Distant Network Services for non-fulltimer

We travel about 6 - 8 weeks four times a year. Before we left on this trip I bought the 1518 model from Winegarde and in my home location it worked excellent. I know about only getting local programming close to home.

My simple solution as we moved from city to city was to call Direct TV and tell them that I had "moved". Once done we could get the local channels. But sometimes this would not work. It did not take long to realize that since our dish only receives low def signals in some city's the local channels are only in High Def. Therefore in some city's no local programs.

OK....to solve that I decided to get in touch with Direct TV and discuss the "Distant Network Services". I called three times and even though the story changed slighting I was told the way it worked was:

1. I had to choose what receivers I wanted to designate for RV use. Once that was done I could no longer use them in the house upon my return.

2. Once I chose the the recievers (I had brought the DVR and a bedroom DD-12 along) Direct TV would establsih an RV account for me. This would be a seperate entity to the house account.

3. In the RV account I would buy the $15 package for major networks....this is the major variation I heard. I was told I could buy one station at a time by one person. I would then have to buy an "entertainment" package so I could "see" all the other channels with my new RV account.

4. Of course I will still be paying for the home account including having to order and pay to replace the recievers that are now designated to the RV and can't be used at home.

5. I would be allowed to put either account on vacation but only for a total of 4 times a year. So if I turned on the RV account and turned off the home account that would count for 2 of them.

I can see how this would work for full-timers....but it is not really acceptable for our use.

I am curious if anyone else travels like us and uses Direct TV and what "deal" you have been able to set up with them. If this is how it works....not much I can do....but I heard one person I spoke to tell me that you really did not have to set it up this way and they would simply turn on the Distant Network Service as I wanted/needed it.

So obviously I am confused and as asked curious what others (part-timers) have set up. Maybe I did not ask the right question....or maybe there is another way around this.

For the rest of this week we are in the Grenada, MS area. There are no local channels here so we are watching over the air for locals....and using the dish for the stuff we get from direct tv.

Thanks,

Gary

I would recommend going to the Escapees Forum at www.rvnetwork.com. There is a discussion going on right now. We have had DNSservice on and off for years. We just take our receiver form the house and put it into the RV. We have a waiver at Direct TV saying we can have DNS feeds. It costs $15 for a 5-6 stations(not sure how many).

Call Direct Tv and ask for Mobil Communications or the RVing area(not sure what they call it now). Confirm that is who your are talking to. They understand our needs. The odds of getting a regular advisor who understands what is going on is low.

The DNS waiver is on the Escapees website(www.escapees.com), not sure if a non-member can access it. If you can't let me know and I'll pull it down and send you a copy.

We have Dish Network HD. We have a receiver that stays in the coach and one for the house. It cost us $7.00 a month for the extra receiver. When we travel, I just call Dish, tell them I have changed my physical address and give them the new address, and in about 5 minutes, I have ALL of the available locals, no extra charge.

I had been using DNS and taking our home receivers in the RV, paying the $15/month while traveling. Last June when I asked them to turn DNS on, Directv claimed under new FCC rules they can't let me do that anymore. Need new receivers for the RV and a new account. After 5 calls with many varying answers, what finally happened was:

- They created a new account for the RV
- They added 2 new receivers for the RV at $6/month. No charge for the receivers, but added 2 years to my agreement.
- They "merged" the RV and home accounts so only one programming package works for both accounts.
- They turned on DNS for the RV receivers at $15/month.
- They sent an installer out for $20 who gave me a high-def slimline 3 dish with SWM LNB to match the new RV receivers.
- To soften the impact of the extra charges for the 2 new receivers, they gave me a monthly credit for a year and 6 months of free Showtime, Starz and HBO.

With the merged account, there's no need to suspend one account while using the other. You pay only for the extra receivers and for DNS.

When we got to Colorado last month, I had them switch our service address so we could get the Denver channels as well as New York, which gives us some time zone flexibility. I know a lot of people avoid DNS by changing service address to get local channels, but if they figure out you're using your home receivers in an RV, instead of calling it a move, they classify you as an RV and they won't do that any more, unless you have a separate RV account.

Does the FCC really have new regulations? I checked and the FCC website has some peculiar regulations involving RVs, which are in complete conflict with popular auto-aiming and tripod mounted dishes. The problem language is even highlighted. Very bizarre. I discussed it with our Congressman's staff last Fall, but since redistricting was moving things around, they weren't as responsive as I would have liked. I'll try again this year with the new Congressman.

I've seen some other posts that Dish has recently also gotten pretty strange regarding DNS.

I have been using my home Dish Network receiver in my trailer on trips for 5 years now. I have no great problems with undoing the connections at home, reconnecting in the trailer, and setting up my tripod dish kept in the trailer. I also reprogram the main remote control for the 2 different brands of TV's involved.

I phone Dish network and ask to have my "Physical Address changed" when I want to change the local set of OTA channels. On some trips, I DO NOT CHANGE my "Physical Address" with Dish Network as I want to just keep watching my local sportschannel feeds (usually during baseball season). The sportschannel feeds are NOT on the OTA "Spotbeams", and can be picked up anywhere you get a Dish signal. If you don't tell the satellite services you have left home, they don't know anything else.

BTW, I had experience last month seeing how big these "local" spotbeams could be. I had my service address changed to Hemet, Ca., about 110 miles East from the OTA transmitters at Mt Wilson (above Pasadena). That gave me the L.A. locals spotbeam. I then moved to Quartzsite, Arizona for the RV Rally (267 miles East from Mt. Wilson). The L.A. locals came in just fine. I then moved to Porterville, Ca. (175 miles North from Mt. Wilson). Again, the L.A. locals came in great!

We travel Sept-Jan each year. We have a DNS waiver. In August I called up had my locals turned off and the DNS turned on. Once verified that they were working we picked up our S&B receiver and put it in the trailer and off we went. They added the $15/month to our account for the DNS service.

We don't bother with local channels when we are out. If we want to look at the local we just put up the antenna and switch to that.