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#4308981 - 11/04/16 03:35 PM Dish or Direct TV  
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Murphy Offline
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Had Direct TV for almost 20 years. Happy, but expensive.
Just lost service, tried to call and....it's like I have Dish.
No answer.

So.....

Anyone had good experiences with Dish?
I'm thinking of changing, but I don't want to run into a nightmare.

Anyone had both?
How do they compare?

I talked with a guy from Dish, and he sounded OK.
If their service is like their sales, I'd be fine with them.
They're almost $20 cheaper.


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#4308985 - 11/04/16 03:45 PM Re: Dish or Direct TV [Re: Murphy]  
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We had dish about 8 years ago. Maybe the technology has gotten better for reception strength on bad weather days but after losing reception on more than one occasion during heavy rains we switched back to regular cable that also handles our internet and home alarm.

I often see what appears to be a cheaper deal with Direct tv but it's also not unusual to see a time limit on that great deal


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#4308991 - 11/04/16 03:56 PM Re: Dish or Direct TV [Re: Murphy]  
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I've never had Dish, but I had always heard bad things about them. I did an Internet search and found some info:

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/cable_tv/dish_network.html

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business...s-calls-n502326


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#4308996 - 11/04/16 04:01 PM Re: Dish or Direct TV [Re: Murphy]  
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Neither. No one I know pays the crazy fees these services demand, Netflix and other associated streaming services have completely taken over wink


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#4309005 - 11/04/16 04:09 PM Re: Dish or Direct TV [Re: Murphy]  
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Great Art....now they have "my" number......I do hope I haven't stepped into a problem.

I haven't signed up for anything yet.
Don't even know if they can get a signal out here in the 'forest'.
We'll see.......


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#4309032 - 11/04/16 05:19 PM Re: Dish or Direct TV [Re: Murphy]  
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Did you try the chat on the DirecTv website? A lot of things can be done with that. Except for dropping premium channels, they make that more difficult.
Before switching, I'd make a list of channels you watch and compare the packages. It used to be that Dish didn't have some of the channels that we use. AMC is the only one I remember. There weren't many, so it might not matter to you.
We dropped to the lowest tier and get enough of the channels we like to live with it. I think the base price is $65.


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#4309038 - 11/04/16 05:36 PM Re: Dish or Direct TV [Re: Murphy]  
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As I recall, most of the complaints against them were around price hikes and deceptive marketing, where they would advertise a low price but then hit you with all kinds of fees and upgrade costs for things that seem to be included in most other providers' plans. That's been a few years, so maybe they have changed after all the scrutiny.


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#4309043 - 11/04/16 05:56 PM Re: Dish or Direct TV [Re: Murphy]  
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Murphy, how does DirecTV do during bad weather?

I have been thinking about it but not sure I want the dish on side of my house....


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#4309048 - 11/04/16 06:15 PM Re: Dish or Direct TV [Re: Murphy]  
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I am one of DirecTV's first customers. I started using them less than two months after they started selling (yes, selling) dish systems. My one television dish cost me $800 back then. Now they give them away. Over the years I was very satisfied with them, but they have started splitting some of the old packages and moving channels from one to another. What we pay now for the channels we want to watch is ridiculous. We are seriously thinking about dropping them and using our Roku to stream TV over the internet.

The funny thing is, one of the reasons I went with DirecTV was that they had plans to integrate the internet into their service. The old original receivers had a data port on the back. That never panned out. Now it looks like internet will end up replacing the television broadcaster like them.


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#4309286 - 11/05/16 04:51 PM Re: Dish or Direct TV [Re: Airdrop01]  
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Yep Vocatx, I also still have their old 'BIG' dish. Now it's no longer functional, got the new on installed on the ridge, I gave the old one to the bear out back, he uses it for hibernation in winter. I turned it upside down and put it between two fallen trees, one big root ball...stuck an old bale of hay under it. There is a bear there every year. Best to be friends with the big guys wink

-------------------------------------------


Originally Posted By: Airdrop01
Murphy, how does DirecTV do during bad weather?

I have been thinking about it but not sure I want the dish on side of my house....


That's one of the big reasons why I kept Direct TV. I live on a north facing slope and heavily wooded area, which is not good for picking up satellites. I can't get Hughes at all. No signal.
But even during storms I don't usually lose Direct TV unless the 'red' (radar) is just south of me. Even then, we just lose it for a minute or two, till the red passes.
Great signal.
Great service.....in the past. But now they are bought out by AT&T, and I'm thinking the service is no longer going to be like it was.
I want options.
We'll see Sunday afternoon when the Dish guy comes out, if I can even get Dish service here.

Direct TV ran a line over 100 yards to the top of the ridge, and set up my dish there.
They'd never do that now days.
I too have been with them since they started, hate to leave.
Sad. But it appears the company is changing.

'Change', is the only sure thing in this world.





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#4309292 - 11/05/16 05:16 PM Re: Dish or Direct TV [Re: Murphy]  
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Originally Posted By: Murphy
[quote=Airdrop01]Great service.....in the past. But now they are bought out by AT&T, and I'm thinking the service is no longer going to be like it was.



As a Directv tech contractor, I don't see the "service" changing. The only "change" I have seen is now having to use the AT&T call center. After getting some directv training, they believe they can tell me how to do my job.
The worst thing so far is the AT&T retail stores. These sales people received even less training than the call center. Customers keep asking me why the dish I'm putting up isn't 6 inches like the sales guy said it would be.

#4309501 - 11/06/16 04:19 PM Re: Dish or Direct TV [Re: Murphy]  
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If ours goes out, I know that in about 10 minutes we're going to get slammed with rain so I unplug tv's and the computer anyway. Pretty decent early warning system. LOL
It has to be pretty serious to obscure it with rain. No snow here to have that kind of experience.


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#4309581 - 11/06/16 09:28 PM Re: Dish or Direct TV [Re: Murphy]  
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The Dish DVR (Hopper 3) is awesome and so is the Dish Anywhere app (you have full access to the DVR away from home).

DVR: https://www.dish.com/hopper-3/

App: https://www.dish.com/dish-anywhere/


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#4310289 - 11/09/16 01:06 AM Re: Dish or Direct TV [Re: Murphy]  
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I have had both services and I used to work for Dish doing tech support. I have had Direct for about 8 years now. I like their equipment better, it seems to respond faster than my dish stuff did and I like their controllers and menus better. It is expensive, and if my ISP hadn't just re-instituted bandwidth caps last spring I would debate cord cutting. But with my kids I just can't do it because I don't want to deal with the ensuing drama over no Disney or Nickelodeon.


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#4310292 - 11/09/16 01:16 AM Re: Dish or Direct TV [Re: ForSquirrels]  
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Originally Posted By: ForSquirrels
I have had both services and I used to work for Dish doing tech support. I have had Direct for about 8 years now. I like their equipment better, it seems to respond faster than my dish stuff did and I like their controllers and menus better. It is expensive, and if my ISP hadn't just re-instituted bandwidth caps last spring I would debate cord cutting. But with my kids I just can't do it because I don't want to deal with the ensuing drama over no Disney or Nickelodeon.

Dad cured that type of problem by literally shooting the tv and not getting a new one for about a year. I can guarantee there "twasn't" much complaining about the TV for a loooooooooooooong time after we got the new one.


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#4310554 - 11/09/16 07:00 PM Re: Dish or Direct TV [Re: Murphy]  
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Just found out the Dish line doesn't have a 'boost' that can carry their signal up to the ridge where my Direct TV dish is now located. Direct TV has a boost in their line, and can go over a hundred yards. Dish can't.

They are sending out a guy to mark the trees I'd have to cut down to get a Dish signal through my forest.
I'll let them mark them, but I doubt I'll be cutting down dozens of 1-300 year old hard maple, white pine, and beech trees, just to get a Dish signal......I couldn't do that.

Don't mind the balsa furs or some common pines.
But I won't cut the cedars, or 'money' trees. I could sell those for hundreds each.
And I have a 'thing' for my trees.

We'll see how many, and why species of trees they'll need me to cut.


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#4310660 - 11/09/16 11:43 PM Re: Dish or Direct TV [Re: Murphy]  
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Interesting problem you have, Murphy.

I recently upgraded to HughesNet Gen4. My old dish was on the right side of my house (I've posted pics recently) but the line of sight was below the pecan tree for the new satellite (tree on right side of house). In fact, the old satellite was borderline unusable because the tree had grown in 7 years! They would have needed to move it too far to the right, on the other side of a utility pole which marks my property line (had a recent survey).

So instead they went to the left side of my house and mounted the dish below my DirecTV dish (equipment now in laundry room)...





I don't mind it being so close to the window since it's a half-bath, but IMO it just doesn't look as nice as being hidden away on the other side of my house.



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#4310680 - 11/10/16 01:22 AM Re: Dish or Direct TV [Re: Murphy]  
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Originally Posted By: Murphy
Just found out the Dish line doesn't have a 'boost' that can carry their signal up to the ridge where my Direct TV dish is now located. Direct TV has a boost in their line, and can go over a hundred yards. Dish can't.

They are sending out a guy to mark the trees I'd have to cut down to get a Dish signal through my forest.
I'll let them mark them, but I doubt I'll be cutting down dozens of 1-300 year old hard maple, white pine, and beech trees, just to get a Dish signal......I couldn't do that.

Don't mind the balsa furs or some common pines.
But I won't cut the cedars, or 'money' trees. I could sell those for hundreds each.
And I have a 'thing' for my trees.

We'll see how many, and why species of trees they'll need me to cut.


How high would an antenna mast need to be to give a close-to-the-house dish a line-of-sight over the trees? You might be able to install a crank-up antenna mast that could work. (It would be tedious raising and lowering it while trying to align the dish properly, but once done you would be able to leave it alone, if the antenna mast/tower was solid enough).

Last edited by CyBerkut; 11/10/16 04:00 AM. Reason: typo
#4310786 - 11/10/16 01:42 PM Re: Dish or Direct TV [Re: Murphy]  
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Nice place Mark. smile
Love the brick work.

Cy-Some of my trees, the White and Red Pines, are 150' tall, most shorter, but over 75' anyway. Too tall for a mast.
The line I'm hoping for just has some old Burch and scrub pines, near my garden. I've already cut some nice Maples to allow sun to the garden out there, but not enough to make it grow. Too bad, it's fenced off from the bear, 10' cedar post and rail with 3 hot wires, 25'x25'. But I couldn't bring myself to cut the Sugar (hard) Maples and giant Hemlocks. Maybe I'll have to. Sure would make the wife happy.
When he comes today, I'll get a photo of the line he marks, through my forest. But when he gets to to top of the ridge, I can't cut the neighbors trees anyway, so I doubt this is going to do any good. My property line stops at the top, and his trees continue on, south for 150' to the road, but it's a downward slope, then six miles to the AuSable River. Just got to get over the top of the ridge. It would be a beautiful view if they'd built this house on the top of the mountain. Can't figure that one. He owns the road frontage to the south, I own the road frontage to the West, and 1/4 mile to the East and South. Beautiful forest, but a nightmare for the dish installation technicians. My southern view is boxed in.


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#4310919 - 11/10/16 09:28 PM Re: Dish or Direct TV [Re: Murphy]  
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Dish guy never showed up.
I spent the day picking up some leaves in the yard.
Dish doesn't answer my calls, just a busy signal.

Guess I'll stick with Direct TV.


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