Latest Information on Palm Springs Local Stations on DirecTV and Echostar

Both Echostar and DirecTV are now carrying the Palm Springs local stations. Echostar charges $5.00 extra for the service, while DirecTV offers it for free. There are no local HD signals on satellite right now because neither provider has the necessary bandwidth. However, on February 17, 2009, KESQ and KMIR will have to cease analog transmissions. The other Palm Springs network affiliated stations are all low power TV stations which can remain analog if they choose. Without digressing too much, I will speculate that both Echostar and DirecTV will pick up the digital signals of KESQ and KMIR. However, HDTV requires more bandwidth so they will likely offer our digital signals in SDTV. That means "standard defnition." The picture quality is not as sharp as HDTV, but it's much sharper than analog television. The satellite carriers aren't allowed to make changes to our programming, so if we offer only wide-screen programs then you will see them in wide screen on your TV. Not a problem if you have a wide screen set. But if it's a 4 X 3 set then you will see black bars across the top and bottom of the screen (letter box) and the picture will be smaller. The local cable system carries KESQ and KDFX in both wide screen and 4 X 3 sizes.

We have had few complaints about Echostar, although from time to time, during wind storms. I think all the local station signals deteriorate due to sand in the air and the receive antennas on their facility (located in Palm Springs) moving around. DirecTV gets KESQ, KDFX, KUNA, and KESQ via a wired feed because their local receive facility is located in our studios. They have off-air receiving antennas installed on our microwave tower to get the other Palm Springs stations. I do occasionally get a complaint about the quality of DirecTV's signals. Sometimes it's about the sound being out of sync with the picture and sometimes it's pixellation. These are common digital transmission problems which are outside of our ability to do anything. About all we can do (and we do this!) is to complain to DirecTV which is very responsive. They have a very new, high-tech installation in Palm Springs and I think they are still de-bugging it.