Most of the existing national HD on the EA is supposedly moving to 72.7 from 61.5 by the end of the year. One suspects when this happens it'll be removed from 61.5 permanently. If they do what they've announced, you will have no HD except for what's now on 110W which isn't much. There is a reason E* wants everyone on either the pure EA or WA with no hybrid installs...
Oh, I understand the reason they don't want hybrids. It's to avoid confusion such as mine when the
first installer came out. I have 110/119 and a wing at 61.5. Since the new HD was on 72.7 & 129, he thought, "heck, 129 will be harder to get than 72.7, so I'll just point at 72.7." Sure enough, 72.7 was easy to find and the 9 new HD channels were there. It was only after he left that I realized that most of my
other HD channels were gone, because they were on 61.5. (Hence the reason he was instructed to return and point the wing back at 61.5---ultimately, he was at other jobs too late and wouldn't be able to come back. So I pointed it back to 61.5 myself after the installer company advised I do so.--quite easily, by the way).
So, if they move
all the 61.5 stuff to 72.7, I can re-aim the wing to 72.7 (still having 110/119 on the other dish)...this would
still be a hybrid!
My guess is that they won't move all of 61.5's HD to 72.7 at one time. It'll probably be a few channels at a time which would result in my gradually losing HD until the transition is complete.
That would be annoying. Of course if they maintained redundancy until the transition was complete, I could simply re-aim when the channels were removed from 61.5.
Then there's the probability that DISH will
not do what so many are speculating or perhaps change plans mid stream...
Again, if Eastern Arc is 77, 72.7, and 61.5 and it has already been proven that I can pull in 61.5 and 72.7 with ease, why wouldn't I be able to pull in 77 and have a full Eastern Arc setup?
This also begs the question, if everything is being moved away from 61.5, then what's happening to 61.5? Will 61.5 cease to be part of Eastern Arc? Then what?
Ultimately, my concern is that I'm going to be losing HD channels as so many keep telling me that they'll be moved off 61.5. I don't care about any new HD (at least not what's currently being offered), but I don't want to lose what I've got.