What is My Best Option for Satellite?

[AspenQn]

We have a small cabin in Paonia, Colorado where we need to set up satellite tv. We currently have Directv at our Denver home, but plan on building a house and moving to our Paonia property within the next year. In the interim, we need to get tv set up at the cabin but are trying to figure out what our best option is since we also have a travel trailer. I talked to Direct today and they said we would need to set up a second account since the Paonia tv would be watched simultaneously a lot of the time as our Denver satellite. The guy tried to tell me to go ahead and bite the bullet for $99 for the Genie for the second account and also take out the protection plan so that when we do move we could upgrade all of our equipment and merge the two accounts. However, rub seems to be that not only do you pay a receiver fee, but also a recorder fee, for an additional $21.50 to the base price of whatever package we go with.

Hubby thinks maybe we should just get a portable satellite setup that could go back and forth between the trailer and the cabin, but it looks like the small convenient one does not deliver HD content to Direct programming.

So would we be better off going with DISH where we could get the small tailgater or with Direct and getting regular satellite equipment?

 

[jcrandall]

Are you going to consistently use the cabin and travel trailer at the same time? If you can reasonably say that you will only be in one home at a time you can use one account. They will install at the cabin, order an extra receiver for a bedroom or so, and that one can be moved after the fact to your travel trailer. DirecTV allows a receiver for an RV or such as long as you aren't using both at the same time. They have no way to track that, it is the honor system so to speak. I have a receiver in my camper that is used when we travel / camp, and have one account with no issue.

If you truly will be using both places consistently at the same time, then yes, you should have two accounts.

I don't know anything about them merging accounts, that could be an iffy point as you would be under two year contracts on both accounts. The fee structure is what it is, and is similar on Dish too.

 

[jcrandall]

WELCOME to SatelilteGuys!

 

[Jimbo]

Aspen,
Welcome to the Site ... !!!!

What Jason is saying is about the same way I feel about it ...
IF your not watching both on a constant basis, get your self a Directv Dish, you already have a D* account, no need to move to DISH seeing your already with D*.
Set up a Dish at the cabin (tripod, portable) get an extra recvr for home, take the extra recvr to the Cabin or the travel trailer ...
If you get the hang of setting up the dish, you'll be up and running in no time with your HD.

 

[AspenQn]

Unfortunately, there will be times when we would be watching both tvs simultaneously for extended periods of time. The one thing that seemed really odd to me is that DTV quoted me a base package price, 6.50 receiver fee, then a $15 recorder fee? I asked about that and was told that programming fees and recorder fees were separate beasts....is this right? I don't think I am charged a recorder fee at our Denver location.

 

[Jimbo]

Unfortunately, there will be times when we would be watching both tvs simultaneously for extended periods of time. The one thing that seemed really odd to me is that DTV quoted me a base package price, 6.50 receiver fee, then a $15 recorder fee? I asked about that and was told that programming fees and recorder fees were separate beasts....is this right? I don't think I am charged a recorder fee at our Denver location.

If you have a HD recvr, your charged the HD Fee ($10) A DVR is also $10, plus addl. recvrs are $ 6-7 something like that.

If you have HD and DVR yes, you are charged that on your bill somewhere.
It could be in a different spot as they have taken those two (HD and DVR and combined them to make the Advanced Recvr fee ... the HD fee and the DVR fee is for the account, not per recvr.

Remember, theres no gps on these dishes/recvrs, as long as you don't plug in the phone at the cabin they have very little way to know.

I have one in my Motor Home but don't pay a 2nd account.

 

[AspenQn]

Jimbo, can you tell me more about your motorhome set up with one account? I am doing some research into the VuCube Flex portable satellite antenna. I know it only gets SD DTV, but it would work for now at the cabin and in our trailer. I am just trying to figure out how to make this work with one account.

 

[Jimbo]

Jimbo, can you tell me more about your motorhome set up with one account? I am doing some research into the VuCube Flex portable satellite antenna. I know it only gets SD DTV, but it would work for now at the cabin and in our trailer. I am just trying to figure out how to make this work with one account.

If your alright with SD, yes the VuCube would work fine.

I have the D* recvr in the basement of the motor home, ran a line up to the cabinet next to the TV (usually the TV's are in the center between the passenger and driver seats on top) ... I originally had my recvr in the cabinet next to the TV, but found that when down south, the cabinet would heat up too much and often the recvr would get to hot and have to cool to work.
So I have a spr recvr from the house in the basement of MH, I run a coax from the dish to the recvr, point the dish ( I use a Sat Look or just the recvr meter), once the connections are made at the recvr, the TV shows the recvr and picture is there.
I do Not use a SWM set up in this instance, that would only make me use another electrical outlet that I really need.