Direct TV or Dish Network

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steve poole

Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2011
Messages
13
Location
USA
Vessel Name
Meandering Joy
Vessel Make
Fleming 55
We have a KVH tv antenna (tv4) on our boat with a Direct tv receiver. It works fine but we have Dish Network at home and have been with them for years. I'm struggling learning a whole new system, new channels and paying two bills. Someone told me that the Dish system does not work well on boats. We do our boating on the East coast and plan to go to the Bahamas in February.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Steve
 
Dish works great, you just need a satellite system that will work with one of their receivers. I unfortunately ended up with both, Direct on the boat and DISH at home, long story. DISH has far superior customer service. I have been on boats with DISH and it seems to work fine through most of the upper islands, though Direct is a little better. I have not seen DISH service in the Exumas, so can't advise how it works down there. I have the smallest KVH antenna.

KVH has some coverage maps and you can consult them about your particular unit, coverage depends on the size of the antenna.
 
Not answer the topic but.......I have a Follow Me dish system sitting in my garage that I will give up cheap if someone wants it. Would have to be someone local in Maryland.
Dave
 
I would like to have the follow me system but am in Buffalo NY
 

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They are designed to work at anchor or at the dock. Yes they work with any dish, Direct or DISH. I ordered one, but believe it or not couldn't find a place to mount it that I liked, mostly due to functionality (impairing other activities by the dish) and part aesthetics. I really wish I had come up with a solution, the price is right and they are very nice, helpful people to do business with. They refunded my money promptly and graciously. I know some folks who say it works ok on smooth waters at low speeds, say 6-7 knots, which makes sense as it works great at anchor.

Marine Satellite TV Tracking
 
caltexflanc said:
They are designed to work at anchor or at the dock. Yes they work with any dish, Direct or DISH. I ordered one, but believe it or not couldn't find a place to mount it that I liked, mostly due to functionality (impairing other activities by the dish) and part aesthetics. I really wish I had come up with a solution, the price is right and they are very nice, helpful people to do business with. They refunded my money promptly and graciously. I know some folks who say it works ok on smooth waters at low speeds, say 6-7 knots, which makes sense as it works great at anchor.

Marine Satellite TV Tracking
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Well i think you ran into what i would run into. I guess maybe it could be mounted on the mast out of sight most of the time and out of the way? But you know, I've had tv's on other boats and never ever used them except for a little while when first installed. There is always so many other things to do. Maybe for a live aboard?..

If your avatar is your boat i can see why you had an issue. Beautiful vessel by the way
 
Steve, It would appear that your original question some how was lost. We have had both DirecTV and Dish, we sort of switch every two years to get a good deal. Both work just fine but some KVH systems need to be able to switch between satellites for Dish. You will need to speak to the techs at KVH and give them the specs on your equipment to be sure yours will do that or if you will need an accessory. They are very helpful. Chuck
 
I have direct tv It works fine except you lose all the local stations when out of the area
 
That is true. We started down the East coast from Annapolis Maryland in December and could not get the Atlanta local stations until we were near Charleston. We are in Jacksonville now and the Atlanta stations work fine but I am told they will go out around Daytona.
Does Dish Network have the same problem?
 
Except for the New York Feeds, the locals are available under a spotlight footprint only. Once you are out from under the footprint, they are lost. All satellite systems in the U.S. operate this way. Chuck
 
There was a time maybe still that Direct had standard programming on the Ka band and Hi Def on Ku. Dish has all programing on Ku. I am not familliar with a TV4. I have a M3dx and there is also a M3 something marketed for Direct. If you go with Dish, when you are doing your setup ask for an RV tech and tell them you are traveling in a boat. You then can get your local channels anywhere even out of the footprint. You just call them and tell them where you are.
 
Vyndance said:
There was a time maybe still that Direct had standard programming on the Ka band and Hi Def on Ku. Dish has all programing on Ku. I am not familliar with a TV4. I have a M3dx and there is also a M3 something marketed for Direct. If you go with Dish, when you are doing your setup ask for an RV tech and tell them you are traveling in a boat. You then can get your local channels anywhere even out of the footprint. You just call them and tell them where you are.
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Unfortunately that will not work. When you tell them it's for an RV you must provide the registration for the RV and they know the difference between a boat and RV. Boats are not offered the same choices. Your locals will depend on your address that you give them for service. The only way to change locals on a boat is to give them a new service address every time you move and they quickly catch on to that. Besides it's a pain. You can get New York locals anywhere but you will have to provide a New York address. We have been using satellite on the boat for over twelve years. Chuck
 
Direct still offers the ability to have New York or LA as your "national locals" even on a boat. Direct switched sattellites for the NC locals I had and my particular KVH antenna cannot access them. so they offered New York. Haven't got around to it.
 
caltexflanc said:
Direct still offers the ability to have New York or LA as your "national locals" even on a boat. Direct switched sattellites for the NC locals I had and my particular KVH antenna cannot access them. so they offered New York. Haven't got around to it.
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I suppose it might depend on who you talk to at DirecTV since we spoke with them just this past week and I was told they do not offer this service to boaters. They will claim that based on an FCC regulation, which is a fact, that they can not offer it to boaters but have an exclusion based on the FCC regulation for RVs. Chuck
 
caltexflanc said:
Direct switched sattellites for the NC locals I had and my particular KVH antenna cannot access them. so they offered New York. Haven't got around to it.
Click to expand...

I do want to clarify my last post. Per your statement that you were unable to get the locals for your service area because of an issue with the equipment and satellite, under those conditions based on the FCC regulations, DirecTV can offer you the New York feeds. But if their equipment is operating properly, they will not offer this option. If it's because of your equipment alone, they will send a service tech to troubleshoot at your expense. If you are in a service address that has no locals, you can also receive the NEW York or LA feeds. If you just ask for them and you have a service address in an area where they are available and you are on a boat and not an RV you are probably not going to get it. But once again this has little to do with the original posters question. Chuck
 
Steve, using the KVH in the Bahamas you will find that as you move south you will begin to loose stations. Should you go south of about Georgetown, everything will drop out. The satellites are over the Gulf of Mexico somewhere near Mexico and as you get closer to the edge of their footprint the signal drops off. Once you get "behind" them you need the Centarl American or Caribbean service. To get either DirecTV or Dish in those conditions you would need a 4 foot dish. Chuck
 
Capn Chuck said:
I do want to clarify my last post. Per your statement that you were unable to get the locals for your service area because of an issue with the equipment and satellite, under those conditions based on the FCC regulations, DirecTV can offer you the New York feeds. But if their equipment is operating properly, they will not offer this option. If it's because of your equipment alone, they will send a service tech to troubleshoot at your expense. If you are in a service address that has no locals, you can also receive the NEW York or LA feeds. If you just ask for them and you have a service address in an area where they are available and you are on a boat and not an RV you are probably not going to get it. But once again this has little to do with the original posters question. Chuck
Click to expand...

Thanks for better articulating what I was trying to say.

I do think it is relevant because if he has no locals due to where he cruises, using the right address for that, they do offer the option. This has become more common as they made the switch to HD in many markets, and non-HD receivers/systems can't get the locals. I am not sure which KVH 4 he has, but as i recall that series was not HD. I know that doesn't sound logical, since that is not true on land (though older Direct customers had to change software and in many cases equipment) but it is the nature of the KVH/Direct beast.

The coverage as you get south in the Bahamas depends on the size antenna you have, there is not a general rule:

United States Coverage: DIRECTV

United States Coverage: DISH Network
 
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Capn Chuck said:
Unfortunately that will not work. When you tell them it's for an RV you must provide the registration for the RV and they know the difference between a boat and RV. Boats are not offered the same choices. Your locals will depend on your address that you give them for service. The only way to change locals on a boat is to give them a new service address every time you move and they quickly catch on to that. Besides it's a pain. You can get New York locals anywhere but you will have to provide a New York address. We have been using satellite on the boat for over twelve years. Chuck
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Have Dish in the RV and the boat. 10 years. Never been asked for registration. The locals are out of Los Angeles.
 
I've never understood the big deal about local channels. Just switch over to a regular TV antenna. Rabbit ears or a marine omnidirectional.
 
Keith said:
I've never understood the big deal about local channels. Just switch over to a regular TV antenna. Rabbit ears or a marine omnidirectional.
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That is what I do I do miss some channels but I survrve:thumb:
 
caltexflanc said:
That's great if you are in the reception range of something.
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who needs tv anyway. Yoy know there is a whole world outside the windows all filled with wonderful things. A couple of weeks ago i noticed thousands of tiny fish glowing swimming next to me at the dock all in unison to the movement of my hat. Strange, they were only maybe an inch long and seemed to like my Tilley. I took it off and they all swam away all in perfect time with each other. Mush better than TV
 
caltexflanc said:
That's great if you are in the reception range of something.
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So what "local" channel would you want, if you were not in range of any? You'd have to be pretty remote.
 
We have Direct TV on the tug with a dome (forget which brand) feeding it. Direct tv said we would have reception up to 200 miles offshore. On the way to a ship rescue 550 NM off Cape Hatteras we started losing channels at 240 miles off shore. At 290 miles we lost all reception. Since we are based in NY, we get the local Channel package (don't want to miss the local wpix honeys with my morning coffee!) it follows us where ever we get reception. When we approach Canada, it is like Direct Tv throws a switch- NO perimeter reception at all.
 
Keith said:
So what "local" channel would you want, if you were not in range of any? You'd have to be pretty remote.
Click to expand...

Sometimes people want to keep up up with what's happening back home, like when a storm is going through or there is some special event. Frankly, I haven't made any effort to capture any locals since they went dead on our set up. You don't have to be very remote by the way to have difficulty picking up over the air channels in a lot of places with a good indoor antenna.

But we like being "the remoter the better". That's the point of boating for us. We don't watch very much TV when cruising unless there is some special show on or something significant is going on in the world. Maybe two hours a day except Sunday nights when my wife needs her HBO fix. That's why I got a unit designed to be used only at anchor or dock, though ours works fine on smooth water at trawler speed.
 
caltexflanc said:
Sometimes people want to keep up up with what's happening back home, like when a storm is going through or there is some special event. Frankly, I haven't made any effort to capture any locals since they went dead on our set up. You don't have to be very remote by the way to have difficulty picking up over the air channels in a lot of places with a good indoor antenna.

But we like being "the remoter the better". That's the point of boating for us. We don't watch very much TV when cruising unless there is some special show on or something significant is going on in the world. Maybe two hours a day except Sunday nights when my wife needs her HBO fix. That's why I got a unit designed to be used only at anchor or dock, though ours works fine on smooth water at trawler speed.
Click to expand...

:thumb:..yes, thats what boating is all about.

I guess with the new electronics available you can overlay weather and radar on your chart plotter so I wonder if you can enter coordinants to dispaly weather for any place you wish. Does anybody do that or knows if that would be possible vwith these new systems?
 
some people live on their boats 24/7/365... tv is a resource of info whether news, weather, national crisis, etc...etc...

so while I'm all about nature, astronomy, sunsets, etc...etc ... 99 percent of the time...it's nice to know what others are doing to fill that 1% gap...:socool:
 
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