T10 (previously DirecTV-10) is a Boeing type 702 direct broadcast satellite that delivers DirecTV subscribers in North America with high-definition television (HDTV). On July 7, 2007, International Launch Services launched it from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome atop an Enhanced Proton Breeze-M rocket. The satellite was transferred to its operational position at 103.0 west longitude after nearly two months of in-orbit testing. On a Proton rocket, the third DirecTV satellite was launched. T8, which debuted on May 22, 2005, and T5, which debuted on May 7, 2002, are examples of previous debuts. In 2017, the satellite was renamed T10.
In 2004, DirecTV agreed to build three identical 702 type satellites with Boeing: DirecTV-10, 11 and 12. DirecTV-11 debuted on March 19, 2008, followed by DirecTV-12 on December 29, 2009. The satellites were purchased to boost the number of national and local HDTV channels available on DirecTV. Since then, all satellites have been given the T suffix.
What is the best way to point my DirecTV satellite dish?
You’ll need to know your azimuth and elevation coordinates to aim your dish. The left-to-right alignment of your dish is referred to as azimuth. The up-and-down positioning of your dish is referred to as elevation. Your DIRECTV receiver is set up to provide you with these coordinates and assist you in pointing your dish.
Are the satellites used by DirecTV and DISH the same?
You may have heard the terms “Western Arc” and “Eastern Arc” if you’re a DISH subscriber who has migrated from one location to another. DISH has two full satellite fleets, with a lot of overlap between them. Both have all of the national channels, and there are even local channels on both of them. This appears to be a bit of a waste. Let’s look at how the two US satellite operators manage their fleets and why you would choose one over the other.
What is the best way to tell if I have SWM DIRECTV?
It’s usually mounted behind one of your DirecTV receivers or DVRs. The one nearest to where the satellite cables enter your home is usually the one. To see what a SWM Power Inserter looks like, do a Google Image search for “SWM Power Inserter.”
DIRECTV slimline uses which satellites?
Dish DIRECTV 3 LNB DIRECTV Dish with 3LNB (Slimline). Accesses DIRECTV satellites 99, 101, and 103; necessary to get MPEG-4 high definition stations. All DIRECTV receivers are backwards compatible. Dish, LNB, and new low-profile mount are all included.
What is the total number of DirecTV satellites?
You might notice one if you look up at the stars on a clear, dark night. It’s a bright spot that appears to be a star among thousandsuntil you realize it’s moving. You’ve probably noticed a satellite orbiting the Earth. Satellites are the stuff of science fiction. While humans have been launching satellites into orbit since 1957, satellite technology has only been widely accessible to the general public for the past 15 years or so. Many of our daily activities, such as navigation, entertainment, and communication, have come to rely on satellites. The majority of these activities rely on constellations, which are groups of satellites that work together.
The Global Positioning System is one of the most well-known satellite constellations (GPS). The Worldwide Positioning System (GPS) is just one of several active or proposed global satellite navigation systems. The US government owns and operates the GPS system. For nearly as long as the GPS system has been in use, Russia has had its own GLONASS system. The Galileo system is being developed throughout Europe. India and China are building satellite navigation networks of their own. The GPS constellation consists of 31 satellites orbiting at a distance of around 12,540 miles above the Earth’s surface in a medium Earth orbit. It might be helpful to think about orbital size and scale in terms of a basketball-sized Earth (about 9.5 inches in diameter). The GPS constellation would be almost 15″ from the surface of our basketball-sized Earth. The GPS satellites are moving at an average speed of 8,700 miles per hour. A receiver device (for example, a smartphone) must be able to see at least four different GPS satellites in order to offer a three-dimensional location. At any given moment, at least 6 and frequently 8-10 GPS satellites can be seen from practically any point on Earth, though this number will change as the satellites move.
Aside from GPS satellites, entertainment content delivery through satellite has grown in popularity, with broadcast satellite firms such as DIRECTV (now part of AT&T) and DISH Network providing multimedia content via their own satellite networks. For example, DIRECTV operates a constellation (or fleet) of 14 satellites in our skies. The satellites are 22,236 miles above the Earth’s surface in geostationary orbit. That would be roughly 27″ (or nearly 3 Earth diameters) away from the surface if we used our basketball-scale Earth. The satellites are moving at a slow speed of 6,700 miles per hour. Remember that to a stationary Earth observer, a satellite in geostationary orbit seems to be stationary (so the satellites you see moving in the night sky are definitely not DIRECTV satellites). Only satellites positioned directly over the equator may accomplish these orbits. Because of their considerable distance from the Earth, any one of these satellites’ potential ground coverage area might be thousands of kilometers or more. Of course, this implies that everyone in the service area receives the same broadcast signal. DIRECTV also uses “spot beams,” or directed signals, to bring regional content to a more localized geographic area, yet even this “small area” can be a range of 100 miles or so.
Another sort of satellite you might see in the sky is one that is part of the satellite phone network. While satellite phones are not widely available, they allow truly worldwide voice and data connection, even in locations where no one is willing or able to install a cell tower. The Iridium system, which was designed by Motorola, is one of the most well-known telecom satellite constellations used for voice and data communications. Iridium is a constellation of 66 satellites orbiting the Earth at a low altitude of 485 miles above the surface. That would be a mere half-inch from the surface of our basketball-sized Earth. The satellites are flying about at nearly 17,000 mph and are organized in a sequence of polar orbits, allowing each satellite to pass over both the north and south poles during its orbit. The Iridium system must, of course, be bidirectional in communication, with both uplink and downlink between the handsets and satellites. Only a downlink to the end user receiver is provided by the two technologies discussed above (e.g., the GPS handset or dish). These systems have no way of communicating with the satellite. Furthermore, because the satellites for cellphones are so low and move so quickly, a complex interlinking system between nearby satellites is required, as each satellite is only visible to a handset receiver for a few minutes. At any given time, a satellite handset will see one or possibly two satellites, therefore hand-off between satellites is crucial to maintaining a connection with a ground-level receiver.
These are only a few examples of satellites with which we may have regular contact. Whether it’s our GPS receivers, satellite TV systems, or satellite phone connections, it’s incredible to look up at the sky and realize how much consumer electronics is dependent on equipment orbiting the Earth thousands of miles away. We rely on a slew of other satellites up there, including weather imaging satellites, top-secret reconnaissance satellites, telescopes, and space stations. It’s getting a little busy up there.
What are the signs that my DirecTV dish is tilted?
The only snag is that their “tilt” definition differs by 90 degrees from DirecTV’s. To determine the tilt for a DirecTV dish, use this site’s tilt figure and subtract it from 90 degrees. In other words, if the site indicates a 15-degree tilt, your DirecTV dish tilt is 90 – 15 = 75 degrees.
Dish or DirecTV: which satellite provider is better?
Between these two satellite companies, DISH comes out on top when it comes to price, contracts, overall channel count, sports channel availability, and DVR storage.
Although DIRECTV offers NFL SUNDAY TICKET, DISH offers better pricing that is consistent throughout the contract. It also has a large number of popular channels, including excellent sports coverage.
- Pricing: DISH gives you more bang for your buck in the long run because there are no price increases in the second year. You can select between a Flex TV no-contract option and a 2-year commitment for $10$15 less. Make sure you budget for DIRECTV’s year two charges if you want more than 330 channels.
- Channels: Both providers offer most of your favorite live TV channels, and both offer free premium channel memberships for a limited time.
- Sports Channels: DISH has the most sports channels, however for football fans, DIRECTV includes NFL SUNDAY TICKET. If you live in Miami and are a Seattle Seahawks fan, you’ll need the TICKET to watch every single Seahawks game.
- DVR: DISH’s Hopper 3 can save up to 500 hours of content, but you’ll need to acquire four receivers in total to get this amazing set-top box. However, if you have a full house, this may not be an issue. Although the DVR on DIRECTV only offers 200 hours of storage, the initial receiver is free (and 200 hours is still quite a bit).
What is the expected lifespan of DirecTV satellites?
Many of Dish Network’s and DirecTV’s satellites are nearing the end of their useful lives, and neither firm appears to be developing new satellites quickly enough to replace them.
This was the conclusion of a MoffettNathanson analyst note released this week, as originally reported by trade website Fierce Video.
Satellite systems, such as those used by Dish Network and DirecTV, normally have a 15-year life expectancy, and while certain systems can be utilized beyond that, most satellite broadcasters have replacements built and ready to go before that time period expires.
Dish Network, on the other hand, has nine orbiting satellites, nine of which are soon approaching the end of their expected life spans, according to analyst Craig Moffett. DirecTV, which just separated from AT&T to become a stand-alone corporation, is in a similar scenario.
Both Dish Network and DirecTV have been preparing for a post-satellite world for some time: each company has its own streaming television product (Dish Network’s Sling TV; DirecTV’s AT&T TV, which will soon be re-branded as DirecTV Stream), which offers the same live channels as satellite but doesn’t require customers to install hardware or make long-term commitments.
However, those items are only useful if users have access to high-speed Internet. According to a report released two years ago by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), over 21 million American households still lack access to broadband Internet connections. Some researchers believe the number of families without access to the internet is significantly larger than the government claims.
A major infrastructure package passed by the United States Senate showed some hope in reducing the gap by allocating billions of dollars to firms like Comcast and AT&T for rural broadband expansion. However, in the past, major firms have been slow to invest in rural areas.
Satellite television remains a lifeline for rural households in the lack of reliable broadband access not just for pleasure and sports, but also for local news, national news, and weather. It’s a point that both Dish Network and DirecTV are fully aware of: When AT&T chose to move its pay TV marketing efforts away from DirecTV and toward AT&T TV in the suburbs two years ago, it continued to promote DirecTV in rural areas. Dish Network is still promoting its service in rural areas.
Both businesses appear to believe a merger is inevitable when it comes to the future of their satellite products, with Dish Network co-founder and chairman Charlie Ergen stating as much last year (a point he re-iterated on a recent conference call with investors).
A merger would alleviate certain operational issues, giving the merged firms more negotiating power when it comes to programming deals like DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket or just about anything on Dish Network, and it would also boost the company’s streaming operations.
However, a merger is unlikely to fix the problem of Dish Network and DirecTV’s old satellite fleet: DirecTV and Dish Network’s satellites were designed years ago to support their respective platforms, not with cross-compatibility in mind. Dish Network and DirecTV set-top boxes are designed to receive distinct signals, and satellite dish antennas installed in homes and businesses are meant to receive either Dish Network or DirecTV signals not both.
A similar situation occurred more than a decade ago in the satellite radio industry, when the newly founded SiriusXM Satellite Radio elected to use XM’s technology and satellites to enable next-generation technology and hardware radios. However, the firm did not want to abandon the millions of subscribers who still have Sirius gear in their homes and automobiles, so it continues to support both the XM and Sirius platforms, despite the fact that they employ distinct audio encoding standards and hardware.
SiriusXM, like Dish Network and DirecTV, has put a significant amount of money into the future of streaming. It bought music streaming service Pandora a few years ago and streaming service Stitcher last year, bolstering its streaming software and next-generation Internet-connected hardware radios.
However, unlike Dish Network and DirecTV, SiriusXM continues to construct and deploy satellites to support its datacasting services – in addition to radio, the company’s satellite platform also provides live weather, traffic, marine, and aviation information.
Dish Network and DirecTV, according to Moffett, do not appear to be investing in the same way. Instead, it appears that the corporations are letting the satellite infrastructure to deteriorate over time, potentially leaving millions of rural customers without access to television.
“We are witnessing satellite television’s long, slow demise,” Moffett stated. “Obviously, the terminal value of a satellite TV platform with no satellites or customers is zero.”