Hi Guys & Gals,
I am looking into hooking up my in motion sat. I did a search here and it seems to be dated. Please give me some pros and cons of Dish and Direct. Which one should I go with for reception etc...and for price. Just give me some ideas so I can make an educated guess as to which one to put on my bus. BTW...it will be service just for my bus and I can use my home address if I have to for service etc. Only other thing I need to say is I will need to have at least a couple of stations for my young girls (main reason for TV) to watch.
Thanks in advance for all comments.
James
I have Direct but not in motion, and have never had Dish so I can't really compare the two. I do know that now Direct is running a free NFL ticket package, which is a nice deal. Also, if you're doing in-motion it's my understanding you can't do HD, FWIW.
I had Direct for alot of years and added a few channels and used it in the Bus and it seemed to work well, Then i went to cable in the house cause we wanted local channels. anyway now Ai think I'm going to go with Dish. I can buy the unit outright with no contract for 288.00 and turn it off an on as needed. Just my thoughts Andy
i've got dtv. requires only 1 satellite to get almost all channels. on the smaller TV's, hd is a waste imho. so i have a bubble on top, takes less than 2 min to get the sat tuned in, then i turn off the antenna because it has some battery draw for aiming. dish has to stay on so that it can switch satellites depending on which channel you watch. or you can buy the more expensive dish that points at both satellites at once. yes, that does get you HD also, but with less than a 30 " tv, no big deal.
again all this is imho. i'd go with dtv.
We have had DirecTv for several years. Only about 3 years in the coach with DNS. Just installed our second DVR and works great. We have an older KVH in motion system, so far so good. Never had Dish, so can't compare. We have been very happy with any service questions and help.
Paul
Looks like TrakVision has in motion hi def now whichis good to know. I'm seeing a lot of their flat black receivers on bus roofs here in Washingtn DC but on looking on the site it is not high def and only works on direct tv...
http://www.kvh.com/Leisure/RV-Systems/Television.aspx (http://www.kvh.com/Leisure/RV-Systems/Television.aspx)
Cheers, Paul.
Mugs, I have one of the earliest trac vision units. I was told years ago that I would not to be able to continue to use it! I have to argue with the telephone help because the receiver is a now obsolete unit that has low speed outputs for the sat unit! But I always manage to get it up and running with a little persistence! It works perfect and I have had direct service for many years with no problems. The old units are viable and still work very well. If mine was not working I would have copilot problems so rest assured the old units work. Regards John L
James- have had DirecTV for 10+ years and very satisfied with it. KVH bubble on roof. I will say that heavy rain interferes with the dome's effectiveness, but that's par for either service.
By the way, try to make the Southeast Bus Nuts' next rally, near you in Hoboken, GA near Waycross. Last weekend in October See link below for details. Many if not most attendees (50+ coaches) hace sats and love to voice their opinions!
www.southeastbusnuts.org (http://www.southeastbusnuts.org)
Cheers!
Mike in GA
We had Direct for years now we have Dish we always had a problem with Direct on their billing and local stations when we were out of town so far so good with Dish and when we changed the house over they gave us a free receiver and recorder for the motor home and we pay nothing extra we were paying Direct extra for the RV
good luck
I just went through the in motion sat hook up. We never could get Dish to work right in the bus. Half of the satelites were on one setting in the satelite and the other channels were on another. So esentially we could only watch one tv at a time and then had to set it to find the right satelite. We went with Direct TV and it was all she wrote for the problems. Short of telling you all the problems I'll just say it took a month and three service attempts until I got frustrated and told the indian lady on the telephone to jamb it. One telephone call to Directtv and one service call and done. Months and a bunch of calls vs a one time deal. DirectTV is the only way I am going for in motions. We have had it about a year and not one single bill problem or channel problem at all.
Quote from: wal1809 on October 03, 2011, 12:55:42 PM(snip) DirectTV is the only way I am going for in motions. We have had it about a year and not one single bill problem or channel problem at all.
Can you get internet service through DirectTV/satellite? Thanks,
Quote from: Oonrahnjay on October 03, 2011, 01:00:08 PM
Quote from: wal1809 on October 03, 2011, 12:55:42 PM(snip) DirectTV is the only way I am going for in motions. We have had it about a year and not one single bill problem or channel problem at all.
Can you get internet service through DirectTV/satellite? Thanks,
Not that I am aware of, no. We had hughes.net at the house and it is slower than dial up during the day. At night it was faster than greased lightning. Now we use AT and T air cards for internet.
We did have problems when we went from Direct to Dish I found out you need a different little box from the satellite manufacture it has 6 satellites on it instead of 2 like the Direct that was our problem it works great in the mountains here in the west that was another gripe I had with Direct it wasn't very good here but great on the gulf coast and the plains
good luck
Hey everyone,
Thank you so much for the info. I am still in the process of looking, but you have certainly given me alot to think about.
Thanks again,
James
PS...Currently I am leaning towards direct but that may change when the process starts.
Hi, we have direct. We tried the dish recently, and we paid the fee to get rid of them. It was a nightmare. We have the slim 5 inch dish on top of the bus. It works great. We havent had any problems with it. It doesnt get anymore issues with rain, etc, than the regular bubble. You have to use the 12 volt receiver, but, we use it in the bedroom and put a dvr up front, and it works great. Anyhow, I personally would not ever try Dish again, just my 2 cents.
This topic is somewhat timely for me as I was hoping to get the dome mounted while up on the roof doing other things.
I have had Direct Tv since nearly the beginning and have never had issues with them and would never think of going back to cable but I'm hearing that they are transitioning from Mpeg2 to Mpeg4 though this will take quite some time....or not so much....we'll see.
Now, I'm not an expert by any means and hopefully someone who knows more can chime in and clarify for me and maybe correct me but it's my understanding that all future HD will be Mpeg 4 and thus all programming will be Mpeg 4 so this means that Direct tv will no longer support non HD in the future at some point.
I'm hearing that they already are resistant to turning on receiver boxes that are not Mpeg 4 capable in anticipation for the transition. The new boxes are backwards compatible with Mpeg2 but the old boxes cannot be made to work.
So how does this relate to me and some others here? My Winegard in motion says that it will support HD via Dish network but not Direct Tv HD. I am unaware of any upgrades or mods to make it work with Direct Tv but I'm trying to get that info.
With the price of in motion domes or the stationary domes I can't really afford to have to upgrade to another dome as well as all my boxes just to continue programming. I could go to dish for a long time for the cost of buying another in motion dome.
Also, the tv must be 1080p24 compatible which none of my tv's in the bus are.
I'm not sure if I should sell my new in motion setup in favor of one compatible with Direct Tv HD or just ride it out and see where we go and then maybe switch to Dish if need be. By then though my dome will be pretty much worthless or at least for D-tv customers which seem to still outnumber Dish. My understanding though is that Dish costs more for the same package than we have now with Direct Tv.
Does anyone know any factual information or corrections to clarify this? I would love to get the facts all straight.
Here is a link that speaks on most of the info I have already. I thought I ran across something on Direct Tv's site saying the same though I can't readily find it now.
( I am NOT affiliated with the following forum and I am not promoting it)
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=197022 (http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=197022)
I am well pleased with the Dish 1000 the six satellites beat the heck out of 2 for Direct for in motion
good luck
Last I knew the east coast had to have two dishes for DISH network HD. I know that domed amtennaes have real trouble with signal loss in the northeast. Northern New England, unless you're on the top or west/ south side of a hill its a no go for Dish. I like the HD picture. Even on a small, 19" LED, TV there is a noticeable difference in picture quality. So we stuck with DTV with the Winegard Slimeline automatic antenna.
Bill
I've had Dish forover 15 years and it is the least exspensive for me . Direct was a mess at first when they started as there were two providers to go to now that is cone with and no problems. My friends with direct get service just fine except if you don't have it operating all the time you will lose authorization and have to call in.
Hello: I dont have either and dont like either. The least expensive is an antenna. At home its a 50 foot tower and on the road its a batwing. The price is right 0 dollars per month. no add on fees . Oh yes once in awhile a bird leaves a deposit.
Regards and happy bussin mike
I don't know how one could really be better than the other myself both use satellite 110 for part of their service
good luck
Wow, see I didn't know that. Dish also uses 110? I assumed that they used a different sat.
We're looking into switching to Dish. My brother changed and likes them but I'm still being told that the same package on D-tv will cost more on Dish after the current rebates and specials that Dish is offering. My brother wants the newest greatest DVR but I don't really care much, I just want good service, all the channels and for a decent price. I also don't want any hassles running a box from the house in the bus.
I know that D-tv used to demand to know where each box was located and connected to phone etc. None of my boxes go to a phone because I have no land line home phone and they never ask anymore.
I don't know if Dish does it but we like how we can add say, HBO for the weekend and then cancel with no troubles.
It sounds like both are nearly the same except maybe price...and the in motion compatibility issue that I have.
Quote from: luvrbus on October 04, 2011, 06:28:04 AM
I don't know how one could really be better than the other myself both use satellite 110 for part of their service
good luck
You must have a different in motion sat receiever than I. We tried for months to get Dish to work and finally the guy at the factory in Orlando told me the system was really not designed for Dish that I should change over to Direct.
I didn't want to but during one of the 15 two hour long conversations about getting hooked up an Indian lady irritated me so bad I told her to stick it and to pick up their equipment. I called Direct and never looked back. One time service call, both tvs worked immediately. It was a whole lot easier than dish. I wish I had changed over from day one. Never have we had a bill issue, never have to argue. I especially love them because now my wife watches tv as we are headed down the road and doesn't stay on my arse about whatever.
Hello: I had so many fights with both dish and direct over billing and what we bought and what worked and did not work ; that we finally went to the antenna system.
My wife is the navigator when we travel. The only time she gets on me is when I dont follow directions. I probably should know by now it will be 48 years next week.
Anyway good luck with whatever you have chosen.
regards and happy bussin mike
Thanks everybody for your help. I will probably be setting everything up around thanksgiving or Christmas. I need to have the time to get everything done. I will have a few days off during those times which will allow for them to deliver and help me setup etc......I will be setting it up I am sure.
Again, thanks for your comments they are much appreciated.
james