Satellite with National Channels

Dutch_12078 wrote:

edbehnke wrote:
you are confusing the situation. when you talk about 'national' channels you are talking about 2 different things.

1. there WAS a 'national' programming system where you got a waiver, and renewed every 6 months....but the FCC stopped the sat companies. these were the NEW YORK FEEDS 'national channels of ABC, CBS, NBC.

2. now for the 'normal' area channels of abc, cbs, nbc you pay extra and get them in your area. if out of your area, like stated, you just call and tell them where you are. I did this with dish all the time.

The FCC did not stop DNS. DirecTV still offers the "Distant Network Service" (DNS) that supplies either east or west coast major network stations to qualified subscribers. Dish subscribers had a DNS service from a third party company available until the provider dropped the service a few years ago.

Technically Correct - The FCC still allows Direct TV to offer DNS services because they do not offer local TV to all 210 markets in the US. They have now crossed the 90% threshold.

Dish has offered all 210 markets for a little over 2 years. So wherever you are parked, with DISH you get the locals assigned to that market. All include a station from the the big 4 networks. Orphan counties (where a county is assigned to an out of state TV market) is another nightmare buried in this topic. These rules will changed and updated by the FCC by early September 2015. You can visit http://www.multichannel.com/news/satellite or https://www.fcc.gov and educate yourself further.

edbehnke wrote:
you are confusing the situation. when you talk about 'national' channels you are talking about 2 different things.

1. there WAS a 'national' programming system where you got a waiver, and renewed every 6 months....but the FCC stopped the sat companies. these were the NEW YORK FEEDS 'national channels of ABC, CBS, NBC.

2. now for the 'normal' area channels of abc, cbs, nbc you pay extra and get them in your area. if out of your area, like stated, you just call and tell them where you are. I did this with dish all the time.

The FCC did not stop DNS. DirecTV still offers the "Distant Network Service" (DNS) that supplies either east or west coast major network stations to qualified subscribers. Dish subscribers had a DNS service from a third party company available until the provider dropped the service a few years ago.

you are confusing the situation. when you talk about 'national' channels you are talking about 2 different things.

1. there WAS a 'national' programming system where you got a waiver, and renewed every 6 months....but the FCC stopped the sat companies. these were the NEW YORK FEEDS 'national channels of ABC, CBS, NBC.

2. now for the 'normal' area channels of abc, cbs, nbc you pay extra and get them in your area. if out of your area, like stated, you just call and tell them where you are. I did this with dish all the time.

It typically takes me about 5 minutes on the Dish chat system to change my service address and update the locals. Even changing it daily hasn't been a significant hassle. Also, sometimes when we're on the move daily, we're still within the same spot beam from one location to another, and a change really isn't needed if all we want is the national network programming. When we're headed north to see our kids for instance, we change our service address to our Adirondack cottage when we stop for the night in Jonestown, PA, a little north of Harrisburg. The western arc spot beam that carries the Albany, NY market that serves our cottage is easily picked up in Jonestown as well, since the elliptically shaped beam reaches over a 1,000 miles at its widest point.

If you go with Dish you can call (on line chat even better) and give them your current location with a physical address and zip code. In no time you will have locals. If you move often this is a real pain. If not, it should work just fine. If you move "a lot" you might just stick with satellite TV for all the cable channels and your Batwing antenna for the locals. Once you are going to be in one place for a week or so you can call Dish.

As said above, dish has locals and there is almost always abc, nbc, cbs and Fox among others.

I pay $5 a month extra for local channels where I'm parked. If I'm 300 miles from Denver, I'll still get Denver channels and if there are any closer channels.,...,you have a billing address and a service address...evry time you park for a period of time, you change the service address...you have to call DTV to have them turned on but I've been doing it for 10 years

derh20 wrote:
I understand that to get NBC, CBS, ABC, i need to get DNS services and sign an affidavit stating it is being used in a motorhome, etc. I called Dish networks and was told they do not offer DNS services.

DNS (Distant Network Services) just means you'll get NBC, etc from either the West or East Coast.

With DISH you can get local stations (NBC, etc) via satellite by just calling DISH and changing your "Service Address" to your current campground.

If you must have the East or West Coast network stations, then sign up for DirecTV.

Have you thought about simply getting Directv at home too?