YES! DISH definitely dosen't want to lose customers

boba

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Dec 12, 2003
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Dorchester, TX.
I cancelled my Welcome Pack today. I've had it on pause for months and I finally transferred programming off 3 hard drives. CSR was polite but didn't want to let me go. On the $19.99 Welcome Pack final offer was $10 off for 20 months.
 
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MikeD-C05

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Nov 25, 2003
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Nederland , Texas
I cancelled my Welcome Pack today. I've had it on pause for months and I finally transferred programming off 3 hard drives. CSR was polite but didn't want to let me go. On the $19.99 Welcome Pack final offer was $10 off for 20 months.
Sounds like a good deal if all you need is locals and a few channels in HD now. At $9.99 you are paying what you used to pay for just locals and no basic programming pack. OF course the Welcome pack replaced that option few years back.
 
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boba

SatelliteGuys Master
Dec 12, 2003
11,350
1,035
Dorchester, TX.
Sounds like a good deal if all you need is locals and a few channels in HD now. At $9.99 you are paying what you used to pay for just locals and no basic programming pack. OF course the Welcome pack replaced that option few years back.
But the $0.00 I am now paying for OTA is even cheaper With the Dallas DMA & the Sherman DMA I am getting 60-70 channels.
 
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navychop

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Jul 20, 2005
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Great, if that programming satisfies you.

But no History channel. No Food Network/Cooking channel. No Wife Beater Channel. No (fill in the blank with non OTA networks).

All the same, we can only consume so much entertainment.
 

boba

SatelliteGuys Master
Dec 12, 2003
11,350
1,035
Dorchester, TX.
Great, if that programming satisfies you.

But no History channel. No Food Network/Cooking channel. No Wife Beater Channel. No (fill in the blank with non OTA networks).

All the same, we can only consume so much entertainment.
It is all balanced by what you call entertainment. I would rather watch "CREATE" than watch Food Network. ME TV, Antenna TV, Cozi TV all show classic TV series that I would rather watch instead of repeats of a Reality show about pawn shops, or buying and rebuilding old cars.

While making up my mind to leave DISH I analyzed the timers I set on my DVR and only found 3-4 were satellite only channels the rest were OTA. The programming value was pathetic to pay for it, now some is still pathetic but I don't have to pay to be insulted by what I watch.
 

ralfyguy

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Sep 17, 2005
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McAlester, Oklahoma
It is all balanced by what you call entertainment. I would rather watch "CREATE" than watch Food Network. ME TV, Antenna TV, Cozi TV all show classic TV series that I would rather watch instead of repeats of a Reality show about pawn shops, or buying and rebuilding old cars.

While making up my mind to leave DISH I analyzed the timers I set on my DVR and only found 3-4 were satellite only channels the rest were OTA. The programming value was pathetic to pay for it, now some is still pathetic but I don't have to pay to be insulted by what I watch.
See, this is a prime example how we all are individuals. To each it's own.
I have reduced my programming significantly for the same reason, that I don't want to pay for channels I could not give less of a damn about.
Unfortunately there are still some things I like to keep, although in my house we are mostly down to the local channels as well.
BUT in my case I need the dish to get the local NBC affiliate, because you cannot get it via OTA antenna, because some idiot at the FCC or whoever is responsible for it, has me in that DMA that puts me almost 77 miles from the towers with hills in between and puts it on VHF channel 8 with a pathetic power output of 8KW. I cannot believe that this is even legal. Or whoever made this decision has no clue how OTA reception works.
 

osu1991

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Sep 4, 2004
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Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
See, this is a prime example how we all are individuals. To each it's own.
I have reduced my programming significantly for the same reason, that I don't want to pay for channels I could not give less of a damn about.
Unfortunately there are still some things I like to keep, although in my house we are mostly down to the local channels as well.
BUT in my case I need the dish to get the local NBC affiliate, because you cannot get it via OTA antenna, because some idiot at the FCC or whoever is responsible for it, has me in that DMA that puts me almost 77 miles from the towers with hills in between and puts it on VHF channel 8 with a pathetic power output of 8KW. I cannot believe that this is even legal. Or whoever made this decision has no clue how OTA reception works.

I know its the opposite direction of the Tulsa stations, but can you not get KTEN from Ada in McAlester. It's UHF channel 26 and the transmitter in Milburn is closer than KJRH's. They may not be at full power as I've heard KTEN has been having a lot of problems the past 4 months or so.
 

Ronnie-

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I cancelled my Welcome Pack today. I've had it on pause for months and I finally transferred programming off 3 hard drives. CSR was polite but didn't want to let me go. On the $19.99 Welcome Pack final offer was $10 off for 20 months.
I got the same offer last week when I called to cut off my service. I had not put mine on hold, but I had reduced it to the welcome pack with two boxes (sent one joey back three months ago). At the end of the day, we realized that with OTA and streaming (which we had with sat service anyway) it covered 95% of what we watched. Some app log in info from friends and we covered that other 5%.

After the initial adjustment period of HOW we watch programming, I think the family as a whole will be fine with this transition.
 

ralfyguy

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Sep 17, 2005
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I know its the opposite direction of the Tulsa stations, but can you not get KTEN from Ada in McAlester. It's UHF channel 26 and the transmitter in Milburn is closer than KJRH's. They may not be at full power as I've heard KTEN has been having a lot of problems the past 4 months or so.
Yes, I do get KTEN, even though it's behind my antennae, because it bounces of the house across the street. LOL
And yes, they did have problems, I've noticed that.
But come one, that's not the point. Because they don't do the weather for our area good enough. And they also have problems with the sound often for the Primetime shows. It's mostly stereo only, and very low volume.
My point is that I should not be required to have Satellite service to receive a local channel just because they do not understand the basic physics of OTA reception, and make a person try to do the physically impossible with the best equipment money can buy, and it still doesn't work. I have three antennae with two amps!
KOTV and KTUL have repeaters just 5 miles out of town, where KOTV wouldn't even need it. KTUL is in the same low power boat as KJRH, but the DO have that repeater. KJRH should be required to do the same.
KOKI is also flaky at best.
You know very well that everything beyond 65 miles is just luck. That's basic physics that they should know.
And the problem with the repeaters for me is, that their signal comes in now way too hard for my setup. Creates even more problems.
All the affiliates should be on that repeater, period. I could use a coat hanger then. And not just me.
 

osu1991

SatelliteGuys Master
Sep 4, 2004
10,192
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Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
Yes, I do get KTEN, even though it's behind my antennae, because it bounces of the house across the street. LOL
And yes, they did have problems, I've noticed that.
But come one, that's not the point. Because they don't do the weather for our area good enough. And they also have problems with the sound often for the Primetime shows. It's mostly stereo only, and very low volume.
My point is that I should not be required to have Satellite service to receive a local channel just because they do not understand the basic physics of OTA reception, and make a person try to do the physically impossible with the best equipment money can buy, and it still doesn't work. I have three antennae with two amps!
KOTV and KTUL have repeaters just 5 miles out of town, where KOTV wouldn't even need it. KTUL is in the same low power boat as KJRH, but the DO have that repeater. KJRH should be required to do the same.
KOKI is also flaky at best.
You know very well that everything beyond 65 miles is just luck. That's basic physics that they should know.
And the problem with the repeaters for me is, that their signal comes in now way too hard for my setup. Creates even more problems.
All the affiliates should be on that repeater, period. I could use a coat hanger then. And not just me.

totally agree. they should be required to run a repeater for that and any area if they are going to claim it.

I too went thru hell getting signals down there at our ranch during the analog days. I gave up and went satellite only down there when Tulsa became available and got rid of that account when I moved my mom up here.
 

silverdiskdj

SatelliteGuys Family
May 28, 2004
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26
I am confused by some of the comments above. Are people being sarcastic about the History and Food Network? Because those are indeed included. My first go around with DISH, I ended up on the Welcome Pack after a while... and found outside the fact that the national stuff was in SD (though that has now changed), I was happy getting Food, HGTV, TBS, Comedy Central, etc. It gave me a decent selection of entertainment for such a low cost, and allowed me to keep my DVR.
 
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ralfyguy

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Sep 17, 2005
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McAlester, Oklahoma
I am confused by some of the comments above. Are people being sarcastic about the History and Food Network? Because those are indeed included. My first go around with DISH, I ended up on the Welcome Pack after a while... and found outside the fact that the national stuff was in SD (though that has now changed), I was happy getting Food, HGTV, TBS, Comedy Central, etc. It gave me a decent selection of entertainment for such a low cost, and allowed me to keep my DVR.
It just boils down to personal preference what each individual is interested in. Boba cares less about certain things that others care about. Food, HGTV, TBS and Comedy Central is not in my list of channels either. I wouldn't care if I didn't have them. Other people do care about them, and there is nothing wrong with it.
 

Mr Tony

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Nov 17, 2003
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Mankato, MN
I'm not even sure if it isn't illegal for sure. Doesn't the law say that everybody should be technically be able to receive OTA programming?
there has never been a law that says that. There are many places around the US that probably have no OTA or very minimal even with extreme measures. Alot of markets are "short" markets where there are missing nets

Where i use to live was the Minneapolis market but I was 93 miles from the towers. I had to rely on low powered translators and even then my ABC was still analog and I had no NBC (only got CBS, PBS and FOX)
 
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Mr Tony

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Nov 17, 2003
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I am confused by some of the comments above. Are people being sarcastic about the History and Food Network? Because those are indeed included. My first go around with DISH, I ended up on the Welcome Pack after a while... and found outside the fact that the national stuff was in SD (though that has now changed), I was happy getting Food, HGTV, TBS, Comedy Central, etc. It gave me a decent selection of entertainment for such a low cost, and allowed me to keep my DVR.
Different strokes for different folks. Not everyone likes those channels (or their repetitiveness)

The fact the OP lives in an area where there is a multitude of OTA options it works for him.
 

rvvaquero

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Mar 3, 2012
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I stay at four different locations for most of the year. Only one of them has any OTA channels of the major networks.
 

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