Satellite TV options

[Texas Diesel]

I miss my old C Band system



My present DishNetwork system is out, they want way too much for replacement parts. New C-band system is ~1k. Any dish heads out there offering advice?

 

[TPCDrafting]

dish heads:

www.dbsforums.com

 

[TboneMan]

A neighbor of my father-in-law had DirecTV for a while and his wife didn't like not having her locals. He dropped Directv and returned to cable. After the most recent cable price increase he decided to go back to directv.



This time they registered the account under his wife's have and that made them eligible for the "new customer" deals. He got a two receiver system for free and 3 months of HBO for free.



You could try something like this.



I've had Directv since just after they started in 1994. I think our programming has increased in cost only 2 or 3 times since then. Unfortunately, I paid $600 for the hardware back then.

 

[Jumbo Jet]

I just upgraded my Dish Network hardware to receive the local channels for $49. 95.



You can find used systems on eBay. I've had friends give me their old systems.



Look around, the hardware is out there for the asking.

 

[Texas Diesel]

Already tried the spouse - new customer thing, they recognized the address (?)



Direct TV referred us to Pegasus for my area. Pegasus has legendary poor customer service, seems they have an attitude like AT&T wireless plus their programming packages were higher.



I'll ;urk around the DBS forums and watch Ebay for a used receiver, just dont know the lingo/ancroyms used in DBS.



Thanks for the suggestions!!

 

[RustyJC]

We just upgraded our DirecTV system to the new HDTV dish and receiver for the downstairs set. The upstairs non-HDTV mirrored receiver is still conventional DirecTV and works fine with the new HDTV dish. Aside from the HDTV, the new oval-shaped dish with 3 LNB heads seems to have much better resistance to dropout in heavy rain.



Unfortunately, local conventional stations are still available over DirecTV, but local HDTV transmissions require an antenna. The antenna output is diplexed into the coax cable coming down from the dish and then splits back out at the HDTV receiver which shows the local HDTV stations on its channel menu along with the satellite stations. The HDTV picture quality and Dolby 5. 1 digital sound output (optical cable) to the home theater system are really nice!



Rusty

 

[Batman]

So, for those that know about both Dishnetwork and Direct tv... ... ..... which (in your opinion) is better?



Thanks

George

 

[RustyJC]

Originally posted by Batman

So, for those that know about both Dishnetwork and Direct tv... ... ..... which (in your opinion) is better?

George,



That could be as controversial as an automatic transmission or an Amsoil thread!



Rusty

 

[Texas Diesel]

Rusty, Direct TV referred us to Pegasus, how and where did you get yours? ??

 

[RustyJC]

We bought the HDTV system at Circuit City. Although we have been a DirecTV customer for over 10 years, Circuit City has a link-up with DirecTV that requires a 1-year contract with the HDTV upgrade.



Rusty

 

[lkuykendall]

Tejas,

I have been a DirecTV subscriber for about 7 years. In December we moved about 5 miles and our zip code changed. DirecTV would no longer provide programming to the new address, they said Pegasus was the DirecTV provider for the area. We had to close one account and open a new one with Pegasus. I thought it was crazy but we wanted TV so we did it. We have been with them since December with no problems.



Len

 

[TPCDrafting]

Originally posted by Batman

So, for those that know about both Dishnetwork and Direct tv... ... ..... which (in your opinion) is better?



Thanks

George

My wife worked for Dish network up until December. She worked in the QA dept. and handled among other things responding to customer complaints that came in via e-mail. She had to watch channels to try to duplicate the complaint and notify engineering to attempt to fix the problem. She had a dish system setup right next to a direct tv system. So she could do side by side comparisons. Also to be able to pinpoint the problems whether it was the network, or their system. While Dish is doing it's best to offer local channel programming, through the dish system, they weren't expanding any bandwidth. Cramming all that data into the system made picture quality degrade. Comparing to Direct tv, the picture quality was much less. Dish network is also closing their local call centers and shipping much of thier customer service over seas. When she quit we had to turn in the box and dish they gave her to use. We haven't replaced it with anything, but if we do, it will be a direct tv system. FWIW