I am debating whether to buy a dish and see baseball and football games across the country or stick with good ol’ cable and watch local crap. Any opinions from people in (or were in) my situation?
Llardball, why not try the search engine – I think there was some discussion of this not long ago. But I think it was probably in General Questions.
I’ve had both – our experience is that they’re about the same in cost, performance and channel selection.
The dish will occasionally act up during the first few minutes of a heavy rain, and you’ll have to get snow off a dish too.
That help?
Oops – maybe your question was more directed toward sports availability.
Well, that’s why we switched to the dish – for the NFL package.
Well, I didn’t get a satellite dish for the sports, but the truth is, there are plenty of sports channels on the dish. Far more than cable - at least compared to the local cable.
I hated the local cable - they had less channels, and they lied (and strung me along) saying “Oh yeah, we’re getting the SciFi Channel real soon!” But they didn’t. Lying bastards. I also found that the cable’s reception wasn’t always so great. Random outages, snowy, bad picture. Not all the time, but now and then. Enough to be annoying.
With the dish, there are occasional reception problems during heavy rain, but all in all, I don’t think that the disruption of a picture was any more than with cable. In fact, I think it is less. I also like the wider variety of networks and stations, including other cities’ “Superstations”. I don’t much care for the local news, so I don’t miss it on the dish. (Though some cities do have a local station option.)
Here in Alaska, satellite dishes are a must. The cable service area is limited to the city center; you can still be in the city limits and not get cable.
And I’m talking big dishes too, not those puny DirecTV pizza pans. Because of the latitude, DSS dishes have to be pointed so low, once a day the sun aligns with the satellite and, phhhhttt!!, no reception.
TT
“It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.”
–James Thurber
With dish you can’t get local stations, right? I heard you have to switch to an antenna evertime you want to watch the local stations. Who wants 200 channels? 40 channels on cable is enough for me.
We made the switch from cable to sat a few months ago. Aside from not being able to get the local channels…(that I never really watch anyway), the dish is much better. They will be getting the local stations on the sat feed soon, it just takes a while to do each area. I love the selection, the on-screen tv guide, and the option of getting the west coast feeds. Nothing more irritating than just missing that great movie, now I just wait an hour and it’s on again. Also, the cable company here (in a heavy bible area) didn’t carry any adult programing at all, and the quickest way to get me to leave your service is to tell me that I can’t have that station. I’ve had no problems with reception, and I know they seem to have about 20 damn sports channels, and they are all grouped together, for easy surfing. Only thing I miss is the stereo sound…you have to buy a different reciever to be able to process that…(shrug)…no big deal…we’ll upgrade in a few months. Also, I have no local tax, no francise(sp?) fee, none of that BS. Just the straight bill…which is $10 less than I was paying for cable…for more selections
I went with a dish mainly because our local cable company is the pits. Every time it rains the cable would go out. I’ve had a dish for 2 years now. It went out one time for about 10 minutes because we were having one of the worst rainstorms you could imagine. I think it’s great and I wouldn’t go back to cable.
I’ve learned that if someone says something unkind about me, I must live so that no one will believe it.
I like dishes. I used to sell them. No Profit.!
You have a more choices with the dish.The cable company probably tries to provide the most popular channels -the ones that most people want. But I ain’t like most people.
On the downside you have to be prepared to pay,unless you’re technically inclined,for maintenance.
I’ve had one since my oldest was in kindergarden. He helped me put it together. he is now a sophmore in college.
Another downside is no local programing.you have to get and maintain a uhf and or vhf antenna. Maintenance again.
I want a dish for the sports packages. Like Major League Ticket or something. I want to see my Cardinals no matter where they are in the nation. Are the sports packages good?
The real question is: Which is a cooler idea?
Cable: It’s a freakin’ cable, a piece of wire. Fascinating.
Satellite: Beams of information are sent into space, into satellites, and then right down into your dish, where they are decoded and assembled into a picture. How cool is that? Your Seinfeld reruns have been in space. Sure, the cable people have satellites too, but pffft. Don’t spoil my fun.
A hush fell over the courtroom, killing six.
Hello everyone. I dont post much on the board, however, I do read quite frequently. I just want to say that I work for a ‘satellite television’ company, and I can answer many of your questions (according to our company info). The two biggest dish marketers right now are DirectTV and DishNetwork. When it comes to sports packages and football, currently DirectTV has the contract/rights for this. It is my understanding that DishNetwork and DirectTV are constantly in a “bidding war” for this. Also, when it comes to sports packages, they are wonderful. HOWEVER…you need to be careful when selecting a sports package, due to ‘blackout’ areas. A blackout occurs when the networks or the teams to not show the event in certain zip codes. One of the reasons for this is to boost ticket sells.
Someone mentioned worries regarding loss of signal when it rains. I do know that if you get a high enough signal strength, when it rains, a customer should not have much interference (sp?) with reception.
Local stations…now this, quite frankly, is a pain in the ass! This is controlled by the networks in your area. At this time, all of my info is at work. I dont know the exact numbers by hand, but I can be brief about it. According to the networks, if you can receive a picture w/an antenna (based on their grade b definitions-how far you live from the broadcast tower), then you should not “qualify” for the network programming, since you are supposidly able to receive a signal. Many customers can not receive a signal, and are not even able to get cable due to living in the “boonies”. I have seen some of these customers having to fight to receive local broadcasting. To me, this is the biggest downside to satellite tv, over cable. This is probably the largest complaint I hear from customers…inability to receive local network broadcasting. Justwannano…you stated in the past you sold satellite tv equipment, etc. You were stating you must have the UHF or VHF antanna’s to receive locals. My question is, how long ago was it did you sell satellite tv equipment???
If anyone has any more questions, or more clarity on satellite tv services, I will do my best to answer.