Seattle HD Locals

[delos]

Nice letter to KCPQ. Unfortunately, Tribune is being a bunch of asses over this issue and want Dish to also carry KMYQ - another HD station they O&O that carries stuff most of us could care less about.

Dish is refusing to carry it, so Tribune is refusing them the rebroadcast rights to the HD version of KCPQ. The folks at KCPQ would love to give us their digital signal via Dish, but it's out of their hands, unfortunately, delos.

Thanks, I did find an email address at Tribune, "gweitman@tribune.com" I sent an edited version there. The whole thing is so stupid on their part it is frustrating.

 

[long_time_DNC]

I agree, it's very frustrating...especially when all Tribune stands to gain is more $$$ from another source. Doesn't make any sense.

 

[cebbigh]

Off topic but early this morning (approx 3:30am) I did a TP check on 129 and found some really strange numbers. Some were way higher (90's!!) and some were way lower (50's). Haven't rechecked. Anyone else see this?

 

[long_time_DNC]

I'll have to check! I'll get back to y'all.

 

[bradleys]

Between 17:42-17:48 Seattle time, using my 30 inch dish on my 622, the strengths for 129 are listed below.

Subtract about 15-20 points for the equivalent Dish 1000 strengths. (At least that was the difference when I installed the big dish).

01 - 90
02 - 80
04 - 89
05 - 89
06 - 82
07 - 87
08 - 84
09 - 95
10 - 94
11 - 85
12 - 90
13 - 92
16 - 82
17 - 87
18 - 80
19 - 98
21 - 85
22 - 80
23 - 89
27 - 90
30 - 93
31 - 97
32 - 85

 

[long_time_DNC]

Between 17:42-17:48 Seattle time, using my 30 inch dish on my 622, the strengths for 129 are listed below.

Subtract about 15-20 points for the equivalent Dish 1000 strengths. (At least that was the difference when I installed the big dish).

01 - 90
02 - 80
04 - 89
05 - 89
06 - 82
07 - 87
08 - 84
09 - 95
10 - 94
11 - 85
12 - 90
13 - 92
16 - 82
17 - 87
18 - 80
19 - 98
21 - 85
22 - 80
23 - 89
27 - 90
30 - 93
31 - 97
32 - 85

Those are 129 numbers to drool by.

 

[cebbigh]

Since the 3.63 release and it's screwy 129 TP readings I haven't observed it take it's 20 minute interval dive. I have also recorded movies on filmfest and KungFu and not seen any picture distortion. In fact the PQ on the Voom channels looks better to me (but that is subjective). Does anyone confirm or disagree?

 

[long_time_DNC]

I'll test some tonight and see what happens and report back. I noticed something nice with 3.63 - original air date info! That's pretty nifty.

 

[cebbigh]

There's that and also if you do a search now the results do not show channels that are blocked. Makes the list a lot more accessable.

 

[long_time_DNC]

Well...I still get dropouts about every 20 minutes, but instead of the video blocking up, video freeze or massive pixelization splattering and then freezing, I now get the satellite signal has been lost box and satellite signal in acquisition box. Actually, this is better because prior to 3.63, when signal loss occurred, the audio would garble, the video would blitz-out and if I didn't change channels to something SD and wait until the signal returned (3-5 minutes) on anything off of 129, then the next time it lost signal, my 622 would lock-up, requiring a soft reboot to get any functionality back.

I'm sitting here watching Jaws on Monsters HD and I've sat through signal loss boxes and the movie resumes (between 3-5 minutes later). BUT, at least the box doesn't lock-up anymore...this makes me a little happier since I don't have to play the "change the channel and wait" game. However, I still don't like having the dropouts - period. It doesn't happen on any of the HD coming from the core sats (110/119) and it just shouldn't be happening with these channels from 129. It's just plain WRONG.

 

[cebbigh]

Sorry to hear there are still problems. I haven't seen them since 3.63 but didn't watch 129 much today. I am using a seperate 500 for 129 so that might be part of it. And I absolutely agree that using a sick sat for HD makes no sense at all.

 

[long_time_DNC]

I like the phrase: sick sat. Describes it perfectly.

 

[brad1138]

129 issues....

The reason for the drop outs every 15-20 Min's is because Sat 129 is oscillating and they can't stop it. We (my boss and I) got this info at Team Summit.

The resent changes/movement in 129's transponders have been largely due to communications my boss has been having with E*, he is in comm. with the top guys at dish working on the problem, For a while he has been forwarding all his email he gets from customers having trouble with 129 and they have been using him to test the changes they make.

A little over a week ago, E* made an official change for all HD installs in WA. All HD installs get a D500 and a 24" dish (for 129) with a higher quality LNB mainly used in Alaska. They are also upgrading previous installs. There are supply problems on the upgraded lnb (oddly called a LN "low noise" lnb) so they are saying the standard lnb is OK for now. You can tell if you have a LN-lnb by looking at the sides, they are tapered in a bit, sorry don't have pix handy.

We have found in testing the the LN-lnb gains you about 5 points of signal and the upgrade from a D500 to a 24" dish gains 10+ points. Also upgrading from a D1000 to 2 D500's gained about 5 points.

The upgrade doesn't cure the problem but in good weather conditions you shouldn't loose picture during the 20 min signal drops. As the weather gets worse in the Fall I think you will start to see the dropouts again.

Of course the best solution is if you can get 61.5 Mark Jackson (President of EchoStar Technologies Corporation) told me that it would probably be 1.5-2 years before 129 is replaced, that was about 6 months ago, and I am sure the time-line has changed since then.

Sorry if this has all been covered already, don't have time to read all posts.

Brad

 

[cebbigh]

Thanks for the info Brad1138. The part about the LN LNB was new to me. Some of what you posted I had heard before but posting any information is always good because there is bound to be someone who picks up something that they didn't know.

Do you know if Dish did something to 129 adjusting TP strengths at about the same time 3.63 came out? A lot of people think that the changes resulted from 3.63 but that might just be coincidence?

Because I am already using 2 500's it sounds like I might possibly pick up an additional 15 points. I don't want to go thru having a new dish installed and then having them come back to put in a new LN LNB.

 

[long_time_DNC]

Thanks the info, Brad!

I've heard some of this from a retailer here in town too. I just wish they'd just move a spare or otherwise correctly operating sat into the 129 slot and de-orbit that sick sat (Chuck's great term for it. ).

1.5-2 years for a replacement sat is just way too long to wait and their solution for WA residents is essentially a band-aid.

 

[brad1138]

I've heard some of this from a retailer here in town too

I wonder if that was my shop, I noticed we both live in Oly. I work for Sky Systems.

I think my boss did say they were upping the power on some TPs as well as moving some about 2 weeks ago.

 

[pbrown]

Brad-

I think you actually installed my system.

What would be the best way to convince dish to upgrade me from a dish 1000? Is that going to be free? Should I just call in and complain about my 129 performance? Thanks for your great inside info.

 

[long_time_DNC]

I've heard some of this from a retailer here in town too

I wonder if that was my shop, I noticed we both live in Oly. I work for Sky Systems.

I think my boss did say they were upping the power on some TPs as well as moving some about 2 weeks ago.

Sky Systems, yep. That's the shop.

Yes, they said on the tech chat (or was it the Chuck chat?) a month or so ago that they were going to boosting the power on some TPs and the uplink report posted to this site shows lots of movement of programming around the TPs on 129...but it's only been of marginal help for my installation.

 

[brad1138]

I think you actually installed my system

Cool, I hope I did a good job

Should I just call in and complain about my 129 performance?

YES,

Dish is going to pay us to upgrade all of our previous D1000's or 2XD500 installs. That only covers the customers where we sold the equipment. We also do subcontract installs for E*(and other Co's), where we didn't sell the system. Those customers would have to go through dish. I'll find out if E* is upgrading everyone or not.

One thing to keep in mind is that MANY of the csr's at E* have no idea about the 129 problems in the NW, don't let them set you up for service call to see whats wrong, you know what's wrong, you need a 24" dish!

Here are some pix of the LN-LNB, maybe make it easier to see if you already have one:

http://www.geocities.com/brad1138/4s.jpg

http://www.geocities.com/brad1138/6s.jpg

Brad

 

[long_time_DNC]

I'll finally get to see the 'Hawks play tonight in what passes for HD these days!

National TV too...I hope they'll be at the top of their game tonight.