Question: DirecTV question...

TIDE-HSV

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Oct 13, 1999
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Huntsville, AL,USA
The ice and snow combined to block the signal, this happened several times last winter. It was to slippery to get to my dish, to clean it off. The dish was mounted on my fence 8 or 9 feet off the ground.
The front roof of our house is pretty flat, almost too flat for shingles. That side of the house is 400'+ from the street, so I keep a ladder up there on a semi-permanent basis, because I have to clean the wood stove flue several times each winter, and, of course, gutter cleaning and other chores. The snow wouldn't be so bad, although that would have been one more path I would have had to shovel out. The last really bad ice storm we had, Xmas of '98, I had to go up to set a tarp, since a red oak had plunged through the roof. That was about 1" of ice and that was no fun. I've about decided that I might make it without too much tree cutting, if I back the dish all the way back to the east end of the house, to expose as much sky as possible. Maybe then I can get over those trees, or, maybe, just cut the cherry which needs to come down anyway...
 

TIDE-HSV

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Oct 13, 1999
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Huntsville, AL,USA
Its not "too" bad down here though. When it snowed here Christmas we never lost signal and at its worst it was dumped snow for a hour or so and we never lost signal. Was some of the heaviest snow I seen since '93 and the satellite stayed on. Now if the dish starts freezing up you might get sporadic coverage but we rarely lost signal at all unless the weather was bad and had heavy rain. From the pics of your house I think you will be ok with mounting on the house. To me thats better as my brother had 30' of ground rods in his yard and he kept taking lightning to his box. I told him for 3 years that he could keep driving in ground rods and it wouldnt work in saving his box and since he's had it on his house he hasn''t taken a shot since.
We were having a miserable time losing equipment until I got a lesson from a retired engineer who used to be in charge of lightning protection for the shuttle at the Cape. He convinced me that I was spending too much effort trying to intercept when I needed to give it an easier path out. He said that almost all cases of lightning damage he'd seen on residences, other than those directly striking the house, were where the ground surge was taken up by the cable company's wiring. I checked and the Comcast ground rod was about 15" long. I tied it in with heavy copper to the ground stake underneath our meter base. Knock on wood, but no problems since...
 

DzynKingRTR

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Dec 17, 2003
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Vinings, ga., usa
Ok so I am moving on Friday. In my old place I had Directv, but the apartment complex was wired for it so I did not have a dish. My new place doesn’t have that option and I have no idea which direction my new apartment faces so I cancelled the Directv. My questions are: How good is Comcast cable? Is it worth it? Other than NFL network what channels will I lose with Comcast? Should I even bother with HD or DVR? Now if my new place faces the correct direction should I just go back to Directv? I own the receivers anyway; I just have to return the cards.
 

uafan4life

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Mar 30, 2001
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Florence, AL
Ok so I am moving on Friday. In my old place I had Directv, but the apartment complex was wired for it so I did not have a dish. My new place doesn’t have that option and I have no idea which direction my new apartment faces so I cancelled the Directv. My questions are: How good is Comcast cable? Is it worth it? Other than NFL network what channels will I lose with Comcast? Should I even bother with HD or DVR? Now if my new place faces the correct direction should I just go back to Directv? I own the receivers anyway; I just have to return the cards.
Depends on where you're at relative to some sort of Comcast backbone. If you've got a good cable signal, then the TV and internet service you get from Comcast can't be touched by satellite. Also, you don't lose NFL Network - depending upon your TV package. One thing, though, is that the Comcast DVRs are crap. I'd recommend investing in a SiliconDust Prime CableCard network tuner or Tivo DVRs.

Sent from my HTC Droid DNA using Tapatalk 2
 

TIDE-HSV

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Oct 13, 1999
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Huntsville, AL,USA
Depends on where you're at relative to some sort of Comcast backbone. If you've got a good cable signal, then the TV and internet service you get from Comcast can't be touched by satellite. Also, you don't lose NFL Network - depending upon your TV package. One thing, though, is that the Comcast DVRs are crap. I'd recommend investing in a SiliconDust Prime CableCard network tuner or Tivo DVRs.

Sent from my HTC Droid DNA using Tapatalk 2
Agree with this. If you own your own DVR, you have it if you change cable companies. If you use Comcast's, you lose your games when you change...
 

CHATTBRIT

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Dec 3, 2003
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Falling Water, TN
Earle, I too am surround by high pine trees but my DirectTV disc was mounted on the roof so the LOS was fine -- and no, don't take this as an excuse to climb on your roof again!

I had DirectTV for ten years and switched to Comcast. How I regret that decision and in a few months my contract period will be up with Comcast, and I can go back to DirectTV.

Comcast customer service is a joke and an oxymoron. The other day I was on the phone for 46 minutes for them to figure our why my Xfinity on Demand was not working in the media room. This followed a similar time with another television which I ended up leaving unplugged for an hour or so and then it was back working. This is not customer service. When I finally get a human, the Comcast staff at the end of the phone are so heavily accented I can hardly understand them and they have difficulty with my English accent.

The one thing I really don't like is that when the system is unplugged, the program guide is eliminated and takes nearly 24 hours to get it all back again. Also, selecting a reminder for a program it just comes up on the screen. DirectTV actually changes the channel which I like.

Overall for me DirectTV is certainly worth the isolated instances the programming does down for bad weather.
 

Bama Reb

Suspended
Nov 2, 2005
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On the lake and in the woods, AL
I live so far out in the boonies and in a valley that no cell phones can get within 2 miles of us.
But I do have DirecTV and have zero reception problems. That is until a strong thunderstorm comes in from the southeast, but then the issues are only temporary.
I wish my bill was lower, but then I could cut back on the channels I receive to manage that. In short, you get what you pay for.
Equipment- and program-wise though, I have no complaints.
I don't know anything about the service provided by the local cable companies even thought I have investigated several over the past 15 years. From what I've determined they can't offer me anything of sufficient quality or low enough price to make me want to change.
Until that happens, I'm a happy and loyal DirecTV customer.
 

TIDE-HSV

Senior Administrator
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Oct 13, 1999
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Huntsville, AL,USA
Earle, I too am surround by high pine trees but my DirectTV disc was mounted on the roof so the LOS was fine -- and no, don't take this as an excuse to climb on your roof again!

I had DirectTV for ten years and switched to Comcast. How I regret that decision and in a few months my contract period will be up with Comcast, and I can go back to DirectTV.

Comcast customer service is a joke and an oxymoron. The other day I was on the phone for 46 minutes for them to figure our why my Xfinity on Demand was not working in the media room. This followed a similar time with another television which I ended up leaving unplugged for an hour or so and then it was back working. This is not customer service. When I finally get a human, the Comcast staff at the end of the phone are so heavily accented I can hardly understand them and they have difficulty with my English accent.

The one thing I really don't like is that when the system is unplugged, the program guide is eliminated and takes nearly 24 hours to get it all back again. Also, selecting a reminder for a program it just comes up on the screen. DirectTV actually changes the channel which I like.

Overall for me DirectTV is certainly worth the isolated instances the programming does down for bad weather.
I would need an excuse not to climb on my roof, since the woodstove pipe needs cleaning several times per winter. However, I've done it around two weeks ago, so it should be good for another three weeks. I happened to look at my house on Google Earth a few days ago and I was startled. After the bad ice storm of Xmas 1998, we cut most of the trees surrounding the house (or they just fell, sometimes on the house). Now, you can no longer see the house for the canopy at all, and it's 160' long. Comcast service is so-so around here. OTOH, our next door neighbors have DT, and have lousy reception. It's easy to see why. Their dish is pointed up into several tall trees in their backyard. They say the DT people come out promptly, but they can't do anything about it. However, DT will not let them out of their contract so they can go back to Comcast...
 

JDCrimson

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I have learned with DirectTV lately that if there is a channel that you really want that is not in your current package - you can get it added for an additional monthly fee. My wife has been hammering me about not having the Sprout network for our toddler son. I told in order to get the channel we would have to upgrade to the premium package - which was I wasnt willing to pay an extra $30-$40 per month, whatever it was to do that. My wife wasnt satisfied with that answer at all - our son was going to have the Sprout channel one way or the other. Apparently she called up DirectTV and they added Sprout to our channel line up for an additional $5 per month. Secretly, I am not happy about paying that much for one channel but obviously you pick your battles...
 

Im_on_dsp

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Oct 10, 2007
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Canton, GA
I've been a Comcast customer for over 25 years. Notice I didn't say "happy" customer. My problem is that I work at home a lot, so I need super fast internet and you just can't touch cable speeds with DSL. I can't get the new Verizon fiber service where I live so I'm stuck with Comcast. I've thought about switching to DirecTV a number of times, just for the TV part of my service, but have never pulled the trigger. I'm about to look into that now that the "promotional price" I was paying for my cable package has expired. I really, really hate the whole thing. Why can't they just offer a fair price without all the promotional gimmicks to get you to switch? :eek:
 

TIDE-HSV

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Oct 13, 1999
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Huntsville, AL,USA
I've been a Comcast customer for over 25 years. Notice I didn't say "happy" customer. My problem is that I work at home a lot, so I need super fast internet and you just can't touch cable speeds with DSL. I can't get the new Verizon fiber service where I live so I'm stuck with Comcast. I've thought about switching to DirecTV a number of times, just for the TV part of my service, but have never pulled the trigger. I'm about to look into that now that the "promotional price" I was paying for my cable package has expired. I really, really hate the whole thing. Why can't they just offer a fair price without all the promotional gimmicks to get you to switch? :eek:
That's bad, but what really sets me (and my wife even more) off is "statement creep." Suddenly something that was billed at $5 for years is now $7.50...
 

BayouBama75

All-SEC
Dec 7, 2001
1,012
105
187
Knoxville, TN
I've been a Comcast customer for over 25 years. Notice I didn't say "happy" customer. My problem is that I work at home a lot, so I need super fast internet and you just can't touch cable speeds with DSL. I can't get the new Verizon fiber service where I live so I'm stuck with Comcast. I've thought about switching to DirecTV a number of times, just for the TV part of my service, but have never pulled the trigger. I'm about to look into that now that the "promotional price" I was paying for my cable package has expired. I really, really hate the whole thing. Why can't they just offer a fair price without all the promotional gimmicks to get you to switch? :eek:
I have had DT for 10 years and I have Charter for my Internet That has worked good but I probably pay a few more $$$ than if I bundled on Charter
 
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TrampLineman

Hall of Fame
Jul 21, 2010
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Alabama
I have had DT for 10 years and I have Charter for my Internet That has worked good but I probably pay a few more $$$ than if I bundled on Charter
Perfect combo IMHO, until I moved back up here to Dega this Charter Internet here SUCKS! If they ever get that fixed I'll be in Heaven.
 

JDCrimson

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Feb 12, 2006
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I have been looking into increasing my cell data plan with AT&T and getting a Mifi hotspot. My wife and I are not heavy internet users at home - I have demoed the hotspot during the introductory period and it works pretty well - speed included - 4G speed. Plus I can take it to the beach. Based on my math, I think it would be cheaper for me to do this and go with DirectTV. Based on the pricing I have seen something tells me internet access is fixing to go cellular and start getting cheaper due to increased competition. If AT&T and Verizon are successful in pulling home users over to their wireless service then I think Charter and Comcast will have to reduce rates.
 
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