Or do you have to give up your market? Someone told me that people in certain markets get distants for free. But I don't want to give up my market, so could I just pay extra for those?
Is it possible to pay extra for distant networks and stay where you are without "moving"?
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Only those without locals can get distant channels from either NYC or LA. If you have locals, you can't get the distant channels.
If you want both you can "Move" to a condo in the NY area. I usually pick something for sale and that is vacant, tell them I'm moving for work for a month or two, got my box setup (unit already had D* dish) and everything is working except my locals.
You can then get an AM21 and set that up with an indoor antenna (unless you live out in the sticks) and use those for your local channels if you choose.
We did this when we were full timing in an RV. Made it easy to get the locals where we were or if we were home but also allowed us to not have to bother with Directv when we moved. We kept our national recording on the DNS channels and only recorded the local news on the locals.
Worked well.
You can then get an AM21 and set that up with an indoor antenna (unless you live out in the sticks) and use those for your local channels if you choose.
We did this when we were full timing in an RV. Made it easy to get the locals where we were or if we were home but also allowed us to not have to bother with Directv when we moved. We kept our national recording on the DNS channels and only recorded the local news on the locals.
Worked well.
Because your local network affiliates won't let this happen. And why should they? They pay the networks for "Exclusive Distribution" of the network programming in their DMA. And their ad revenue is tied to that. If everyone watched the New York station, the local station would not get as much ad revenue...
True, but however, I doubt that I'm gonna go to NY to get groceries tomorrow ... or anything else for that matter.
Point being, just because they are not the Local Ads doesn't mean I'm not gonna support the products that would be shown on the local ads.
Indeed. Perhaps texasbrit is lucky enough to have good affiliates in his market and has never lived in one of the many DMAs where the locals are just trainwrecks. Not to mention crawlers, program interruptions, program preemptions, varying HD availability, missing networks, carriage disputes, etc etc.
My home DMA (Burlington VT) locals are not that good and very incomplete. The picture very soft on many of the channels (doesn't matter the source - cable, satellite, OTA) and there's way too much 2.0 audio. I "live" with my brother near Boston, so I have Boston's nearly-complete major network lineup - CBS ABC NBC PBS CW UNI UMAS TMO ION COZI MY and an independent...only missing MundoFox. Oh well. The Boston locals are much better looking and sounding. The VT locals are very strong OTA, and the PBS from NY isn't hard to get. All are in the AM21, so i do have them if there's a crawler or something annoying on the Boston channels. I can usually get CBC and TVA from Montreal, too, and sometimes SRC (CBC French) and CTV when they want to. Being able to "move" AND integrate OTA into the guide are some of the best things about Directv to me.
I'm not saying all local affiliates do a good job. many of them do a terrible job, as ejb1980 says. But they are paying for exclusivity, that's what they get. IMHO the network affiliate system is way past its sell-by date, but that's what we have, like it or not.
Bottom line, write your congressman about it. Cable gets to offer more than one dma, satellite should be able to also.
I can get Toledo and Detroit with my OTA and AM21.
I am in the Toledo market, I watch the Detroit locals when I can't find anything on in the Toledo area, or theres weather crawls, aern't there always weather related crawls, between school delays and closings and actual weather.
It comes in handy to be able to do that when needed.
That said, D* only offers the Toledo market to me, while Cable offers Detroit as well and for some reason we get stuck with the Browns as the local team when it comes to the NFL, even though Detroit is over an hour close than Cleveland.
Anyways, I'm not driving to Detroit to get an item I can get down the street just because I can see the other cities local channels and advertising.
I am in the Toledo market, I watch the Detroit locals when I can't find anything on in the Toledo area, or theres weather crawls, aern't there always weather related crawls, between school delays and closings and actual weather.
It comes in handy to be able to do that when needed.
That said, D* only offers the Toledo market to me, while Cable offers Detroit as well and for some reason we get stuck with the Browns as the local team when it comes to the NFL, even though Detroit is over an hour close than Cleveland.
Anyways, I'm not driving to Detroit to get an item I can get down the street just because I can see the other cities local channels and advertising.
and in some cases you have to get a waiver
My market isn't on Directv yet I had to get a waiver to get CBS from LA. I was grandfathered for NBC before KXGN added NBC as a subchannel. There are no other stations in the market.
I do when I go up to see the Tigers or Red Wings !i wouldnt drive to Detroit ever
The areas where Comerica Park / Hockeytown cafe are getting better all the time, New Red Wings Areana also opening in the same area.
Ford Field also right next door to Comerica Park if you really want to watch the Lions.
but with a RV don't you just fill out the form and submit it? That's different than if you don't have locals on Directv and you have to go through their qualification page. Here is what it shows for my area. We automatically qualify for FOX, ABC, CW, and PBS. You can try and get a waiver for NBC & CBS.
I got a waiver for CBS years ago (actually they never responded). NBC I am grandfathered in as KXGN didn't add NBC until the DTV transition. Plus the NBC is SD only (yuck!)
I got a waiver for CBS years ago (actually they never responded). NBC I am grandfathered in as KXGN didn't add NBC until the DTV transition. Plus the NBC is SD only (yuck!)
There are two (really three) ways to get DNS service nowadays with DirecTV. The first way is to "move" to a town in either the NY or LA DMA, depending on which one you are wanting. In this case you lose your real locals, and still only get the "big four" affiliates on the CONUS beam because all the other NY/LA channels are on their area's spotbeams.
The second method is to qualify for mobile DNS service. For this you need an RV or other recreational vehicle registration that you can submit proving you own an RV. They say you are supposed to have a separate account for the RV and pay for it in addition to your home account, but if you only have a few receivers most of the time you can list them as all being in the RV and they don't ask questions. With this method you keep your local channels from your home market, and gain access to either the NY or LA locals based on your Registration's zip code. You can no longer get both the NY and LA channels unless you were previously grandfathered and had them before the new RV rules went into affect.
The last way is to live in one of the really rare areas that are not served by any local affiliates of a network and thus to legitimately qualify for DNS service. That is complicated though, if you were going to use that method you might as well go with #1 as the outcome would be the same.
The second method is to qualify for mobile DNS service. For this you need an RV or other recreational vehicle registration that you can submit proving you own an RV. They say you are supposed to have a separate account for the RV and pay for it in addition to your home account, but if you only have a few receivers most of the time you can list them as all being in the RV and they don't ask questions. With this method you keep your local channels from your home market, and gain access to either the NY or LA locals based on your Registration's zip code. You can no longer get both the NY and LA channels unless you were previously grandfathered and had them before the new RV rules went into affect.
The last way is to live in one of the really rare areas that are not served by any local affiliates of a network and thus to legitimately qualify for DNS service. That is complicated though, if you were going to use that method you might as well go with #1 as the outcome would be the same.
Anyone doing this, remember, when traveling, once start traveling you will lose your true locals once you get outside of that locals spotbeam.
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