Echostar III [61.5° W] & V [148° W] ?

[boba]

The new Wally / hopper boxes? Or the VIP boxes?

Personal feeling is don't buy Wally or Hopper, problem is they are now the only game in town.
VIP boxes may still be usable as replacements on already active accounts. They will probably be boat anchors on new accounts.. There is always the uninformed that think they can buy discontinued equipment and get someone to activate it.

 

[navychop]

The new Wally / hopper boxes? Or the VIP boxes?

These cannot be activated on new accounts now. Yes, it’s official.


“...I saw a great deal on Solid Signal for a 722K at just $199.99. Shoot, even a 211K would suffice...”

 

[pattykay]

These cannot be activated on new accounts now. Yes, it’s official.


“...I saw a great deal on Solid Signal for a 722K at just $199.99. Shoot, even a 211K would suffice...”

Did we ever get an official statement about the 211k? It was stated repeatedly that 211 receivers could still be activated, and the cut-off date only applied to ViP DVR models and 222 receivers.

 

[HipKat]

One wonders why Roanoke isn't on Eastern Arc.


Didn't Echostar III bite the dust long before whatever was out at 148?

Just like that guy in the Virgin Islands a few months ago - locals are WA for him too, which is very odd

 

[Photog_7]

Personally, I've owned the 211K, 211Z, Hopper 3, and the Wally. They're all very good receivers in their own way, but the new Hopper 3 and Wally receivers can do so much more than the 211's. If I was starting out with Dish, I would definitely want the new hardware. These new receivers are better, and the new user interface is way more powerful than the old one. I will admit that it takes a while to adjust to the user interface change, but once you do, you'll find it can do so much more than what you had. If you want the latest and greatest and state-of-the-art 4K hardware, get a Hopper 3. If your needs are much simpler and you're trying to save every penny, get a Wally.

 

[Claude Greiner]

I think Dish gave up the 148 slot.

I don’t think they gave it up yet, but rather moved the satellite and used it somewhere else.

Dish should have done a 148/157/166 west western arc setup for the west coast.

But then again satellites cost money.

As far as this original posters question.

Call dish and get signed up. Take the free equipment and install and do a 2 year agreement.

Your wasting too much time trying to figure out all your options. The Kangaroo equipment is the only way to go here.

By the time you look into pay as you go, buying your equipment, and not getting any new customer programming discounts. Your not saving any money.

Seriously. Sign the 2 year agreement. Get the free equipment and free installation and new customer programming discounts.

If you don’t like it, pay the cancellation fee and disconnect service.

By the time you go the other pay as you go route your going to spend more money trying to get around a not having a contract.

Besides that, if you complain to the right people you can always get out of the contract.

I used to think like you trying to have no contract. Not worth it. Deal with the contract if you want to cancel, as the contracts dish has people sign are not worth the paper it’s written on.

As my 15 years as being a retailer I have seen too many customers let out of agreements. Not just with Dish but many other carriers.

 

[Bobby]

For once I agree with Claude! . Pay heed to his wisdom....

 

[pattykay]

Just like that guy in the Virgin Islands a few months ago - locals are WA for him too, which is very odd

Add Columbus, Ohio to the list of odd Western-Arc-only markets. Here is the real puzzler: most of the Columbus channels are already on Eastern Arc as part of the Zanesville local package. (NBC-only market, the rest are imported from Columbus or national feeds) So, if someone in the Columbus market does not have line of sight to Western Arc, they could still "move" to Zanesville and get most of their local Columbus channels with an Eastern Arc dish.

 

[Demetrax1]

Thank you Claude (and everybody else that contributed.) I agree that it's probably best to go the simple route and sign a two-year agreement. And sure, I can swallow my pride and let someone else do it. As Greeks, we've been brought up with the mindset of "if you want something done right, do it yourself." But in this case scenario, the pro installer knows best. And I am willing to go the kangaroo route, I've just never been one for change, but I'm working on it! When it all boils down, this is the easiest route to take. I've been overthinking it. Being that I've been out of the loop for so long, you can see why I'm still clinging to old DISH tech. I am learning so much on this thread, thank you to all contributors. Here's another question: if I decide to cancel early for whatever reason, and pay the early termination fee, won't that go against my credit score since it is in fact a contract?

________________________________________________________________

Here's another unrelated question for the experts: as mentioned in my original posting, some neighbors down the street have two 300 dishes mounted on a fencepost facing about 86.5° apart. One of them faces 61.5° west, the other faces the now defunct 148° west. I have gathered this information through Google Maps and dishpointer.com. I am familiar with (old) DISH Network 300 18" single-LNBF technology, as we had it when it first came out (way back when ). My question is; why would they need two separate dishes looking at those particular satellites? I understand the need for having another dish to receive additional programming at that time, but wouldn't one single dish facing either one have sufficed? This has peaked my curiosity, and quite frankly I am stumped. See the image I attached.

 

[NGeorge]

Here's another unrelated question for the experts: as mentioned in my original posting, some neighbors down the street have two 300 dishes mounted on a fencepost facing about 86.5° apart. One of them faces 61.5° west, the other faces the now defunct 148° west. I have gathered this information through Google Maps and dishpointer.com. I am familiar with (old) DISH Network 300 18" single-LNBF technology, as we had it when it first came out (way back when ). My question is; why would they need two separate dishes looking at those particular satellites? I understand the need for having another dish to receive additional programming at that time, but wouldn't one single dish facing either one have sufficed? This has peaked my curiosity, and quite frankly I am stumped. See the image I attached.

View attachment 130617

Those dishes look pretty worn... I'm assuming that they aren't used anymore. There was a time (2001-2005ish?) where if you wanted to get your HD locals (if they were 148) and some of the lesser SD locals like secondary PBS stations, as well as get SkyAngel (the independent religious service that left 61.5, went to IPTV-only, then went defunct) and some international you needed 61.5 (for SkyAngel) and 148 dishes as well as a Dish500 or if deeper international was also involved, a DishPro(IIRC?) that was larger and could pick up KU bands at 105 and 118(?) and the standard western 110/119 satellites -- so 3 dishes; 2 wing dishes and either a 500, or a much larger DishPro in the middle if deeper international was in there too (maybe a few off the wall public interest channels were on KU as well).

I actually remember seeing a few churches do exactly this... I'm sure a few of the satellite geeks around here did that as well. There also used to be a few of the public service channels on either 148 or 61.5 but not both, and IIRC they split some of the east and west HD as well across them too... So a setup like this was either for religion or international as well as HD/lesser locals at the same time (if those came off of 148 for you), wanting to get east & west of a few HDs or every small public interest channel -- and absolutely getting every channel you possibly could -- and then add in the larger DishPro for international or some really off-the-wall tiny public interest channels.

IIRC, Dish got sued for splitting out the lesser locals like this because I think the law stated that if they had to carry locals, the entire market needed to be on one dish only -- they had been splitting them with the big 5 or 6 locals on the main satellite, then the smaller independents and secondary PBS stations on 61.5 or 148. DirecTV also had a wing dish for a leased 72.5 slot they had for a few years -- but it was all or nothing -- you either bought locals and added the wing dish, or you didn't get locals.

So to answer your question... the neighbors were probably early adopters of HDTV between 2001 and 2005, wanted religion or some international that was up on 61.5, and wanted all their locals which were probably on 148 at the time... there is or was probably a Dish500 somewhere on the property. Aside from that, they may have been members of this or another forum and just wanted to get everything because they could lol

N

 

[HipKat]

Add Columbus, Ohio to the list of odd Western-Arc-only markets. Here is the real puzzler: most of the Columbus channels are already on Eastern Arc as part of the Zanesville local package. (NBC-only market, the rest are imported from Columbus or national feeds) So, if someone in the Columbus market does not have line of sight to Western Arc, they could still "move" to Zanesville and get most of their local Columbus channels with an Eastern Arc dish.

Illinois has an issue like that. Pretty much the entire state has move the HD locals to EA. Peoria you can still go either way, but Springfield/Champaign is still WA only for HD Locals

 

[pattykay]

Those dishes look pretty worn... I'm assuming that they aren't used anymore. There was a time (2001-2005ish?) where if you wanted to get your HD locals (if they were 148) and some of the lesser SD locals like secondary PBS stations, as well as get SkyAngel (the independent religious service that left 61.5, went to IPTV-only, then went defunct) and some international you needed 61.5 (for SkyAngel) and 148 dishes as well as a Dish500 or if deeper international was also involved, a DishPro(IIRC?) that was larger and could pick up KU bands at 105 and 118(?) and the standard western 110/119 satellites -- so 3 dishes; 2 wing dishes and either a 500, or a much larger DishPro in the middle if deeper international was in there too (maybe a few off the wall public interest channels were on KU as well).

I actually remember seeing a few churches do exactly this... I'm sure a few of the satellite geeks around here did that as well. There also used to be a few of the public service channels on either 148 or 61.5 but not both, and IIRC they split some of the east and west HD as well across them too... So a setup like this was either for religion or international as well as HD/lesser locals at the same time (if those came off of 148 for you), wanting to get east & west of a few HDs or every small public interest channel -- and absolutely getting every channel you possibly could -- and then add in the larger DishPro for international or some really off-the-wall tiny public interest channels.

IIRC, Dish got sued for splitting out the lesser locals like this because I think the law stated that if they had to carry locals, the entire market needed to be on one dish only -- they had been splitting them with the big 5 or 6 locals on the main satellite, then the smaller independents and secondary PBS stations on 61.5 or 148. DirecTV also had a wing dish for a leased 72.5 slot they had for a few years -- but it was all or nothing -- you either bought locals and added the wing dish, or you didn't get locals.

So to answer your question... the neighbors were probably early adopters of HDTV between 2001 and 2005, wanted religion or some international that was up on 61.5, and wanted all their locals which were probably on 148 at the time... there is or was probably a Dish500 somewhere on the property. Aside from that, they may have been members of this or another forum and just wanted to get everything because they could lol

N

148 for locals would have been a good explanation in the western states, but the OP is in Roanoke, Virginia. So, I think the more likely explanation is HD. CBS HD East was only at 61.5, and CBS HD West was only at 148. If I remember correctly, the receivers could not handle CBS HD from both 61.5 and 148 at the same time, but you could still have both dishes, and switch back and forth between them depending on which feed you wanted to watch.

 

[Bobby]

148 for locals would have been a good explanation in the western states, but the OP is in Roanoke, Virginia. So, I think the more likely explanation is HD. CBS HD East was only at 61.5, and CBS HD West was only at 148. If I remember correctly, the receivers could not handle CBS HD from both 61.5 and 148 at the same time, but you could still have both dishes, and switch back and forth between them depending on which feed you wanted to watch.

CBS HD West (AKA KCBS, Los Angeles) was on 119, or maybe 110. When I first got Dish in 1998 I didn't have line of sight to 148 where my San Francisco locals were. So, I opted to get both New York and Los Angeles locals off of my Dish 500 aimed at 110 and 119. Later, after cutting down some trees, I added a Dish 300 to get 148 and added the SF locals as well.

 

[pattykay]

CBS HD West (AKA KCBS, Los Angeles) was on 119, or maybe 110. When I first got Dish in 1998 I didn't have line of sight to 148 where my San Francisco locals were. So, I opted to get both New York and Los Angeles locals off of my Dish 500 aimed at 110 and 119. Later, after cutting down some trees, I added a Dish 300 to get 148 and added the SF locals as well.

By the time I got Dish in late 1999, San Francisco was at 110. New York and Los Angeles were at 119. All of them were SD-only. The HD feeds of CBS were not added until several years after that, at the orbital slots that I listed above.

 

[Phil T]

At one time I had 3 dishes, 101/119, 61.5 and 148 and a switch (SW64?) that brought them all together in the guide. I think I had NY and LA HD feeds. I also had a original Dish 3000 receiver that with another dish I could point to the Expressview satellite and watch Canada programming from Halifax and Vancouver.

 

[TheKrell]

At one time I had 3 dishes, 101/119, 61.5 and 148 and a switch (SW64?) that brought them all together in the guide.

Yup; I had this setup too at first like the OP. I had 61.5 for Russian language channels. I think I was using cascaded SW21 switches, though, to feed two receivers: 4900 and a 301.

 

[boba]

Wasn't there a big service on 61.5? VOOM used 61.5 and when they sold their movie service to DISH there were quite a view using 61.5.

 

[nelson61]

I think Dish gave up the 148 slot.

Echostar 1 was moved from 148w and dish was moving the surplus echostar 5 from 129w to 148w to replace it after ciel 2 was located at 129w.

It ran out of fuel during the movement and made an emergency partial deorbit to clear the geostationary zone.

Then dish chose not to replace it and the fcc refused to keep the license active with no satellite at that location.

 

[Claude Greiner]

Here is my antenna farm...

Very interesting info, as I had 110 pointed before there was a satellite in place. Just found 101 and 119. Got a magic marker to mark the position on the dish and pointed in the middle.

Yea my 148 Dish is at 10 degrees.

Dishretailer Antenna Farm

 

[Claude Greiner]

Btw the house in that picture burned down in 2005.

See new house wiring
New House Photos