RCA Dish

[Tivoman44]

I have an RCA dish on my house. It appears that the house is wired for it and the only thing missing are activated DVR boxes for it.  Does anyone know if this was Dish or Direct TV?

I have been thinking of getting Direct TV to go with my Tivo/antenna set up.  I was looking at Direct TV's Choice Package and keeping my TWC Road Runner.  Does anyone have Direct TV and is happy/unhappy?  Are there any hidden costs or start up fees?  Based on the price after the rebate and signing up for autopay, it seems to be cheaper than when I had TWC with my cable cards and tuning adaptor.

[PONIES]

What is the diameter of this dish? Pictures would be helpful.

The biggest problem you will face with DirecTV is the HD channel selection: it's bad.

Here's a sample of interesting 'basic' HD channels they're missing (of course, Time Warner doesn't have a lot of them in this market, either. I'll put a TWC in parenthesis next to the ones TWC carries)

-BBC America HD (TWC)
-C-SPAN 1-3 HD
-Cooking Channel HD (TWC)
-Disney Junior
-DIY HD (TWC)
-FearNet HD
-Fox Movie Channel HD
-Funimation Channel HD
-Fuse HD (TWC)
-G4 HD (TWC)
-Game Show Network HD (TWC)
-H2 HD (TWC)
-The Hub HD (TWC)
-IFC HD (TWC)
-Investigation Discovery HD (TWC)
-NASA HD
-National Geographic Wild HD (TWC)
-NHK World HD
-OWN HD (TWC)
-Ovation HD
-Sprout HD
-Style HD (TWC)
-Sundance Channel HD
-TV Guide HD
-TV Land HD
-Wealth TV HD

If it is a Ku band sized dish there is a lot of material you can pick up free-to-air without the need to subscribe to DirecTV/Dish.

[Nels Harvey]

I have an RCA dish on my house. It appears that the house is wired for it and the only thing missing are activated DVR boxes for it.  Does anyone know if this was Dish or Direct TV?

I have been thinking of getting Direct TV to go with my Tivo/antenna set up.  I was looking at Direct TV's Choice Package and keeping my TWC Road Runner.  Does anyone have Direct TV and is happy/unhappy?  Are there any hidden costs or start up fees?  Based on the price after the rebate and signing up for autopay, it seems to be cheaper than when I had TWC with my cable cards and tuning adaptor.

Without knowing more about the dish you have, it's hard to guess it's purpose.  While it may be an abandoned Dish, or DirecTv antenna, like Ponies said, it may have been used for a free to air satellite service.  A suitable digital receiver was probably used to pick up specialty programming, IE foreign language, religious, or even PBS!

If you decide to go to a satellite service, they will come out, and install the dish for you.  It probably will be able to receive more than one satellite, especially if you want local channels, or HD.

With that said, I have been happy with Dish Network for some time now.  Their receivers and DVR's allow your own antenna connection, and list the programs in their guide if you also receive the local channels from them.  In the event of a rare satellite loss of signal due to heavy weather, simply switch up to your own antenna feed and continue watching, if you were on a local channel.

I have two Dish DVR's, Roadrunner for Internet, and Vonage for the telephone.  I am very happy with my arrangement.  When I read about TW problems on this forum, I wonder how I would fare with cable TV.

[Tivoman44]

Thank you for the information.  I have attached a picture.  That was the best I could do without going up on a ladder.  As you can probably see it says RCA very faded on it.  

I haven't really looked into DISH.  While I think TWC has great internet, if I get pay TV I don't want to fight with them about the cable cards and having to reset the tuning adaptor.  I am leaning toward Direct TV because for new customers, no extra charge for NFL Sunday Ticket.  The prices do seem very competitive.  Even with Direct TV Choice Package it seems cheaper than paying $2.00 for the cable card with Tivo.

Per a previous post of mine I was going to crazily try and get Chicago OTA for the Bears Market as well, but I think having a Dish is just an easier option.  

Regarding local channels, does that cost extra?  I see no reason for Dish/Direct TV to provide them for me because I would have my antenna as a back up to begin with.

[Tivoman44]

Also forgot to ask this potentially stupid question, if you are having an issue such as not receiving a signal and its a nice sunny day outside, is there a number to call to have a technician to come over and check it out?

[Nels Harvey]

Thank you for the information.

Regarding local channels, does that cost extra?  I see no reason for Dish/Direct TV to provide them for me because I would have my antenna as a back up to begin with.

Well,  Since I have a great local signal, I thought it would be cheaper to drop the local channels because they cost $5.99 per month.  Guess what?  I no longer received the local channels on the guide, and therefore the programs that I wanted to record from local TV weren't found!  With the local channel option turned on, I get program information if the Dish carries the local, but it just says digital service for any of the channels not carried by them.  You can view and record those, but it can be confusing.  I think it's the same with DirecTv.

I used to be in business as a part time DirecTv provider, and was fired because I didn't sell enough dishes.:blush:  Maybe that's why I have Dish.

[PONIES]

Well, I can't support this. I really would not recommend paying for satellite television.

DirecTV and Dish Network are abominations. They are not representative of what satellite television should be.

If people would stop subscribing to these companies we could have a massive free-to-air satellite network like they have in Europe.

Here's a list of the 596 free channels on Euro small dish satellite.

[Tivoman44]

Well that becomes a different topic regarding what satellite TV should and should not be.  Ponies, you are certainly entitled to your opinion.  I glanced at that link you sent and that seems cool.  I am just trying to see the alternatives to having cable, and either Dish companies are peeking my interest.  You could make the same argument regarding cable, why pay for TV where you have the content providers (the stations) that the cable company (middle man) sends to you through there equipment.  I think that cable (dish, Uverse, Etc) should be al la carte where you can choose what you want and not pay for everything else.    

Bottom line I'm just trying to figure out how it works because it seems cheaper than Cable TV (and from what I know Direct TV/Dish seem better than Uverse).  

As for you Nels Harvey, I completely understand your perspective.  I can't stand how sales execs evaluate that kind of thing.  I almost got let go once from a company because I did not produce enough sales leads.  

Thank you for the information.

[mrschimpf]

That's definitely a DirecTV dish; RCA was the big provider of equipment and hardware when they were marketed in big boxes with 'buy your own equipment' before DirecTV decided to go more to an in-house lease model and Thomson (RCA's owner) pulled back on their marketing for RCA in the US (Dish has always been in-house branded with equipment).

The problem is though that the dish, if I'm thinking of the age, would likely be ten-eight years old, so it would likely only be able to receive DTV's SD lineup, and only what they provide on the position that dish is pointing to. At minimum you may be able to keep that dish, but you may need a new LNB unit (the element leading into the cable) to get all of DTV's channels. At worse, you would need all new equipment, including the dish. As I have no experience with dishes beyond using them in homes I don't live in, I can't say any way or the other what you should do outside of what the equipment looks like.