Offical AMC 8 Transition Thread (was Sat. AMC-8)

[Jim Sofonia]

I've read somewhere that AMC-8 is dying and that Premiere/ClearChannel radio feeds will be moved to somewhere mid arc. Anyone know anymore about this such as what sat or when?

[jammerdave]

Wow... I remember when that one replaced Satcom C-5 back in the day.... I must be old...

df

[Jim Sofonia]

I remember that too...I am old.

[kkiddkkidd]

I've read somewhere that AMC-8 is dying and that Premiere/ClearChannel radio feeds will be moved to somewhere mid arc. Anyone know anymore about this such as what sat or when?

Oh that is going to be lovely... I have 4 clients with dishes on their roof and 2 has just got a couple of junk dishes (including mounts) removed in the past few months.

[awsherrill]

The SES website shows that AMC-8 was launched in December 2000, with a design lifespan of 15 years. Easy to do the math on that one. I have heard nothing about any imminent failures...maybe somebody was looking at the lifespan and spun out a rumor.

There are no indications on the website about any plans to replace or decommission this bird. There do not seem to be any planned launches that are headed for that orbital slot either.

Yeah it would be a massive pain to have to move a bunch of rusty old dishes to somewhere else on the arc. Truth be told, that 139-degree slot can be tough to see from East Coast locations, and a mid-arc slot could work better for those situations.

[kkiddkkidd]

IIRC, the old C5 was many years past it's design life when it was replaced.

[Shane]

Our radio network has heard of no concrete plans for a replacement.

[kkiddkkidd]

that 139-degree slot can be tough to see from East Coast locations, and a mid-arc slot could work better for those situations.

It's kind of tough here in Middle TN, hence some of the roof mounted dishes. I can imagine it's a pain in your part of the world and even moreso up in the far northeast.

[Jim Sofonia]

I suppose when ever a change like this is made some benefit while others endure hardships. We have a station in NE Michigan that lost sight of it after 20 years of growth from trees in a park across the street. Had to raise the dish up on a massive post. Sure would help me if they move mid arc. We were informed a while back that AMC-8 had to dial down the TP's power as they were starting to run out of electricity. If true this may point to the beginning of the end.

[kkiddkkidd]

I just hope that we don't get back to the bad old days of having a whole constellation of dishes to get all of the services & programming. It has been kind of nice just having a single dish at most clients. I am going to predict that _IF_ the music services migrate away from AMC8 that most of them won't be in operation in a year.

I have 4 clients (that I can count) still using satellite music and all are slowly working toward doing their own music on HD. I will further predict that none of them would put up a second dish just to keep the music network.

[awsherrill]

There is a thread on this subject on the Broadcast engineering reflector. So I guess it's really a thing.

Time to get out the WD40 and sledgehammers. I hope there is a reasonable grace period for the transition to the new orbital slot, wherever it is.

[TPT]

We have two of our music stations using the STORQ system--which still uses AMC-8, but also uses an internet connection. Since the music is on the hard drive--and only the network tracks & spots are downloaded --the satellite could disappear.

But there are still live programs such as carried by Premier, as well as sports.

[ChuckG]

I just hope that we don't get back to the bad old days of having a whole constellation of dishes to get all of the services & programming. .

Can't see that train wreck coming, can you.
We'll get to explain why the abandoned, non 2-deg compliant dish sorta-pointed where Galaxy IV used to be
can't just be plugged back in.

[Shane]

Stop me if I've already told my Galaxy IV story.

[ChuckG]

Stop me if I've already told my Galaxy IV story.

I haven't heard it. Carry on...