Hey All,

Quick question, hope this isn't a not-allowed question here. Have been a DirecTV customer for several years now. Recently moved and re-upped my contract with them and upgraded to the HD-DVR receiver with no complaints.

I'm originally from Pittsburgh, started looking at the locals offered there.... figured out I was in the same "spot beam" for their locals, so I decided to "move" back to my parent's address. Did this w/o complaint or issue from DTV, 24 hours later the new locals are nicely available and in good quality.

Question is this: each local channel now appear listed twice in the channel guide. First listed is the HD channel (denoted by the HD logo that appears by certain programs) and the second is the SD channel. I am able to tune into the SD channel, but selecting the HD channels results in "Searching for Satellite in on Tuner 1."

So which satellite are the HD locals on? I thought I had read that they were on a nationally broadcast (i.e. not spotbeamed) transponder, but now I am guessing that's incorrect. I've looked all over the internet for this info .. any help would be apprecaited.

Thanks!

rf

The HD locals are spotbeamed from the newer Spaceway 1 and Spaceway 2 sats which are not the same sats the SD locals come off of. The new sats have much tighter beams then the older sats so most likely you aren't under the beam for your "local" HD channels.

Yeah, I was afraid that might be the case. Unfortunate.

Is there anyway to check that out? I.e. do you know what direction spaceway 1/2 are located and is there a list of which channels correspond to which transmitter?

Thanks for the reply mjones.

Hey All,

Just a quick followup to my question posted a few months ago above.

I did "move" to an out-of-area market. Locals came through just fine (still under the spot beam) but had no local High Def channels. Within in the last week or so, all of a sudden the local HDs have started up (they always were on the list, but now they're actually receiveing instead of "searching for satellite.")

I thought perhaps this meant they were readying the true HD locals for the area I'm in and maybe "adjusted" the spot beam on the satellite ... or perhaps this is coming off the new bird?

Just was curious .. I'm thrilled, of course, but I wanted to knwo if anyone had any ideas as to why this would happen?

I do believe the beams are adjustable on the new sats, it's possible they changed the coverage area some.