What is the latest on Nimiq 4?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bent But
  • Start date Start date
I usually hope for the best, but plan for the worst ;)

Seriously though, Dish has lost two satellites over the last couple months, one new one (AMC14) and one they were about to move (Echostar 2), but it malfunctioned and was declared dead. So spares right now are tight, but I'll try to stay positive!

-Mike
 
Bell has already leased 16 transponders to Dish on Nimiq 5 at 72.7. There is already a story going around that Dish wants the other 16 too! However, your suggestion makes a lot of sense. No wonder Bell rejected it/don't think of it. It would appear Bell has no plans for the furture, except to spend money on new ads and logos. It's all a bit sad.
 
I think you maybe a little confused. Nimiq 5 will be located at 72.7. But it does not launched until late next year, and Bell has not announced what, if anything, they will use it for. Dish has already leased 16 of the 32 transponders on Nimiq 5. If Bell does use the new satellite it would mean installing a 2nd dish, and it would be useless for the West, so Bell would need to look to use something else (129?) for Western Canadians.
 
The transition occurs somewhat like this.

- Nimiq 4 is moved into position next to nimiq 2 - probably ~ 0.1 - 0.2 degrees from it
- A transponder is disabled on Nimiq 2 and the equivalent one is enabled on Nimiq 4. There may be some minor repointing of the uplink antenna at this point.
- By monitoring the downlink, they can then verify that the power output and signal integrity is acceptable and make any adjustments as required
- repeat for remaining transponders, one by one.
- They can then move nimiq 2 completely out of the way and place nimiq in the final spot.
- Alternatively they could nudge nimiq 2 over and move nimiq 4 into final spot immediately but if there are problems during the traffic transfer they'd have to move nimiq 2 back if the problems weren't resolved right away.

Of course, there will be brief outages while this happens, but it's typically done in the wee hours of the morning. Hopefully not while there is a live F1 being telecast from europe :)
 
My problem with transponder 10 "cutting out" (i.e. going from 75% to 45% signal strength) on sat 91 is not being caused by a tree getting in the way of the antenna. It's as though someone "threw a switch" - because the signal strength was a constant 43-45% then, immediately a constant 74-77%, After a couple of minutes the signal strength reverted back to 43-45%.

My guess is that BEV are, in fact, "switching things around, between satellites, as they bring the new satellite fully on-line. Time will tell if service improves.

P.S.
My wife is so pissed at BEV's service interruptions (on a number of channels) that we are planning to switch to Shaw cable if the problem is not fixed by the end of the month.
 
Once again, many thanks for that info Mike. I was not aware of the Echostar 2 problem.

Time to venture to the Dark Side and do some reading.....lol
 
The way I understand it (I have no insider knowledge), there is no question how it should be in the end. The biggest problem is the transition period.

If you park the N4 in 73, every customer using this satellite would need a tech visit. This is fine for a new install (need a visit anyway), but becomes very expensive for an existing customer that normally wouldn't need one. Will it be justified with BeV's current new customer aquisition rate? On top of this, if you limit the channels on the new bird to Nagra3/MPEG4/8PSK only, a new receiver might be required as well. How do you deal with people that have lots of HD but are happy with what they have and how it works?

All this makes the transition to this bird with this scenario (prohibitely?) expensive...
 
If N4's role is different depending on whether N5's launch is a success - most definitely.
If this happens and in the meantime no changes are made to MPEG2/QPSK/Nagra2, there could be very few customers left by the time the system is secured...
 
Technically, BEV has to submit the footprint/contour to Industry Canada (I think that is the agency, but I could be mistaken). So there is one out there, somewhere. The thing is, we can't find it online and it may never wind up in the public domain (unlike in the USA where Echostar has it show up on the FCC Database). So, someone has to sit down and make one, like 'i hate tv' said, with the sizes and what people say work.

With that said, I am hoping that when Lyngsat comes back from their holiday in the next day or so one will magically appear there.
 
As stated, N4 is a replacement for N2 and will go to the 82 slot, so you don't need to realign your dish. The problem right now is there are two satellites at the 82 slot, one with a foot print that doesn't reach as far south as the other. When channels get moved between birds, some in the southern states are affected. Hopefully N4 should cure some of those problems.

-Mike
 
THe new satellite has made an enormous difference in the North. Up until this change, the highest strength I ever received on a transponder on 82 was 59. Last night in heavy cloud cover and rain, I was still pulling 87-89 on all transponders. On a beautiful clear day on Saturday, I actually reached 100 on a couple of transponders.

I had scheduled an install of a 30 inch elliptical dish for today but decided to cancel it. From talking to the store rep (no Bell TV staff here so installs are done by retailers) she said I wasn't the only one, and they've been having some great installs lately.

Now if they can add a handful of HD channels (for me TLC and CNN would be my favorites) I'll be completely stoked.
 
Big difference here - 5 transponders @ mid 80s, the balance over 90% and the majority of those are in the high 90s.
 
According to real time sat tracking. N4 is virually right beside N2 for about a week now. Sorry to say bluereef, but nothing to move to.
 
So do you think they have moved everything to the new sat and then will be moving the old sat out and park it some where?

I wonder if it is dangerous to have 2 sats right next to oner another if something should go hay wire and it has to be destroyed?

People in Minn. have lost 82 also and they are located further North than Toronto, I guess with the new techanolgy they can really spot beam the signal.

Does that mean that people in Southern Ontario are also effected with a loss if Minn is lost ??


Or is a wait and see time now>>>
 
Bell better do somting like that. i don't think the majority of subscribers would like to have 2 sat dishes bolted to there house
 
My guess is that they will be using NIMIQU 4 then for new HD channels and maybe a few SD ones.
 
Is it only transponder 10, or is it all even transponders? Maybe it is a failing switch or LNB? How old is your dish? Is there any chance of switching LNB's?
P.S have a read in the Shaw forum, before you make the switch, or you may be surprised that the grass may be greener where you are
 
But the majority of subscribers will never need 72.7 or 129 as I am sure if they were to put content there it would be content that appeals to a specific group of people and not necessairly the masses. If you want a small 18inch dish for all your programming you have 91w. If you are in the group of people who want HD you need to get a bigger dual lnb dish to get 82w. Then it will be if you want 'xyz' type of programming, you need to have a 2nd dish solution or be in one of the areas where you are on the arc and can get away with a 3LNB solution to get those channels.

Wing dishes are nothing new. Dish and DirecTV have been doing it for years.

If I were to put my money on anything, 72.7 and 129 would be MPEG 4 only service that they can point new subs at. Using only 16 of the TPs that they have at 72.7, with a bit of support from 61.5, Dish was able to mirror pretty much all of its core national programming at 72.7, so I am sure Bell could do the same.
 
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