I have dish pay-as-you-go (PAYG), and I agree that you have to buy $100 worth of crappe programming to get the one or two channels you actually want.
So every time I pay my bill I ask myself if it is worth a hundred bucks for HBO/Showtime and one or two action sports channels that I actually watch. Every now and then the answer is "no" and I cancel the PAYG service and save a few hundred bucks.
I have the Tailgater and I've found that it works well even with a 150-feet of coax. This means I have a lot of options for finding service when there are trees blocking the sky. I've never read of anything like this with the Pathway, and this is why I prefer the Tailgater, even though it is a smaller antenna, etc.