Best deal for Satellite TV: Dish vs. Direct?

[astrungis]

We will be staying in a conveniently located campground in NJ without CATV. It is too far to get an over-air signal. Rather than renting DVDs for 6 weeks, I'm thinking of getting a SATV package from Dish or Direct for 2 TVs. I see Dish has a "pay as you go" that has me curious. The package will be: $500+ for the equipment (2 boxes and 1 antenna) and $40+ for the basic service per month. Direct is less "direct" about what they offer. We do about 3-4 months a year on the road. Anyone have an idea or suggestion for me?

[Annem]

We have the Dish pay as you go and it works good for us, we are out for the summer and turned it back on after a year with no problems.

[dieselguy]

After the promotions ... you're going to get it in the shorts with either Dish or Direct TV ... I get sooooooooo put off with their little rate increases in about 6 month intervals. I could have misunderstood, but the "pay as you go" deal with Dish assumes you have a constant subscription at you stick house and the "pay as you go" part applies to your fiver. You can't just have "pay as you go" for your fiver. There are $60 powered over the air antennas out there that aren't too bulky and will pull in a signal better than 90 miles ... my mother in a rural community east of KCMO has one and it works as advertised.

[1retired06]

We have had both and now use Directv. For purposes of travel, I have found Directv easier to align and set up once on a site.

[DTIEDEMAN]

Have had Direct TV for over 15 years, best service and always great customer service. We just pull the boxes from the house when we travel all is great. We never watch network chanesl no need to have location changes.

[Bigsky3625RE]

We have the Dish pay as you go. And you don't have to have it in your house as we don't.

They do charge you $5.00 to put it on pause.

For the most part it has worked fine. But there always seems to be an issue with the bill....

[Allen in MT]

Have had dish for years. 2 box at home, When headed out we just take a box and extra dish & tripod to set up with us. When we get back home just plug it back in and your set.

[mlh]

I have had the Wineguard Carryout and the Dish Tailgater. The Carryout was a royal pain. The Tailgater is very simple. Cut it on choose your state hit scan watch TV in a few minutes. The Carryout should work that way but I could never get mine to. I have Dish and have never had Direct.
Lynwood

[ctwebb]

We have the Dish Carryout. It works great for us. We take a high definition receiver from our home when we go camping at no additional cost.

[Simpson9508]

We had Direct in stick house for 15 years and loved it. When we wanted to put a portable dish in the tt I found that none of the portable antennas would receive HD for Direct. We decided to switch the house to Dish and got a tailgaiter for the trailer. You can get Dish HD using the tailgaiter. We purchased a receiver for the trailer and can turn the service on and off whenever we choose. I have seen no difference in reception or service between Direct and Dish.

[timandsusan]

We have had Dish for about 6 years. No problems and you can turn it off. We do not have Dish at the stick house. Check out DishformyRV.com for info. I am currently upgrading both TV's to HD. But as a retired antenna engineer, I find the issue with alignment of the antenna a BLAST! How much FUN can you have when you are retired!

[dieselguy]

Soooooooooooo for those of you who have Dish "Pay as You Go" ... how do you get past the guy taking your order who insists on you getting a receiver in your house before he will even talk about the "Pay as You Go" for your RV? I've made 3 separate calls with 3 separate people over a few weeks ... none would set up a receiver in my fiver "Pay as You Go" with out a current subscription for a receiver in my house. Are you just taking the receiver in and out of your house and doing the "Pay as You Go" with that one? If that's the case ... I'm hot on that angle.

[davidaf]

I didn't have dish until I setup the pay as you go for the 5er. I bought a receiver from Camping World, found the phone number and just called. Maybe they fired the one guy that knew what he was doing.

[jcurtis934]

Dish with the new Winegard carryout anser hybrid antenna is the way to go for hd as it is an auto with a bigger actual antenna in the case than the tailgater, regular carryout antenna. Just my opinion. John

[bigskyjimmy]

The Dish tailgater"pay as you go" is as about as simple as it gets ,I went to Camping World bought the tailgater and receiver for about 450 bucks called Dish to activate it and was watching TV in about 20 min ,my bill is $54.00 a month for 120 channels ,the only problem I had was some places I was having a hard time getting a signal and the Dish tech line told me to try swapping out the cheap 50 ft cable that comes with it and get a shorter quality 25ft RG6 cable Problem solved! one other thing I don't like is out of those 120 stations half of them are Info-mercial crap channels OR you cannot always receive all 120 channeels but other than that I am glad I got it and it is also easy to get local channels when you go out of state just give them a call to change your receiver address and 20min later you are watching local channels

[Fire5er]

We have Dish with the Tailgater antenna. Works great...now the the Tailgater is working.

[Virginia Young]

Go to dishformyrv.com. It's a totally different monster than the sticks and bricks thing. You absolutely do not have to have dish in your house to get it. You can get the system at Camping World or you can order it from the aforementioned website.

[dieselguy]

Thanks for the info ... I'll take that route. I've been with Direct TV since 98, called customer retention thru the years to get a reasonable monthly bill with success ... till now. For whatever reason, they've dug in their heels and obviously don't want to keep a 16 year customer. I'm not hollering and such during the conversation ... I just remind them I'm a 16 year customer about to decide to part ways ... Direct TV is just sorry to hear that, but all they can give is about $5 a month discount ... geeezzzeee!
PS ... sorry to hijack this thread.