# Ku-Band Satellite channel listings (1997)



## JosephH1998 (Dec 13, 2018)

as I'd want to know the affiliates/feeds they carried on the system (ABC, NBC, Fox, CBS, UPN, WB and PBS etc...) I'd want to know what the channel listings on Ku-Band Satellite were at the time in '97, since I can't find it anywhere (what I know is that Galaxy III was the satellite used for the "ABC Network" feeds) What were the listings like?


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Ku-Band feeds (1997)


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## JosephH1998 (Dec 13, 2018)

don't you have anymore information you can give to me?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

why you asking for this listings ?


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## JosephH1998 (Dec 13, 2018)

I ask for the listings because they're hard-to-find. No matter where I search it, I can't find it anywhere.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Perhaps a magazine collection at a public library? I'm not sure who would have 20 year old information lying around ready to share.


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## JosephH1998 (Dec 13, 2018)

I'm not sure how I'll be able to drive to a public library for a list (since I don't have a driving license yet), well aside from WXIA (Atlanta), WNBC (New York) and KNBC (Los Angeles) what were the NBC feeds that were available on Ku-Band at the time?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

JosephH1998 said:


> since I don't have a driving license yet


ask your parents to make a trip with you to public library


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

JosephH1998 said:


> I'm not sure how I'll be able to drive to a public library for a list (since I don't have a driving license yet), ...


I didn't say "drive".  It would be your responsibility to find a way to get there. I recommend that you call ahead to make sure the library you are visiting has a magazine collection that includes satellite magazines from the late 1990s. Some libraries have their indexes online.


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## JosephH1998 (Dec 13, 2018)

I will ask my parents to make the trip when I get the chance. but still aside from KNBC (Los Angeles), WNBC (New York) and WXIA (Atlanta) which of the NBC affiliates were available on Ku-Band at the time?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

I think no one here remember that


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## trh (Nov 3, 2007)

If you can find a website that lists that data for today, see if The Wayback Machine can view that same site in 1997.

Internet Archive: Wayback Machine


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## JosephH1998 (Dec 13, 2018)

I'm not sure If I can find a site that lists data for today and is on the Internet Archive. But I'd still want to know what NBC feeds aside from WXIA (Atlanta), WNBC (New York) and KNBC (Los Angeles) were on Ku-Band at the time? (Galaxy III Satellite was used for the ABC Network feeds on the same satellite)


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Being a pest will not give you an answer. You have asked your question ... if someone knows the answer and decides to share they will answer. Asking the same question over and over is not needed.

Please do not ask again.


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## JosephH1998 (Dec 13, 2018)

well I can wait.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

JosephH1998 said:


> well I can wait.


Good Boy !


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## JosephH1998 (Dec 13, 2018)

Well as far as I know the NBC feeds were carried on GE-1 in Ku-Band. the "ABC Network" feeds were on Galaxy 3.


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## KyL416 (Nov 11, 2005)

You do realize the "feeds" aren't actual local stations with 24/7 schedules? They're random feeds for East/Central/Mountain/Pacific, regionalized NCAA and NFL games, affiliate news sources for live stories from a network reporter during local newscasts, news backhauls, prefeeds for syndication, taggable promos, and variations for stations that aired the morning and daytime shows, overnight blocks, soaps, kids blocks and the Sunday politics shows at alternate times, especially in the early HD era when most affiliates didn't have the ability to tape delay HD programming. Whenever there wasn't any content they were either showing dead air, a test pattern or a promo loop. The "listings" for these feeds were never officially published outside of internal memos to their affiliates since they were not meant for public consumption.

The Wayback Machine archive for Lyngsat only goes back to 1999, and a quick check shows no actual local affiliates on Ku-Band outside of the encrypted channels that DirecTV, Dish (and maybe Primestar) used for DNS feeds as well as the simsubbed Boston, Detroit, Seattle and Spokane affiliates used by the Canadian providers ExpressVu (Bell TV) and Star Choice (Shaw Direct). C-Band on the otherhand had a bunch, but outside of the Primetime 24 block that operated similar to DNS feeds, the superstations, and Foxnet which was for cable providers in markets without a local Fox affiliate, they were mostly channels who had alternate feeds targetted for Caribbean cable providers like WSEE Erie's pan-caribbean feed.


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## JosephH1998 (Dec 13, 2018)

+KyL416 Oh, but what NBC affiliates were carried apart from WXIA (Atlanta), WNBC (New York) and KNBC (Los Angeles) on the Ku-Band feed? Thanks, a lot for the Internet Archive link by the way!


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## KyL416 (Nov 11, 2005)

Canada has a bunch, but they are simsubbed, so if a Canadian network airs a program at the same time as the US station, the Canadian network's broadcast appears on the channel instead:
ExpressVu (Bell): WHDH/Boston and KING/Seattle
Star Choice (Shaw): WDIV/Detroit, WGRZ/Buffalo, KHQ/Spokane, KING/Seattle
Beacuse of the way the CRTC regulates things up in Canada, the cities are still the same today, although WHDH was replaced by WBTS after it became Boston's NBC station. The Boston affiliates are picked up via a receive facility at WGBH's studios, while the rest are picked up via cross-border reception.

This is what I found on the old websites for Dish, Directv and Primestar:
Dish (as of 1996): WNBC and KNBC
DirecTV (as of 1997): WNBC and KNBC
DirecTV Puerto Rico: WNBC
Primestar (as of 1997): WHDH/Boston and KCRA/Sacramento

They also had a bunch of restrictions, and were mostly only available to people who couldn't get OTA reception with a standard outdoor antenna. Although up until the early 00s, it was pretty easy to convince a CSR to turn them on anyway. (To the point where Dish was stripped of their ability to offer DNS for a few years and only got the ability back after they started carrying locals for all 210 markets) Now Dish doesn't offer traditional DNS at all, instead they import neighboring affiliates to markets that don't have a local affiliate of one of the major networks, while for DirecTV CSRs can't enable DNS directly, they can only submit your address and account number to the Wavier process. For the markets they do carry that don't have all the major networks they either import a neighboring market's affiliate or remap one of the DNS feeds so viewers in those markets don't have to apply for DNS.


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## JosephH1998 (Dec 13, 2018)

+KyL416 so what was Ku-Band Satellite being used for in the US & Canada? also what was Anik E2 (C Band/Ku Band) being used for at the time, Canadian feeds? (it doesn't say on the archived page since they don't have it archived)


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## KyL416 (Nov 11, 2005)

For DirecTV it came from one of the DBS satellites at 101
For DirecTV Puerto Rico it came from one of the Galaxy satellites at 95
For Dish it came from one of the Echostar satellites at 119
Primestar was using GE2 at 85
ExpressVu and Star Choice were initially sharing Anik E2 at 107.3, before ExpressVu moved to Nimiq 1 at 91 in 1999


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## JosephH1998 (Dec 13, 2018)

so Ku-Band was used on Dish, DirecTV, Primestar, ExpressVu (Canada), and StarChoice (Canada), but what about the ABC Network Backup feeds (West/East coast) as well as NBC's? (West/Mountain/Pacific/East coast) Which of the satellites were being used for Ku-Band in '97 aside from GE-1 (used for NBC feeds), GE-2, Galaxy III, Spacenet 3R (for Boston/Dallas/Los Angeles/New York/Atlanta/Boston feeds), Telstar 402R (also used by AlphaStar until its demise in Aug. 1997 and for Florida feeds), Telstar 5 (used for Buena Vista TV, Fox/20th Century Fox TV, UPN and ABC feeds), Galaxy 4 (used for WB Network, UPN/Paramount and CBS feeds until its demise after the G4 communications failure in May 1998), Anik E1 & E2 (used for Canadian feeds) and Echostar/DBS? (used for Dish & Primestar feeds)


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## KyL416 (Nov 11, 2005)

They networks are on both C-Band and Ku-Band, and still are. Although some now offer direct fiber links as well that can be customized by the network for the individual station based on when they air shows and which games they air for regionalized content.

ABC also has a bunch of additional feeds for the things I described. Mornings are split between timezones since GMA starts at 7am in every time zone, while daytime was even more chaotic in the pre-View days when ABC couldn't get a stable show at the 11am ET/10am PT slot and still had a soap in the noon ET/11am PT slot that was increasingly getting delayed or pre-empted entirely for newly launching noon newscasts.


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## JosephH1998 (Dec 13, 2018)

well where there any ABC affiliates Ku-Band carried including the West/East feeds (KABC Los Angeles/WABC New York) and the Spacenet 3R stations (WFAA Dallas/Ft. Worth, WJLA/Washington D.C. (also used as a PT24 feed until it was replaced by WKRN Nashville in Nov. 1997), WCVB Boston, WLS Chicago, WPLG Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, WSB Atlanta (same satellite as WXIA), WTAE Pittsburgh, KNXV Phoenix, KTVX Salt Lake City & KGO San Francisco etc...) aside from that?


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## KyL416 (Nov 11, 2005)

I'll do the rest of the networks circa 1996-1997:
CBS:
DirecTV: WRAL/Raleigh and KPIX/San Francisco
DirecTV Puerto Rico: WCBS
Dish: WSEE/Erie and KPIX/San Francisco
Primestar: WUSA/DC and KOIN/Portland
ExpressVu: WBZ/Boston and KIRO/Seattle
Star Choice: WIVB/Buffalo, WWJ/Detroit, KREM/Spokane and KIRO/Seattle

ABC:
DirecTV: WJLA/DC and KOMO/Seattle
DirecTV Puerto Rico: WABC
Dish: WKRN/Nashville and KOMO/Seattle
Primestar: WSB/Atlanta and KABC
ExpressVu: WCVB/Boston and KOMO/Seattle
Star Choice: WKBW/Buffalo, WXYZ/Detroit, KXLY/Spokane and KOMO/Seattle

Fox:
DirecTV: Foxnet
DirecTV Puerto Rico: WNYW/New York
Dish: Foxnet
Primestar: WTXF/Philadelphia and KTVU/San Francisco
ExpressVu: WFXT/Boston and KCPQ/Seattle
Star Choice: WUHF/Rochester, KAYU/Spokane and KCPQ/Seattle

PBS:
DirecTV: PBS National Feed
Dish: PBS National Feed
Primestar: PBS National Feed
ExpressVu: WGBH/Boston and KCTS/Seattle
Star Choice: WTVS/Detroit, KSPS/Spokane and KCTS/Seattle


No one really carried WB or UPN as a DNS station, but up until 1999 the national WGN feed had WB programming along with a Kids WB block on Sunday Mornings instead of Saturdays, while Dish and the Canadian providers had them via the superstations WSBK/Boston, KTLA/Los Angeles, WWOR/New York, WPIX/New York and KWGN/Denver

These are all from the same orbital slots/sats as the other ones.


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## JosephH1998 (Dec 13, 2018)

Oh, well what was Ku-Band Satellite being used for at the time? (1997) were there any Ku-Band programming providers?


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## KyL416 (Nov 11, 2005)

The only direct to consumer providers were the satellite providers. The rest of the KU content was random network feeds, news backhaul feeds for reports and interviews via satellite, syndicated prefeeds, random statewide PBS stations like KET, the Channel One News service for schools, and random retail stuff like the internal promotional channel department stores like Macy's had on their TVs.

The influx of a bunch of free to air religious and ethnic channels on Ku-Band didn't come until the 00s.


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## JosephH1998 (Dec 13, 2018)

I get it, but what about "The WB Network" which was relatively small (had only 3 nights on Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays) w/ several shows (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Seventh Heaven, Unhappily Ever After, The Steve Harvey Show, Jamie Foxx, The Wayans Bros., Sister, Sister, Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher, The Parent' Hood, Smart Guy, newcomers like The Tom Show & Alright Already etc...) as with the "WB Network" feeds shared with Warner Bros. Television (for their syndicated & daytime programming), and used for "primetime programming" and "promo loops", which was carried on G4 TP7 (before moving to Galaxy 6 (which was limited to C-Band viewers), after the G4 communications failure in May 1998). and KTLA-5 (Los Angeles), WPIX-11 (New York) which was on their "Spacenet 3" feeds. were there any other WB stations that the Ku-Band feeds could receive?


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## KyL416 (Nov 11, 2005)

The syndicated by WB TV Distribution content came from seperate wild feeds, they didn't share with the WB Network feeds.

After that G4 failure, the affected networks were quickly uplinked to another satellite the same day and didn't face any major problems that viewers would notice, but it was an all hands on deck situation at the local affiliates who needed to reconfigure their receivers and/or reaim their dish if they didn't have a dish farm that received multiple satellite slots. The only slightly extended problems involved pager networks and the digital audio service that was on it, I think DMX. Locally Cablevision used them as background music on their On Cablevision/Optimum guide channel and other info channels like Swap & Shop and the Photo Ad Channel, so in the interim they used VH1's audio for a few days until they were able to restore the DMX audio.


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## JosephH1998 (Dec 13, 2018)

+KyL416 well but what about The WB Network feeds carried on Galaxy 4 TP7 back in 1997, as well as WPIX 11 New York and KTLA 5 Los Angeles (both owned by Tribune Broadcasting) carried on their "Spacenet 3R" feeds? (also GE-3 replaced Spacenet 3R by late 1999) These are the list of affiliates & markets that appeared on the "Spacenet 3R" feed at the time:
Old cable lineups - Page 3
not many WB or UPN affiliates were on there (Spacenet 3R)


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## JosephH1998 (Dec 13, 2018)

Well continuing with our conversation, aside from Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Dallas-Ft. Worth, New York City, Chicago, Boston, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Atlanta, Pittsburgh & San Francisco which markets did the "Spacenet 3R" feeds carry?
(the only WB affiliates that carried news divisions in '97 were KTLA/Los Angeles (which received a branding overhaul that fall), KWGN/Denver, WGN/Chicago, WPIX/New York City, WPHL/Philadelphia, WLVI/Boston, KPLR/St. Louis, WKCF/Orlando & KPWB/Sacramento (which was renamed KMAX-TV the following year & affiliated with UPN) etc....) The topic continues here:
WB Affiliates on Ku-Band (1997)


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