Echostar III [61.5° W] & V [148° W] ?

[Claude Greiner]

Also see poor mans superdidh

Metro25'

 

[Demetrax1]

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

That's very interesting, NGeorge! Everything you said makes sense. I love learning about this stuff. Also, I dug through my old gallery and found that I had snapped another picture, and that they indeed have 2 more dishes on their property. It looks like a 500 and 300 if you zoom in.

Also, nice pictures and DISH setup, Claude! I love the look of the old 300 dishes. Nice innovation for a poor man's SuperDISH! Sorry about your old house by the way.

 

[Claude Greiner]

That's very interesting, NGeorge! Everything you said makes sense. I love learning about this stuff. Also, I dug through my old gallery and found that I had snapped another picture, and that they indeed have 2 more dishes on their property. It looks like a 500 and 300 if you zoom in.

View attachment 130693

Also, nice pictures and DISH setup, Claude! I love the look of the old 300 dishes. Nice innovation for a poor man's SuperDISH! Sorry about your old house by the way.

Those dishes are still there. Had them before a dish 500 was available.

Insurance paid nicely on the old house BTW

 

[DishSubLA]

You are correct, 77W is now primarily for Dish Mexico. There are still a few locals on there, I think Cincinnati is one.

good to know good to know I didn't get it wrong this time . Thanks for the confirmation of some of the info I wasn't sure about.

 

[DishSubLA]

I think Dish gave up the 148 slot.

Yes. Dish let the clock run out on the deadline for them to use that slot after the Sat at 148 was retired or died, and by default lost it's rights to keep the 148 slot. The FCC does not allow "warehousing." I believe spot beams at 129 are used for Alaska and Hawaii reception, LIL serving western US was spread across what is now the Western Arc (especially the all spotbeam sat at 110 co-located with a ConUS sat at 110), and Internationals put at 118.7.

I was kind of surprised that Dish chose to give up 148, however the economies of only having to supply a single dish in the vast majority of installations for all services probably made more sense on the spreadsheet than keeping and using the babwidth at 148. Oh well, RIP 148. It sure did help dish during its growth at a time when Dish absolutely needed additional bandwidth at 148 despite some of the cost. Also interesting no other DBS company interested in 148 do too it's a limited footprint. dish must have found that establishing a Western Arc and Eastern Arc to be more economical then keeping 148.