Thanks for that, I appreciate it. Is there a way that I can tell on the receiver what satellite a certain channel is on when I’m watching it?
While watching the channel, press the Info button on the remote, then press the Recall button. There should be a pop-up in the middle of the screen, indicating which satellite the channel is on.
I wonder why you need a separate dish for international channels with dish network, but with DIRECTV you don’t. It’s also confusing.
DirecTV uses a larger dish, with room for more LNB's (the eyes that receive the satellite signal) since their satellites are all in the same general direction. Attached below is a picture of a couple of DirecTV's LNB's, both designed to go on the same dish:
The smaller LNB is for a typical installation, aimed at DirecTV satellites 99, 101, and 103. The larger LNB unit includes the same satellites as the smaller one, plus additional built-in LNB's for DirecTV reception from 110 and 119. This would mostly be used for Spanish-language packages. This same LNB unit also has a slot (shown on the right side of the unit in the attached picture) where an additional LNB can be added for receiving DirecTV's international packages. So, the short answer would be that DirecTV uses the exact same dish for all of their programming, and just change out the LNB as needed for various packages.
With Dish, all of their international programming packages (on satellite) are on the 118. If you can aim at the other Dish satellites in the same general direction (110, 119, and 129) then all of your Dish programming comes from a single dish. If you need programming from the satellites to the southeast (61.5, 72, and 77) then you must use an Eastern Arc dish and add the 118 satellite with a separate dish. Those satellites are too far apart in the sky to be able to receive them all with a single small stationary dish.
Also, I wonder if there are any international channels that are not on the 118 satellite. And that’s 118 W. then I’m guessing?
The good news is that if you have an internet connection to your Hopper, more and more international channels are being added as streaming channels that do not require a satellite dish at all. Not all international packages are available that way, though, so it all depends on which specific channels you are looking for.