Living in Baltimore Market get Washington DC Locals

[easternshore]

OK so here's my situation.

I used to live in the Annapolis Area and my service was xfinity comcast.
I received both Baltimore and Washington DC locals plus all of the channels I wanted like Comcast Sports Net.

I have recently moved to the Eastern Shore of Maryland (Queen Anne's County). I am about 25 minutes from annapolis now.

I have the offbrand cable service: atlantic broadband, it is my only choice for cable. I am happy with their internet and phone service, but their TV is sub par. They do offer both Washington and Baltimore Locals, but they do not offer many of the channels that Directv, Dish TV, and comcast offered.

I looked at both the Directv and Dish websites and they both listed me in the Baltimore Market. Is there any way I can talk them into giving me both the Washington and Baltimore local channels as the cable company would? I need to be able to watch my beloved Redskins.

Any help would be appreciated.

If I talked with them on the phone and gave them a condition that I would only switch to them if they gave me the washinigton channels, would that work?

thanks

 

[bbixler]

OK so here's my situation.

I used to live in the Annapolis Area and my service was xfinity comcast.
I received both Baltimore and Washington DC locals plus all of the channels I wanted like Comcast Sports Net.

I have recently moved to the Eastern Shore of Maryland (Queen Anne's County). I am about 25 minutes from annapolis now.

I have the offbrand cable service: atlantic broadband, it is my only choice for cable. I am happy with their internet and phone service, but their TV is sub par. They do offer both Washington and Baltimore Locals, but they do not offer many of the channels that Directv, Dish TV, and comcast offered.

I looked at both the Directv and Dish websites and they both listed me in the Baltimore Market. Is there any way I can talk them into giving me both the Washington and Baltimore local channels as the cable company would? I need to be able to watch my beloved Redskins.

Any help would be appreciated.

If I talked with them on the phone and gave them a condition that I would only switch to them if they gave me the washinigton channels, would that work?

thanks

They cannot do that due to FCC regulations. You could "move" your service address to a zip code within the Washington market to get what you want though.

 

[easternshore]

so there is no way to get both then. how come cable can give you both markets?

 

[bbixler]

so there is no way to get both then. how come cable can give you both markets?

Not in your area. Cable and Satellite have different FCC rules. Same way where I am. Comcast gives me Baltimore and Harrisburg. Direct TV only gives me Harrisburg.

 

[Joe Diamond]

Hi, I'm in Chestertown and feel your pain.

My best guess is the FCC controls air wave communication and cable does not use those airwaves......it is a legal thing presented by advertisers and the owners of the stations. Directv = satellite communication controlled by FCC...CATV = no airwaves....no FCC.

Joe

 

[dishrich]

Not really, it's most likely due to:
- The spot beam(s) for one market may NOT overlap enough into that other market to give a reliable signal
- It's actually a big pain for DBS to format their systems, to give all of these various markets "significant viewed" stations that are ONLY supposed to be available in certain counties &/or zip codes

Since the majority of subs really do NOT care about getting multiple sets of networks, the DBS providers simply do not feel it's worth the hassle.

OP - Bottom line, if you want BOTH sets of nets, you'll need to either:
- put up an antenna & pull in those other channels you want
- since you are keeping cable for the internet, why don't you just sub to broadcast basic (limited) cable service, which should give you all those locals you get now

 

[Joe Diamond]

I was guessing about the FCC thing.

But the spot beams seem to overlap fine. Folks come through here on weekends with receivers activated in Philly, D.C. & Baltimore....all work fine. Directv just can't legally sell the locals from market to market; silly!

Here on the shore nobody cares about local traffic elsewhere. There is none here, sports are sports and fire trucks do the same stuff everywhere.

Joe

 

[texasbrit]

No, it's basically an FCC thing. One DMA, one set of locals. The rules for cable companies are different (I think actually they are "grandfathered" since they were around long before the rules were created).
In some DMAs DirecTV does deliver a small number of stations under the "significantly viewed" rule but never a complete DMA's worth.

 

[tonyfed1964]

I live in Maryland and I had the same problem that you have. The FCC forced me to have the
Washington tv stations, however I wanted the Baltimore stations. What I did to solve the problem
was to order the AM21 over the air receiver, connect this to an HD antenna and then use the USB
cable that comes with the AM21 and connect this to my directv HD box and now I have all of the
Washington and Baltimore tv stations. It works great for myself.

 

[Joe Diamond]

I live in Maryland and I had the same problem that you have. The FCC forced me to have the
Washington tv stations, however I wanted the Baltimore stations. What I did to solve the problem
was to order the AM21 over the air receiver, connect this to an HD antenna and then use the USB
cable that comes with the AM21 and connect this to my directv HD box and now I have all of the
Washington and Baltimore tv stations. It works great for myself.

If you want to play around with that there is a site...http://ndparking.com/antennweb.org that you can use to get az lines to many OTA stations.
Best one was a farmer in DE that had an OTA antenna on top of an old windmill. He had signs where distant cities were and his grandson rotated the old drive shaft with the antenna to NY, Philly, Dover, etc.

Cool!


Joe

 

[dishrich]

Well the other thing I was going to add re: SV - many cable co. are being forced to remove some or all SV stations on their systems, due to requests from those same local affiliates within a DMA, that the systems MUST start enforcing "network non-duplication" &/or "syndex" requirements on their systems. Rather than having to black-out blocks of shows, the cable systems decided it was easier to just yank those stations entirely - it actually is better for the cable systems, since they no longer have to devote (analog) limited basic bandwidth on those SV stations, for basically duplicated programming.

On other systems, they are removing the analog versions of SV stations & making them digital only, so they take up less bandwidth - but eventually, they'll probably end up removing them entirely in some cases.

Both of these have happened on many cable systems on the outskirts of my DMA here alone...

 

[aa9vi]

you guys forgot about the over the air AM-21 box that receives signals from an outdoor antenna. So, get an HD-DVR like the HR-24 and then request an AM-21 over the air receiver that plugs into the HR-24. It integrates with the satellite and over the air signals into your guide.

simple. Program DC in as your secondary market on the receiver and you're set. The AM-21 costs $50.

 

[mdram]

i dont know if your close enough to dc to get them ota
but stranger things have happened

there are some areas on the shore that get dc, balt, philly ota so its possible

a little further south and you would be in the salisbury dma.

of course you could always get sunday ticket, and if your new you should have it anyway

 

[bbixler]

i dont know if your close enough to dc to get them ota
but stranger things have happened

there are some areas on the shore that get dc, balt, philly ota so its possible

a little further south and you would be in the salisbury dma.

of course you could always get sunday ticket, and if your new you should have it anyway

That's what I was thinking and why I mentioned the 'moving' option. Not sure if the DC locals will reach that far via OTA with the AM-21.