Direct or Dish TV

I can't comment on Dish, but I used DirecTV for quite a few years and was completely satisfied with the quality of the picture. I felt customer service was very good, also. Never had to wait on hold for extensive length of time, as is the case with many other businesses or providers.

livingthedream6117 wrote:
I am not sure if I want to spend $1200 for the roof mounted direct tv (it voids the warranty) or tripod version. Rumor has it that the tripod will give you headaches trying to get all 3 satellites. Any advice for a newbie? Thanks

The tripod mount will not give you headaches. There is a learning curve but most users can get the antenna setup in less than 30 minutes.

Dutch_12078 wrote:
Dahkota does bring up a good point. We've been a number of locations where having the choice of which arc set to use has made the difference between getting a signal or not. There are locations where the locals are only available on one arc or the other, but not both though.

Dutch,

I would take issue with this (sort of). We are on the western arc. We just took an 8 month trip to the east from Florida to Maine and all points in between. Although some areas do broadcast locals in HD on the western arc 129, Orlando and Memphis being examples. However with these two examples they also broadcast locals on 61.5 so you can receive then on eastern arc also. On those areas that only broadcast locals in HD on 61.5 like NY, NY or Monroe, LA you can still receive locals in SD on 110 or 119. This worked EVERYWHERE for me on my trip. I don't know that this would be correct if you had Eastern Arc traveling in the West!

Blessings,
Brian

livingthedream6117 wrote:
I am not sure if I want to spend $1200 for the roof mounted direct tv (it voids the warranty) or tripod version. Rumor has it that the tripod will give you headaches trying to get all 3 satellites. Any advice for a newbie? Thanks

We have been full timing for going on 7 years and are with Dish Network and very happy with it. I use a Dish 1000.2 dish with a Hybrid EA LNB that uses the 61.5 & 72 birds and mount it to a surveyors tripod using the mounting/pointing kit that I got from TV4RV.com. This makes for a pretty simple set up and can be done normally in about 10-15 minutes.

I am not sure if I want to spend $1200 for the roof mounted direct tv (it voids the warranty) or tripod version. Rumor has it that the tripod will give you headaches trying to get all 3 satellites. Any advice for a newbie? Thanks

It is a software "push" that causes the receiver to reset using the new parameters. I have found over the years, that I can do the same thing by using the "check switches" option. That will load the new settings and force a download of an updated channel guide. Sometimes, the push (bump) can happen reasonably quickly, sometimes it can take 45 minutes or so to happen. Once I have the service address changed (I call as opposed to using the chat feature which requires setting up and then booting my computer, and they usually verify that they've gotten the changes done) I start the check switches routine and by the time we're done setting up, the process is finished; usually takes about 10 minutes, occasionally 15.

Send you a bump? Please explain.

We used the dish Tailgator across the country. Usually getting the locals switched was no problem. The problem became a non issue after a tech person at dish told me to always tell the dish CSR to send me a "bump". That made it an easy thing to do

Dahkota does bring up a good point. We've been a number of locations where having the choice of which arc set to use has made the difference between getting a signal or not. There are locations where the locals are only available on one arc or the other, but not both though.

Many thanks to all who have and will sending your thoughts on Dish or Direct TV. We have recd some great tips and considerations.