Dish Sat. Spot Beam Question

hsteinle wrote:
Upfront-I have Direct AFTER dropping Dish several years ago--BUT 'spot beam' technology is the same for both. Spot beams can be 'spotty' (pun intended) at best; for BOTH Dish AND Direct. Some spot beams have a WIDE coverage--for example Phx for direct can be obtained as far away as Rocky Point Mexico and Las Vegas NV but NOT much farther west than the edge of Tucson and not much further north than just past Flagstaff. In Denver and Colorado Springs area the spot-beams overlap so if you are in C. Springs for example and call direct and tell them that is where you are they will ONLY let you hook up with c. springs. BUT if you call direct and give them a Denver address, even though you are in C. springs--bingo you get the Denver channels instead of the crappier C. Springs channels. The key is the 'address' you give the 'phone person' as to which spot beam you get--at least that is the game you play with direct, maybe Dish will give you want you want BUT doubt it because that is one of the reasons they got in trouble several years ago with the FCC and lost being able to offer their own distant stations and had to go with an outside vendor. I agree with Roy B--usually you don't need to change your 'spot beam' provider if you have 'distant network' coverage because you can usually get the locals via OTA AND it is HD. If you want to 'record' a ABC, CBS, etc program, just record it off the 'distant' corresponding channel, and yet for local news and weather-look at the OTA channel for that area.

Dish got in trouble for allowing subscribers to receive the distant networks that were not eligible to receive them under FCC rules. That privilege was restored several years ago, but Dish has chosen not to offer them again. Dish does allow service location changes for RV'ers and other mobile travelers so they can receive the local channels for the market they're currently in. Giving them an incorrect location in order to receive out of market programming is a violation of their terms of service, but that's difficult for Dish to police. You cannot of course, request a change to a market with a spot beam that's out of range and expect to receive those channels.