Didn't cut the cord...

Here in Illinois, their internet connection is fairly slow compared to Comcast. Their picture quality is good, but being Sat driven you do get those occasional 30 second black outs or have to brush snow off the dish.

The only draw back I can see to you switching from cable to sat service is internet connections.

If you're using DirecTV for internet, it's actually depending on ATT wireless for your internet service. Cable may give you better service than the sat option.

As far as value for tv service alone, I just don't watch enough tv to see any value in cable or sat service. So I really can't comment on that aspect of it.

yeah, TiVo had a promo running when I got mine, and the cost for it pays for itself in 15 months of DVR/box rental from the local cable provider, not to mention, the locally provided boxes here are horribly clunky. It was a no brainer in my case. If paying for DVR service, eventually it may even out depending on how long you have it, but with your current deal, agreed, TiVo may not make sense right now.

jeremymarcinko wrote: »

Is direcTV still Sat based? I've seen some decent combo plans, but don't want a dish on my home.

Yes it is and I'm with you. Anti dish...

We have been using PlayStation vue for the last 8 months, which has been a pretty good experience. Recently, however, they have cut some of my kids favorite programming, such as Nick jr. Also, our NFL network on vue had Thursday night football blacked out for the first time. We're about to say sayonara.

I'm pretty sure my HOA doesn't allow it.

rpf65 wrote: »

I would never live anywhere that had a HOA.

Pretty broad brush statement. They have a place..

Some HOA's will tell you that dishes have to be out of street view sight

We cut the Direct TV cord years ago and with monies saved, bought our still in use Samsung TV, and two stainless appliances, gas stove and elec. dishwasher for the rented house (it wasn't rented at the time, so we had to buy all new again, doh, good problem to have I guess).
That included the cost of antenna set up, and monthly/yearly premium vs choice plus.

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Up there near Charlotte, we went over the air, Netflix, NFL Game rewind and Amazon.
Down near Chucktown now, we are going with the same plus Sling.

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Gonna drop Sling and go with PS Vue.

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Sling is not too bad and they give you two free or discounted streamers max. Reason for the drop is our first discounted streamer is a ****, the prime box, the remotes keep dropping communication and is a nightmare to use if that happens. seeing as we only get two discounted boxes, I figure we will try PS Vue out, as it looks to have more useful and movie channels (minus AXS TV).
Hope this helps.
Happy to have cut the cord, although we did enjoy direct TV too.

The best goal for reception is to get the majority of transponders between 97 to 100%. Securing the dish to withstand any deviation from wind is very important and if it is in the ground, make sure that it is never hit by a lawn mower or tractor, as this will affect the signal. FWIW.

That's not DTV "technically". That's a substandard installer (subcontractor) wanting to be lazy. Still, it is a reflection of DTV and a bad one at that but try not to let your first experience reflect upon the entire company. Sounds to me like you have a really bad installation company.

I would not recommend the wireless thing. Hard wire is the way to go.

My installer showed up about an hour later than the scheduled time but he did call ahead of time to let me know that his earlier appointment was much more involved than he thought. When he got here, it took us almost a half an hour just to figure out where the dish and lines would go. I told him I wanted minimal to zero cables to be visible to the exterior. This was an issue because we have a concrete driveway that goes from building to building and we both decided that the dish would go on the landscaping part of the shop, a separate but connected area of the shop.

He mentioned that he would have to charge extra to dig the line, go underneath the concrete garden edging, through the brick, under the house, up the wall and to the non-existing wall outlet next to a house cable feed. This was not an easy feat, as the run was about 40' long with many obstacles. I told him that I would offer him an additional $50 to hide the cables and that I would do all of the digging.

While he was setting up the dish, I went to town on the route to get it in and under the house. I'm sure you could care less about the whole story, so long story short, he was here for almost 6 hours just installing the dish and the cable lines. He stayed for another 1/2 hour to program the remotes and get everything synced together.

The only visible things outside are the dish, about 7' of exposed cable, a small splitter box right below the roof line where the dish is located and that's it. A very clean and professional install. I ended up giving him $100 extra for the install that went above and beyond, along with a $40 tool that broke on him during the install. My lowest transponder is 97 and we have had zero issues since the install. FWIW, I hope your install experience today mimics mine in terms of professionalism.

So in other words Tom, encase your dish in a 4 ft. square block of concrete, gotcha man. lol

No, that's silly talk Tony. The concrete would block the signal if you enclosed the dish. It might be better to secure the bracket with concrete and leave the dish open for reception. *snickers with a sinister smile and pokes elbow to Tony's ribs*

All kidding aside, let me clarify a bit more. I have seen dishes mounted on top of deck railing. I have seen them installed in 5 gallon paint buckets filled with concrete and I've even seen them installed on a wooden pallet in the backyard. Yeah, this ain't gonna cut it. One house I rented many, many moons ago mounted the dish on what looked like pristine wood but when I went up there to investigate why I was losing my signal more often than normal, I discovered that I could poke my finger straight through the wood and the studs that were holding the dish up.

None of these scenarios will work. You may get a signal but I'll venture to say that things like this is where most all of the complaints about loss of signal generate from. Based upon my experience and the experience of others I have known over the years that have DTV, the only time one should lose a signal is if a MAJOR storm is headed your way and it's coming from the South, provided the dish has no other obstructions like tree branches, power lines, buildings and the like.

I have mine in the back of the shop, on the roof of the landscaping shop. We placed it there instead of above the kitchen so that *if* it ever did leak, the repairs would be minimal. The last two residences I had, we drove a metal pipe about 4' into the ground and attached the dish at a height of about 2 1/2'.

I wish I had other options.

My Comcast bill tops $210 a month now and I can't get it any cheaper. Because of the trees around me, I can't get satellite reliably and there's no other TV option except broadcast and no other broadband option except Verizon DSL. (Found out my town's mayor works for Comcast and has been blocking Verizon from installing FiOS in my area for 5 years now by making the permitting and approval process excessively difficult.) So I have very little choice because I'd have to keep Comcast if I wanted to go with all streaming services but Comcast blocks half of the streaming services because they offer competing services and programming packages and want you to buy it from them and rape you on "equipment rental fees" every month. Like, if I wanted HBO NOW instead of the HBO package through Comcast, I wouldn't be able to access it through a Comcast broadband account because they offer HBO and HBO GO through their own service.

It's monpolistic practices and my local elected officials are in on it if not complacent in it. Glad I didn't vote for them and I'll be voting against them again next November.