Has The Method for Transmitting Local OTA Channels on Dish Network Changed?

[wdk450]

Gang:
I have been a Dish network subscriber since before I bought my Bighorn, 11 years ago. I worked out how to move the Dish receiver from my house to the Bighorn, adding a tripod mounted dish and coax. I learned online over the years that the local Over The Air (OTA) television signals for each area market was beamed down on separate antennas forming a flashlight-like "spotbeam" that only covered an about 250 mile radius area, centered on each market city. I have experienced this over the years when I traveled beyond that spotbeam area, and had all of my other Dish network channels, but lost the Sacramento area OTA spotbeam channels. I am a Bay Area baseball fan, and found that anywhere I could receive a Dish signal, I could receive the Bay Area sportschannels with my baseball games. That eventually resulted when I began fulltiming in me reporting to Dish that I was in the Sacrament area during the baseball season, although i truly was not. I got my sportschannels, but used the trailer's antenna for local OTA networks, or just gave them up for a while.

So I have been in the San Diego area for over a year now, and told Dish I was in Sacramento when the baseball season finally started this year. Well this morning, I accidentally entered a low number on the balky remote, AND THE NBC AFFILIATE IN SACRAMENTO (KCRA-3) CAME UP ON THE SCREEN!!! I FOUND THAT I WAS GETTING ALL OF THE SACRAMENTO OTA CHANNELS HERE IN THE SAN DIEGO AREA, ABOUT 500 MILES FROM SACRAMENTO.

It acts like the spotbeam system on Dish is gone, which might work out well for others travelling out of their home area.

 

[danemayer]

I wonder if this is related to the June change that started a shutdown of Distant Network Services (DNS). We've had DNS for quite a few years, getting New York network channels that are broadcast nationwide, as are LA channels. But Congress didn't renew the law, so most of the DNS channels are now shut down (but for some reason, not all of them).

 

[pegmikef]

I haven't had any trouble getting Dish local channels, but I am not trying to get a particular area. I just use the MyDish phone app and enter the Dish location code and five or ten minutes later I have the channels. Has never failed. One thing, my Dish system is used only in the RV as I have a different provider for our residence.

 

[wdk450]

I am thinking maybe the Sacramento spotbeam has maybe moved to a different transponder with a bigger land footprint. With the 10 or so Sacramento locals, I can't get 1 broadcaster (ch 31) on Hd or SD; and today watching the A's game on Fox 40, I could only get the HD feed.