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Stuart Sweet
Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU! Pub Member / Supporter Cutting Edge
· posted in The Solid Signal Blog
Our phone support line at 888-233-7563 is open during East Coast business hours. People call us because they know that they'll get good information from qualified techs. Here's an instance of a very common question that our Solid Signal techs get. It's not as cut-and-dried as it used to be, though, so it's worth putting some information out on the internet to try to clear things up.

Going month-to-month with your DIRECTV Satellite account


Technically, if you haven't had any upgrades to your system in over two years, you are month-to-month. You can cancel at any time. But that's not really what people mean when they ask the question. They want to know if it's something like Netflix where you can cancel and pick it up a few months later with no problems.

Unfortunately, that's not how DIRECTV Satellite works. If you cancel, they assume you're done with them. They'll ask for your in-home equipment back, and end your account. However, you can suspend your account if you want. You can suspend for up to six months, once every twelve months. So if you know you're going to be away on a cruise for a month, you can suspend your service and save a little money. This same technique also works for people who have a summer home and a winter home. By having two accounts and suspending the one they're not using, they get the most value for their money.

Going month-to-month with your DIRECTV Internet or DIRECTV Stream account


On the other hand, it is possible to go month-to-month with DIRECTV's internet product. The key is using your own device. If you use your own streaming box, phone, or tablet, you can cancel and restart service like you would with any other streaming service.

It gets a little thornier if you've opted into using DIRECTV's Gemini box. Honestly, the rules on this are changing quickly. In fact they are changing so quickly that I almost don't want to give you any advice other than to call us at 888-233-7563 and get the story.

As I write this, if you are paying monthly for your Gemini, then you can suspend service like you can with DIRECTV Satellite, but you can't cancel and resume. On the other hand if you paid for your box in full, you can stop and start service anytime. It seems to me that this is something that will sort itself out in the future but it's still very confusing.

Get the information you need from Solid Signal


Folks, I'm a big DIRECTV fan myself. But even a fan like me has to admit, sometimes their customer service is a little lacking. DIRECTV uses big overseas call centers and that can be a little rough to navigate. Luckily there are local dealers like Solid Signal who are here to answer your questions. We have a fully-staffed tech support operation in our Detroit-area offices. When you call, you'll get someone who really knows what they're talking about.

Give us a try! Call the experts at 888-233-7563 during East Coast business hours. If it's after hours, just fill out the form below! We'll get back to you quickly.


The post Does DIRECTV have a month-to-month plan? appeared first on The Solid Signal Blog.

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0 Replies · 261 views
dfergie
Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU!
Last reply · posted in What's Cooking?
We have a Breakfast and Dinner thread so... :)
Continuing from the Breakfast thread, found Cornbread mix so ...
Yellow Cornbread Mix
2 Hatch Green Chiles -diced
1 Egg
2/3 cup of milk
add to greased pan
Bake for 400f 20-25 minutes(From instructions)
now to put together and try... this to go with pinto beans...
5449 Replies · 336086 views
TRG
TRG
Club sandwich and corn chowder. Iced tea.
dfergie
Chili dog bowl, water… (homemade chili)
TRG
TRG
Leftover wanton soup and pork fried rice. Water.
dfergie
IMG_5955.webp

Sweet tea…
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TRG
TRG
Tuna salad sandwich on toasted honey whole wheat bread with a handful of kettle chips. Water.
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Scott Greczkowski
Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU! Cutting Edge
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
Sometimes a thread gets so many posts in it that is can cause issues for the server so that why today we introduce The Song Name Game Part 3!

So let the game continue!

The last song was added by Bobby who posted...

One Meat Ball - Andrews Sisters

CONTINUE ON AND HAVE FUN! WELCOME HOME TO SATELLITEGUYS.US!

Here are the original rules for the game as posted by WebbyDude back in 2006. http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/68645-Song-Name-Game

Just name a song title and the band who performed it. The next person does the same thing, but needs to list a song title or band name which includes a word from the previous entry. Pick songs from any genre.

Example:

Long Live Rock and Roll -- Rainbow

Rainbow in the Dark -- Dio

Another example:

Ride the Lightning -- Metallica

Lightning Strikes -- Ozzy Osbourne


Get it?


An additional note: we all know that song titles, sometimes, use profane words. Because this is a family friendly website it is advised that you clean up that title up a bit. This is accomplished by using something like sh!t instead of the real word. Thanks....
68658 Replies · 2680224 views
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dishstaller
I Wanna Talk About Me - Toby Keith
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Bobby
98.6 - Keith
harshness
I'm Easy - Keith Carridine
gms49ers
It's Easy - Boston
RaiderPower
Take It Easy On Me - Little River Band
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R
Last reply · posted in Computers and Gadgets
Lately my eight year old Dell laptop has been shutting off even when I have a full battery. I have had to keep it plugged up all the time to keep this from happening. Any idea what is causing this? I replaced the battery about three years ago.
2 Replies · 46 views
arlo
A recalibration might be needed. Even if it shows full, the individual cells may have become unbalaced. And the BMS chip in the battery reports false information to the pc.
Try this. Start it up in the bios/uefi and leave it there until the battery dies and it shuts off.
It might just keep running longer than in Windows. Or run for a short while and shut off.
If it's the first case. Probably just needs a balancing. If the latter, the pack might just be dead.
Not throwing stones but perhaps just a cheaply constructed battery with substandard cells. Could be.

Patience. Keep restarting it in bios/uefi until it won't fire up anymore.
Then plug the charger in and let it complete a full charge. And see what happens. If it's better.
Do the same thing one more time. Run it until it dies dead-dead. Then just let it charge, pc shut off.
When charged, it might be better. It might not be.

There are bench jigs that read the actual BMS and override it to let a tech manually monitor and charge the separate packs. They can also reset any "time bombs" in it that cause an otherwise good pack to show bad.
Maybe Santa will be good to me some year.

You might just need a new battery. Maybe the PC power management chip is going. A Dell common thing.
Leaving a laptop plugged in with a full battery is known to reduce the life. Asus for one recommends that you don't leave the charger plugged in all of the time even when shut down. And setting Windows to charge the battery to 85% instead of 100% increases life.
That's all I got.
dishstaller
That's all I got.
That was quite enough....I definitely learned something from your post. Thanks
TRG
TRG
Pub Member / Supporter
Last reply · posted in Computers and Gadgets
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
5 Replies · 285 views
b4pjoe
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
If you can't get into the router to reserve an IP address just don't use DHCP on the device that needs connected and assign it to a specific IP address in the network settings.
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HipKat
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
They are not. Your best bet is to set up a third-party router, attached to the Starlink for your server, that you can get into, like a Linksys, etc
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Foxbat
…it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
The Starlink V5 Install Kit I just got comes with the Mini Router. It is pretty limited in what it can do. For example, it can provide only one IP subnet at a time, no Guest Network, but it does support the pass-thru to a third-party Router. You can also split the Wi-Fi into separate 5 GHz & 2.4 GHz SSIDs to help some IoT devices that don't support 5 GHz bands to work.

The larger Starlink Router that still comes with the V4 Kit does support a Guest Network with separate IPv4 Subnet, but it's $120 from Starlink. And it still won't do DHCP Reservations.
harshness
If you can restrict the DHCP address space to assign addresses to one end of the subnet (i.e. x.x.x.50+), you can manually assign the IP address on pretty much any operating system. This is a default behavior on several popular routers. As the Router Mini only supports 235 devices, I expect that's already done.

Another option is to use a router that supports PoE to power the antenna. This article discusses that option (under PoE Power heading):

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Foxbat
Now that I've had the v5 kit with the Mini Router, it's not as bad as I first thought. Yes, no DHCP reservations, but you can set up multiple SSIDs that have separate IPv4 subnets, and like the big brother, you can select from 192.168.x.0/24 or 10.x.0.0/16 (where "x" is 1-4).

You can also split a subnet and have different SSIDs for the 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz channels to handle some IoT devices. I haven't discovered what subnet the 2nd NIC on the router assigns, I'm guessing it's the first subnet.
dishstaller
Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
2 Replies · 51 views
dishstaller
Sorry for posting the wrong link. Just corrected it.
dishstaller
Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
Terrible tragedy. You would think that they would have safe guards in place that would prevent something like this from happening. I guess if you are going to ride in a passenger train it might be best to get a car near the rear.

2 Replies · 55 views
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Jimbo
Terrible tragedy. You would think that they would have safe guards in place that would prevent something like this from happening. I guess if you are going to ride in a passenger train it might be best to get a car near the rear.

They will have to look at the switching sections to determine WHY 2 trains were on the same track ... at the same time.
dishstaller
Thought this article might be of interest to some of you who might travel via train.