It's official! The five U.S. commercial radio networks who operate their own satellite systems are now up and running on the brand new SES-11 at 105 degrees West Longitude. This is the long-term replacement for AMC-8 at 139 degrees West Longitude, which has exceeded its design life and is not being replaced by an equivalent C-band satellite at the same location.

The five networks - Learfield, Orbital Media Networks (OMNi), Premiere Networks, Skyview Networks, and Westwood One - now have their full complements of satellite-delivered programming available on their new frequencies on SES-11. This includes all show titles, satellite channels, contact closures, PAD data, cue messages and file-delivery channels - the same ones you are familiar with from AMC-8. 

It also includes programming from syndicators who lease their satellite time from these five companies. A partial list of those syndicated programs is included in our FAQ document at http://www.amc8migration.com/docs/RNUG_FAQ.pdf

To ease the transition, each network has programmed a Fallback Carrier into a table in each receiver's memory. This allows each receiver (whether XDS or Wegener) to find the correct new carrier on SES-11. Once a receiver loses lock on the old signal on AMC-8 (because you’ve pointed away from 139 West), it will alternately search for the "old" and "new" frequencies for that network until it locks to one. When your dish is successfully pointed to 105 West, your receiver(s) should lock to the "new" signal within 30 seconds to 2 minutes.

The old and new frequencies for each network are as follows. Remember, in most cases the networks have already programmed these frequencies into your receivers, so you should not need to input them manually:

Network	Old frequency on AMC-8 at 139W	New frequency on SES-11 at 105W	Symbol or data rate (unchanged)
Learfield (XDS)	01,392,350 kHz	01,434,450 kHz	1,490,000 sps
Orbital (XDS)	01,024,000 kHz	01,017,500 kHz	5,000,000 sps
Orbital (Starguide)	1,018.000 MHz	1,023.900 MHz	3,200,000 sps
Premiere (XDS)	01,040,000 kHz	01,040,500 kHz	7,136,000 sps
Skyview (XDS)	01,406,000 kHz	01,094,000 kHz	2,956,000 sps
Westwood (Wegener)	4,170.50 MHz	4,043.00 MHz	14.000 Mb
Westwood (Kalipso for Storq)	00.979500 GHz	01.107000 GHz	10,127,660 sps
Westwood (XDS)	01,000,500 kHz	01,121,000 kHz	9,259,574 sps

Notes: 

Kalipso receivers do not have a fallback carrier table and must be set to the new frequency from the front panel.

Numbers are shown here with commas for clarity.  Receiver displays do not have commas.

If your affiliate downlink antenna (dish) is in too poor condition to be repointed or is not 2-degree compliant - which enables downlinks to reject interference from adjacent satellites - you are strongly urged to consider replacing it with a new one. OMNi has several antenna replacement options available.  Information on alignment and installation services can be found at: http://www.amc8migration.com/

Questions:

Learfield:  Please call 573-893-1955 or e-mail Randy Williams This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Orbital Media Networks (OMNi):  For AMC-8 XDS networks and affiliates, call 303-925-1708 option 1, or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. For antennas, LNBs, other parts, and installation services call 303-925-1708 option 2, or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Skyview Networks:  Please call 877-503-8910 or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Premiere Networks:  Please call 818-461-8373 or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  

Westwood One:   Please call 888-HELP-450 (888-435-7450). For Wegener- or STORQ-delivered programming, press option 1, then option 2, or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. For XDS-delivered programming, press option 1, then option 4, or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. For general questions about the move from AMC-8 to AMC-18, you may also e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..