DirecTV honked me off royally today

[Capmaster]

My wife has been bugging me for weeks to get local channels on our DSS, so last weekend I bought a 3-satellite 4-output dish on the advice of this table at the DirecTV website:



By my reckoning, from the table, to get local channels, one only needs to get a multi-satellite dish, and it can be used with any receiver, any model. Right?

So I bought an official DirecTV dish made by Funai and sold through Best Buy.

Today I spent several hours removing the old Sony single-LNB dish and installing and aligning the new one. I leveled the mount, dressed down the cables, and got my wife to relay the on-screen strength via cell phones. I perched up on that ladder for a good 2 hours jacking that damned dish all over hell's half acre, trying to get a good signal. I'd get one satellite good, with a 90+ reading, but then the other satellites didn't show any signal.

Finally I gave up and called DirecTV and explained it. I had gotten in over my head. They then told me that I couldn't get local channels without a special multi-satellite receiver.

I started telling her about how the web site gives all the information I needed, or so I thought. She replied that if I had just called them I wouldn't have made the mistake.

Ummm ....HELLO! Isn't that why web sites are so useful - to provide the information so you don't have to sit on hold on the phone, like I did today while eating my lunch.

She said I'd have to upgrade to a multi-satellite receiver to get the local channels, and now that I have informed her that I have already installed the dish, she's marking me as ineligible for the deep discount I would have qualified for to upgrade the receiver too. It only applies to the whole package.

Whatever happened to trying for customer satisfaction? I'm already sending them $95/month for the premium package.

Right now I want to firebomb DirecTV and take a piss on the ashes Lying whores

[CoasterCreator]

Temper ..temper there are always ways around things ....for one there is a snap on antenna to get them channels ...any how you will have pm

[CoasterCreator]

actually let me post more here so everyone has a chance to hear...anyhow I used a 2 lnb antenna but paid for a power splitter so I can have signal in four rooms but I only have 2 recivers

I did have cough cough channels ...exuse me the local channels ...actually that is the only channels my wife ( along with that home designing channel ) would watch ...so dont stress out there is a solution ....se you should of come to your support staff your some input

[Capmaster]

Why oh why did I take their word for it? I should have posted here first. :P

[lordsmurf]

A lot of this depends on the spot beam.
I agree, the dish antenna is easier.

But the satellite-fed locals will be a cleaner signal.

I had an oval dish, just fine, for years. No special receivers at all, and I had a 4-way splitter running on the LNB feed from the dual.

[northcat_8]

your satelite locals with direct will be east and west coast. Your ABC will come out of LA and Boston. Same with the rest of them.

As far as DirectTV, I understand your frustration, I shut down my DirectTV and had Dishnetwork installed. I like it much better but I do miss the east/west coast network channels. I don't care much about the news here in Ohio anyway. I mean if you've heard one farmer's cows got out, you've heard them all

I say **** directTV, and if you lose your signal, like during a storm or if a drop of sweat off of bumble bee's forehead falls over top of the dish, and you subtract that money from their bill they get all pissed off.

[Madz]

We have DNW. I installed a separate outdoor antenna for the locals. Friend of mine sold me a Terk "stick" antenna, cheap, since he no longer needed it. It's a 2-foot-long rod mounted horizonally on a mast and pointed N-NE towards Boston (as most or all of the channels are there). Just needed a pair of diplexers from the RackShack, to bring the off-air and dish signals down on one cable.

[Dr. DOS]

Temper ..temper there are always ways around things ....for one there is a snap on antenna to get them channels ...any how you will have pm

Call back and ask for the Manager.... Managers tend to be more flexible and have authority to make these things happen.

[Capmaster]

As for the local channels, I had already installed a huge traditional broadcast antenna. You know, one of those 8-foot wide ones bristling with horizontal elements in a "V" pattern. Had it in the attic because I didn't want the thing on the roof. It's an eyesore, and since we don't have a chimney, it would have required a mast and guy-wires. Not gonna happen It'd also make a good lightning rod and we're second only to Florida here in lightning fatalities. We get some rapid, violent lightning

The reception sucked, even though our local stations all have transmitters on top of Sandia crest - 20 miles away, 10,768 feet high, and 5,000 higher than the city. I've tried in-line amplifiers, better coaxial cable, countless realiignments. That's why my wife wanted the local channels on satellite. We both are huge fans of American Dreams and that comes in on the local NBC affiliate, KOB channel 4. It has the worst signal of any other local channel :P

If I had used one of those clip-on antennas, being on the opposite side of the house from the direction of the transmitters, I might not get any signal at all

[lordsmurf]

guy-wires.

Guidewires

[ViRaL1]

I think he really meant guy-wires.

[offline]

I think he really meant guy-wires.

Hmm.. sexy beast!

[Capmaster]

guy-wires.

Guidewires

guy

\Guy\, n. [Sp. guia guide, a guy or small rope used on board of ships to keep weighty things in their places; of Teutonic origin, and the same word as E. guide. See Guide, and cf. Gye.] A rope, chain, or rod attached to anything to steady it; as: a rope to steady or guide an object which is being hoisted or lowered; a rope which holds in place the end of a boom, spar, or yard in a ship; a chain or wire rope connecting a suspension bridge with the land on either side to prevent lateral swaying; a rod or rope attached to the top of a structure, as of a derrick, and extending obliquely to the ground, where it is fastened.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.



And:
http://www.aubuchonhardware.com/product_page.asp?prod=502496&CP=Suggested+Items+in+Shopping+Cart

[offline]

A rope, chain or rod ???

I guess it keeps those things of Teutonic origin
in place while he has his way with them

[Capmaster]

A rope, chain or rod ???

I guess it keeps those things of Teutonic origin
in place while he has his way with them

Dangerous during an electrical storm

[ViRaL1]

Cheaper than Viagra though.

[lordsmurf]

guy-wires.

Guidewires

guy

\Guy\, n. [Sp. guia guide, a guy or small rope used on board of ships to keep weighty things in their places; of Teutonic origin, and the same word as E. guide. See Guide, and cf. Gye.] A rope, chain, or rod attached to anything to steady it; as: a rope to steady or guide an object which is being hoisted or lowered; a rope which holds in place the end of a boom, spar, or yard in a ship; a chain or wire rope connecting a suspension bridge with the land on either side to prevent lateral swaying; a rod or rope attached to the top of a structure, as of a derrick, and extending obliquely to the ground, where it is fastened.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.



And:
http://www.aubuchonhardware.com/product_page.asp?prod=502496&CP=Suggested+Items+in+Shopping+Cart

Hmmm... learned something.

[Capmaster]

I've heard the term "guy wire" all my life. It's just what I have always called those wires, usually three of them, that attach close to the top of a mast, and they are anchored on the roof or the ground.

I would think "guide wire" could be used too, since it guides the mast into the proper location

[offline]

Apart from the name, Margaret Thatcher, there
is a sexual connotation or double entendre for
everything.

[Faustus]

Man that story makes me like my Dishnetwork even more. Screw crawling up on the roof.

[Capmaster]

Apart from the name, Margaret Thatcher, there
is a sexual connotation or double entendre for
everything.

"Rosie O'Donnell" is another

[hudsonf]

It is called guy wire not guide wire. I just look it up in a Radio Shack Catalog