this is an ongoing saga about how to use their satellite. If you want to get NBC, CBS, ABC while on the road, you need to receive the local channels at the location where you are camped. IE, you are camped for a couple nights at one campsite, and then drive 250 miles to another campsite, and so on. My question is what do you do to get the local channels at each location?

I no longer have Dish, but we had the same experience. We just simply used over-the-air for local stations. As far as "back home" news goes, our cell phones have app's for our local news stations. That keeps us informed about weather and mostly what's happening at home. But the local over-the-air is what we did.FYI, we originally had Direct TV. They kept jacking up the prices till it became outrageous. We switched to Dish TV. They did the same thing after. After 2 (plus) years of constantly fighting to keep costs down, and finally their best offer was still too outrageous, we dropped them too. We are now just over-the-air antenna tv! Much happier now. And really ... (I can't believe I'm actually saying this)... who needs television when camping anyway! Paid-for-television and over-the-air television is really nothing but garbage: senseless reality shows, violence, and sex. And everything is just re-runs, and paid movie channels play about 5 movies a month and just keep repeating them. It's all mindless garbage in MY OPINION. For the price we were paying, we were not getting any benefit out of it.

Ditto over the air for DirecTV in our camper.

DirecTV will change your "service address" to your new location, but they get testy if you try to do that more than once or twice a year. And as often as not, they'll also wind up changing your billing address. Best way is to get an outboard DirecTV AM-21 off-air tuner (about $50 lots of places) that uses your crank-up TV antenna to add any local off-air channels to your DirecTV guide. Works great. If you have a separate DirecTV account for your RV (or if your only account is an RV account, you can do the paperwork and subscribe to DirecTV's "Distant Networks" service that gets you either east coast or west cast network stations for about $15 a month. Don't expect the DirecTV phone talker who answers to know about the distant network service - most of them don't. Do your research on the web and you'll be fine.al

Or you can call DTV get a form and subscribe to DNS; Distant Network Services. Nationwide beam. You can get NYC or LA in standard def. NYC east of the Mississippi in HD or LA west. I dont know what they are charging now I dropped it years ago and live OTA with a Winegard Sensar Pro.

DutchmenSport wrote:We just simply used over-the-air for local stations.This ^^^^^^^Big Katuna wrote:Or you can call DTV get a form and subscribe to DNS; Distant Network Services. Nationwide beam. You can get NYC or LA in standard def. NYC east of the Mississippi in HD or LA west.Or, this ^^^^^^^^aslakson wrote:DirecTV will change your "service address" to your new location, but they get testy if you try to do that more than once or twice a year. And as often as not, they'll also wind up changing your billing address.Because of this ^^^^^^^^

DirectTV--getting NBC, ABC | Good Sam Community

edatlanta
Explorer
Oct 15, 2015
Carl n Susan wrote:
One reason for both feeds is you are a sports fan. The NY channels have different games from the LA channels and, if I am in range of my local spot beam, my local channels. On football Sunday, I may have the chance to watch (and record) up to 18 different teams. Also the LA news is 3 hours fresher when something is happening.

Good point, but since I'm a zero sports fan I never thought of that. Others on here might be interested however.

Record 18 different teams? I didn't even know there were that many.
Carl_n_Susan
Nomad II
Oct 14, 2015
One reason for both feeds is you are a sports fan. The NY channels have different games from the LA channels and, if I am in range of my local spot beam, my local channels. On football Sunday, I may have the chance to watch (and record) up to 18 different teams. Also the LA news is 3 hours fresher when something is happening.
edatlanta
Explorer
Oct 14, 2015
docj wrote:
Bill.Satellite wrote:

Yes, I am grandfathered into the E/W DNS but a number of posters have reported that they were able to get both by calling and asking the option to be added for the extra $5/month.

But, in reality, if you have the NY DNS feed and a Genie DVR with its 5 tuners, there's no particular need to have the LA DNS feed. So your shows all come on real early if you're on the west coast, but you can always record them and watch them later. We rarely watch any shows in "real time" regardless of where we are.

I do have the Genie and also an HR24 so I can record 7 at the same time. I see that I don't need the west coast feed, but was just interested if it could be done.
docj
Explorer
Oct 14, 2015
Bill.Satellite wrote:

Yes, I am grandfathered into the E/W DNS but a number of posters have reported that they were able to get both by calling and asking the option to be added for the extra $5/month.

But, in reality, if you have the NY DNS feed and a Genie DVR with its 5 tuners, there's no particular need to have the LA DNS feed. So your shows all come on real early if you're on the west coast, but you can always record them and watch them later. We rarely watch any shows in "real time" regardless of where we are.
Bill_Satellite
Explorer II
Oct 13, 2015
Bill.Satellite wrote:
wa8yxm wrote:
I get locals over the air.. But then I refuse to pay the outragous fee for DirecTV or DISH.

This is not helpful to the OP. I have been in so many areas of the US where locals OTA are not available that even considering this as my ONLY option is completely unacceptable. If you want to ensure you will be able to get all of the Network options whenever and where ever you park, OTA is not your best choice.
As an aside, you can change your locals (Service Address) at no charge.....Outrageous.....or you can get DNS for $15/month....Outrageous?....Not for me....I pay $20/month for both Coasts! Think about that, $240/year?....You pay more for you coffee than that.

Yes, I am grandfathered into the E/W DNS but a number of posters have reported that they were able to get both by calling and asking the option to be added for the extra $5/month.
ReneeG
Explorer
Oct 13, 2015
Bill.Satellite wrote:
wa8yxm wrote:
I get locals over the air.. But then I refuse to pay the outragous fee for DirecTV or DISH.

This is not helpful to the OP. I have been in so many areas of the US where locals OTA are not available that even considering this as my ONLY option is completely unacceptable. If you want to ensure you will be able to get all of the Network options whenever and where ever you park, OTA is not your best choice.
As an aside, you can change your locals (Service Address) at no charge.....Outrageous.....or you can get DNS for $15/month....Outrageous?....Not for me....I pay $20/month for both Coasts! Think about that, $240/year?....You pay more for you coffee than that.

You're right. We were just on the Togwotee Pass in Wyoming camping and due to the trees, we couldn't get satellite with our roof mounted Winegard Trav'ler, so we put up our antenna hoping for OTA reception. With the booster on, we can get up to 20 channels sometimes, but nothing, zip, nada, at this place. Down came everything and out came the cards, books, and puzzles, which is ok with us.
edatlanta
Explorer
Oct 13, 2015
Bill.Satellite wrote:
wa8yxm wrote:
I get locals over the air.. But then I refuse to pay the outragous fee for DirecTV or DISH.

This is not helpful to the OP. I have been in so many areas of the US where locals OTA are not available that even considering this as my ONLY option is completely unacceptable. If you want to ensure you will be able to get all of the Network options whenever and where ever you park, OTA is not your best choice.
As an aside, you can change your locals (Service Address) at no charge.....Outrageous.....or you can get DNS for $15/month....Outrageous?....Not for me....I pay $20/month for both Coasts! Think about that, $240/year?....You pay more for you coffee than that.

I agree, but I have a question. I thought you could only get east or west coast, but not both? Are you grandfathered in? I have only had DNS for 5 years and could only get one or the other.
Big_Katuna
Explorer II
Oct 13, 2015
Like my brother says; I spill more beer than that...
Bill_Satellite
Explorer II
Oct 13, 2015
wa8yxm wrote:
I get locals over the air.. But then I refuse to pay the outragous fee for DirecTV or DISH.

This is not helpful to the OP. I have been in so many areas of the US where locals OTA are not available that even considering this as my ONLY option is completely unacceptable. If you want to ensure you will be able to get all of the Network options whenever and where ever you park, OTA is not your best choice.
As an aside, you can change your locals (Service Address) at no charge.....Outrageous.....or you can get DNS for $15/month....Outrageous?....Not for me....I pay $20/month for both Coasts! Think about that, $240/year?....You pay more for you coffee than that.
jackquontee
Explorer
Oct 13, 2015
Here's my setup:

The LAVA HD8008 Omni-Directional Amplified Outdoor
HDTV Antenna; and

LAVA HD2605 Ultra G3 Motorized Outdoor HDTV
UHF/VHF Antenna; and

Winegard Pathway X2 Bundle

The omni-directional seemed to pick up better than the other antenna, but the Wineguard was, of course, the best.

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