HD Locals Spot Beam Map Question

[walle]

I was on the “sat maps!” section of this forum and was checking my spot beam location. I live in Elko, NV and directv gives me Salt Lake locals but only in SD.

According to the “sat maps!”, Salt Lake lists two HD spot beams:

Directv12 103W A4B4 (smaller foot print)

and

DirectvRB 2A 103W (larger foot print)

These two maps show two very different spot beam information. Which is correct?

Also, does anyone know the transponder # for Salt Lake HD on the 103W?

Thanks for taking the time to read my question.

 

[Mr Tony]

SLC spotbeams are
103W TP21 (most of HD)
103W Tp22 (PBS HD)
101W Tp26 for SD

here is the chart

1st column is callsign (the ones with legit callsigns are HD...the ones that say "SC" are SD)
2nd is channel #
3rd is TP
4th is satellite

 

[videojanitor]

I looked up Elko on the DirecTV "locals" page, and indeed it shows they provide SLC channels to that area, but only in SD. Wonder why that is? I can't imagine it would be an "eligibility" issue, as Elko seems to be part of the SLC market. It would seem that the spot beam would reach that far, but maybe beyond a certain distance, they don't consider it to be reliable, so they simply don't offer the HD channels?

 

[Mr Tony]

The HD spotbeams are usually not as wide as SD so its very possible that he can get SD and not HD.

If the op checked the sat I provided above maybe he can tell us what his signal is for that TP

 

[videojanitor]

Yeah, that looks like about 175 miles or so, which could be a bit much, depending on the particular beam. I would think with the SLC market covering such a large geographic area, they would go "wide" on that one. But, who knows. As you say, having the OP check the signal levels on that TP would give the best clue.

 

[Mr Tony]

yeah its weird that it didnt go much wider

I checked here in Minneapolis with a city that is about 200 miles from Minneapolis and in the DMA and it still shows HD available....

so maybe its a quirk...but damn the SLC DMA is huge
all of Utah
Southern counties of Idaho
SW part of Wyoming
3 counties in Nevada

 

[videojanitor]

As Letterman used to say (about the giant doorknob), "it's just plain big."

 

[walle]

Thanks for all the great help and information.

On my 103s at TP21, I am at 74. I know the SD spot beam is very large and I have no problem getting the SLC locals in SD. But I keep getting the 771 error when I attempt to view a SLC local in HD.

Customer Service keeps telling me that HD locals are not available at my address and I do not qualify for HD DNS. All the national HD channels like ESPN, CNN, SPEED, etc come in fine. They have resent the authorization to my receiver and have also preformed the reboot with no success.

I found those “sat maps!” on this site showing the spot beam foot prints and was keeping my fingers crossed that I might be able to my locals in HD. One map (Directv12 103W A4B4) shows I am outside the HD spot beam, but the other map (DirectvRB 2A 103W) shows that I am right on the fringe.

Thanks again for all the great help and information.

 

[Bullet]

...Customer Service keeps telling me that HD locals are not available at my address and I do not qualify for HD DNS.

Elko city zipcodes 89801, 89802, 89803 show SLC HD locals available on their web order page. Did you mean "Customer Service keeps telling me that HD locals ARE available at my address and I do not qualify for HD DNS?"
If you're not getting mid to upper 80's or above on your 99c and 103c sats signal meter, a sat fine tuning tweak is in order...that will bring in those HD locals.
Bullet

 

[walle]

Thanks for the quick responses. I figured that I was not getting enough signal. I am new to the HD world and every other HD channel seems to be working. I guess these HD spot beams are more tricky than the SD spot beams. SD is okay to watch on a CRT, but very painful on a LCD. I will do some fine tuning of the dish to try and get that number up to 80+. Thanks for the TP info. Now I know what to focus on. :up

 

[Mr Tony]

Elko city zipcodes 89801, 89802, 89803 show SLC HD locals available on their web order page.

really? You must have some magical page on DIrectv then. I pulled up all 3 zips and all show the same thing
SLC locals-NO HD

 

[Bullet]

really? You must have some magical page on DIrectv then. I pulled up all 3 zips and all show the same thing
SLC locals-NO HD

I cleared my cookies and went to directv.com. I clicked packages....english. A box popped up for me to enter zipcode (89801). I clicked on "view" under the premier package. It showed all SLC HD channels available.
Funny thing that he is getting the 771 error with a 74 on the meter? That should be enough to get some in and out pixilated picture at very least. I still think he can bring that 74 up a bit to solve his problem.
Bullet

 

[harshness]

According to the “sat maps!”, Salt Lake lists two HD spot beams:

The spot beam you're seeing from RB2A is not for LIL. It is part of a special BSS band (it will require a different LNB setup at least and possibly an additional dish) payload piggybacked on D12 that has no publicly acknowledged application at this time.

 

[Bullet]

Thanks for the quick responses. I figured that I was not getting enough signal. I am new to the HD world and every other HD channel seems to be working....I will do some fine tuning of the dish to try and get that number up to 80+. Thanks for the TP info. Now I know what to focus on. :up

Walle,
I was getting all my HD channels also but I noticed MLB EI HD day games and HD Net Movies were losing signal (error 771) during the late afternoon. I checked my signal strength in the box settings. I was getting mostly mid to upper 70's on 99c, 103ca and 103cb. After 2 hours, and 50+ trips up and down the ladder tweaking my dish little by little every which way and running back into the house to check the new strength each time, I finally locked it down with all transponders in the 80's, with the exception of 2 or 3 at 79. It was a time consuming tetious process, but worth it.
Bullet

 

[harshness]

A helper and a pair of two-way communications devices can be a huge help in peaking dishes.

Even better if you can take a TV to the dish.