DMAs next year, or just say use the outdoor antenna?

 

[M Sparks]

I live in a top 40 market but dish has somehow decided that they will by-pass our market and put up a market with less tv households than us. How does that make sense, so who nows?

It probably makes perfect sense if you could look at all the data they have access to. Actually, you probably don't even need to see the data to figure it out in most cases...just some common sense.

For example- Albuquerque (probably what you are talking about) is a market that serves an entire state. (Hubbard owns a few NBC "sister" affiliates in Farmington, Silver City, and maybe another.) I think it even bleeds into southern Colorado. The state is mostly rural- much of it probably has NO access to cable, let alone a good digital system. Therefore, DBS penetration is HUGE. They also don't have access to OTA digital.

Now I don't know what market you are in, but I'm betting it's east of the Mississippi. Eastern markets are much more densely populated. A higher percentage of the population lives in apartments. And the denser the population, the better the cable system probably is, creating more competition.

"Top 40" market and "TV Households" means little in this context. There are many factors to be considered. For example, if New Mexico had very low HD penetration, it probably wouldn't have been considered. I understand spotbeam footprints was also a consideration

I know there were only a few top 40 markets that got bypassed on the initial list. That sucks for you, but to say it makes no sense is ignorant. At least you're in better shape than someone in market #183. Chances are, they will come back and catch the markets they skipped later. (Especially Tampa- that was a weird one.)

 

[K4LK]

Do we expect Dish to continue on to other DMAs next year, or just say use the outdoor antenna?

I hope Tampa is included eventually. Although I can receive all locals with an antenna, I would like to be able to record 3 OTAs simultaneously when I get my 622. Without the HD locals via satellite, I'll be able to record 1 OTA and 2 satellite channels.