Remember that when DISH started about 11 years ago, there was no talk of hd. THey were mostly trying to supply a cable like experience with satellite. Then the locals push began . Then towards the late 90s we got our first hd channel or two. My point is that DISH is dealing with new technology and demands , channels , etc using existing 20 century setup. I am sure if they had it to do over again and they knew then, what they know now ,they would of done a lot of things different.
But that being said , I've never understood why they duplicated international channels on so many satellites at the same time. How much demand can there be for these in America anyway? But at least they are now pushing all internationals to the 118.5 sat. THat leaves 105 and 121 with nothing to do now. I guess they could stop paying rent on 105 but they own 121. Poor planning. Maybe they could change the orbit on 121 and use it somehow with the hd channels. The 129 sat situation is stupid and shouldn't be allowed to go on. I know they wanted a one dish solution for hd and national cable channels but most people end up needing either 61.5 or a second dish that is bigger for 129 anyway. My 1000.2 dish is useless for me as I can not use 129 due to the signal dropouts on this sat. So I have aluminum foil over the 129 lnb and use a side sat dish for 61.5 . IF they wanted to fix the situation they could duplicate the 129 national hd to the 148 sat. It was set up to mirror for the west coast anyway for hd when they started so why not continue the process. IT isn't like most people aren't using 2 dishes anyway to avoid the dreaded drop outs on 129. As to duplication look at what they have been doing for most of the last 11 years in regards to internationals. I would think that hd duplication would be only for this year till they get up and running on the mpeg4 service.
