Dish/Directv Alternative

[rames14]

For those who full time/ longtime, I have a question. Now that Direct is buying Dish, I imagine the ability to change location for local channels will also go away. YouTube only allows service address change twice a year. This trip alone we will change service address 8-10 times. How do you get local channels while traveling without OTA?

[jsb5717]

I’m also interested in this thread. We have Hulu TV which has the same limitations.

[Mikendebbie]

Ron - I also am wondering what changes will come with the Direct/Dish merger (??). I am a Dish customer currently. I just bought Starlink and was thinking about going with SlingTV to get the channels we like to watch and cut some cost by dropping Dish. I was planning to use the antenna to pick up locals when possible. Did you remove your antenna? I wish I had an old-school batwing crank up antenna on our rig instead of the Rayzar.

I have not tried it yet - but I looked at the website for the four main Austin stations and they all have a “watch live” button…see screen shot below. I don’t know if that means “watch live” whatever is currently on…or if you can only stream the newscasts. I’m guessing it will be newscasts only.

Edit: Sling did not have prohibitions against travel…don’t know if they will keep that rule. They offer one local TV station, which for me is the local Fox station, which happens to be the station we watch most of the time…so Sling was looking like it would meet our needs. I’m going to wait a bit until the dust settles before I dump Dish.

[DutchmenSport]

We had Dish TV and Direct TV many years ago (not at the same time). When their prices began jacking up, and up, and up, we finally canceled the first one, then 2 years later, the second one and went back to over-the-air television. If there was no stations available where we were located, we reverted back to video movies (CD's) or just really, really reverted to reading actual paper copy book! Now, that's a phenomena to do today,.... right!

One day, we stumbled into internet television on our Roku television at home. It had a bazillion stations, new stuff we'd never seen before.

At home we have a stable internet service, but not on the road. Fast forward again, and, ... well ... there's the cell phone "hot spot".... which morphed into using Visible and we've been using it ever since. For what we pay for Visible and the two paid channels: Prime and Discovery, it's still far, far, far cheaper than either Direct or Dish were when we first signed on.

As I'm typing this right now, we are in Louisiana and currently using Visible, a dedicated phone for a hot spot that is never turned off, a mini router for wireless wifi and have all our stuff running on it right now.... including this computer I'm typing from.

My advise .... drop Dish and Direct, switch to Visible. You can get everything off the internet that you can get on Direct or Dish... and a whole lot more.

[rames14]

Dutch, today is a prime example. We camp MANY places with no cell service. Coverage of the hurricane, local news and weather, football games and coverage of the expanding Middle East war would be unavailable. Our son is Senior trainer for TB Bucs and we like to watch for him on game days. As I say many times, we all camp different. Quartzsite, Seminoe Reservoir, Cooke City, Montana and Pictured Rocks in Michigan are some of the places we’ve been this year without cell service (plus our house on the mountain). I am looking for a streaming alternative with local channels anywhere. And, yes, even us illiterates from Iowa know how to read (and cipher). I even managed to read enough to get my Extra Class License this year. I happen to enjoy watching local news and weather in the morning and at night. I don’t know if a VPN allows you to at least watch home locals while on the road.

[mlh]

The places I like to camp there is no internet no radio no cell service and you can forget television. At home we could get a cable but at the cost of $3000 to have it installed so I think I’ll keep my dish. We use Verizon for our internet service and phone.
Lynwood

[Mikendebbie]

Ron - go to IRV2 and search youtubeTV and Hulu. There are lots of threads with folks sharing work-arounds…most of them involved techie-talk that seemed too difficult for my non-techie brain to understand and implement, and I would not dare try to explain here.

[MrTee]

Star link, and firestick, best and cheapest option. You get internet, wifi calling, and bonus tv. I live in remote northern Canada and it the best all around option.

[brenkco]

Ron,
Not sure if this will help you. I too had Dish for years. When they dropped our local MLB team, I was forced to find an alternative. We used Visible for a while with limited success.

We went to an RV park this spring with zero cell service, so we tried starlink. It's been significantly better and easier to setup and use. It's much more expensive however.

In both cases, we have been streaming with YouTubeTV. When traveling, you can watch your locals as long as you record them and watch them after they're complete. You cannot watch them live. For us that works as we rarely watch live TV.

We did purchase NFL ticket so we can watch games regardless where we're camped.

[Foldbak]

Originally Posted by rames14

For those who full time/ longtime, I have a question. Now that Direct is buying Dish, I imagine the ability to change location for local channels will also go away. YouTube only allows service address change twice a year. This trip alone we will change service address 8-10 times. How do you get local channels while traveling without OTA?

Why would you make this assumption? The company knows the need for mobile RV and boat satellite usage. Whenever I setup, I don't change my location and receive my home zip code programming. As long as I have wifi, I can stream anything, and as long as I can pick up OTA channels, I have all I need.

[Bourbon County]

It would be interesting to know how much of the RV market Dish has versus Direct. Just from my casual observations in parks, I believe Dish outnumbers Direct by a good 10 to 1 margin, don't know if that's a regional thing or nationwide. I also hope they don't drop this service after the merger.

I was curious about the recent Starlink announcement of the $50/month plan for RVers. It only offers 50 gigs for that price, and the unlimited more than triples in price. Does anyone know if you reach your 50 gig limit if they cut you completely cut you off, or just throttle the speeds down? If you work from the road, or have to stream all of your entertainment, that 50 would be gone pretty quickly.

Any of the Firesticks, Rokus, etc require an internet connection WiFi or wired, the only way to get it now is either a cell or satellite source.

[brycesteiner]

If you go over the 50 gig limit, it's a $1 per gig after that.

[dhuhn]

Originally Posted by Bourbon County

It would be interesting to know how much of the RV market Dish has versus Direct. Just from my casual observations in parks, I believe Dish outnumbers Direct by a good 10 to 1 margin, don't know if that's a regional thing or nationwide. I also hope they don't drop this service after the merger.

I was curious about the recent Starlink announcement of the $50/month plan for RVers. It only offers 50 gigs for that price, and the unlimited more than triples in price. Does anyone know if you reach your 50 gig limit if they cut you completely cut you off, or just throttle the speeds down? If you work from the road, or have to stream all of your entertainment, that 50 would be gone pretty quickly.

Any of the Firesticks, Rokus, etc require an internet connection WiFi or wired, the only way to get it now is either a cell or satellite source.

I believe once you reach 50gigs they charge you per gig after that not sure how much.

[Foldbak]

Originally Posted by Bourbon County

It would be interesting to know how much of the RV market Dish has versus Direct. Just from my casual observations in parks, I believe Dish outnumbers Direct by a good 10 to 1 margin, don't know if that's a regional thing or nationwide. I also hope they don't drop this service after the merger.

I was curious about the recent Starlink announcement of the $50/month plan for RVers. It only offers 50 gigs for that price, and the unlimited more than triples in price. Does anyone know if you reach your 50 gig limit if they cut you completely cut you off, or just throttle the speeds down? If you work from the road, or have to stream all of your entertainment, that 50 would be gone pretty quickly.

Any of the Firesticks, Rokus, etc require an internet connection WiFi or wired, the only way to get it now is either a cell or satellite source.

With Dish I go through 50 gigs of streaming in about 14 days if I'm careful. Always monitoring data usage. Starlink is looking like a good alternative. At least I can always get internet, whereas with cell data it's only as good as the cell coverage.

[Mikendebbie]

Tony - how do you monitor data usage for Dish? Is there something in settings? I would like to know our usage.

[Bourbon County]

Originally Posted by Mikendebbie

Tony - how do you monitor data usage for Dish? Is there something in settings? I would like to know our usage.

Great question! I was curious about that too. Does Starlink give you both a speedometer and odometer?

[rames14]

Tony, the reason I am assuming they will do away with changing locals is DirecTV used to allow you to change. We’ve been doing this for over twenty years now. We had Dish at first and changed to Direct because we had a manual aim roof dish and they had all of there channels on a single satellite. Then, about 10 years later, Direct stopped allowing customers to change location after ATT bought them. Either way, we are also going to be reducing costs. At $170 for Dish, $165 for StarLink, $70 for home phone and slow internet on the mountain (15 mbps) and all the streaming services I would like to have an option for local channels anywhere we are to catch local news over a cup of coffee. Based on the responses, my guess is no one does it yet via streaming. Mike, I suspect they are using a VPN to mask location. I will check that out. I primarily stick to the MOC, but have searched the others before.

[brycesteiner]

Originally Posted by Bourbon County

Great question! I was curious about that too. Does Starlink give you both a speedometer and odometer?

Yes. Their app shows daily and monthly use, and a speedcheck is built in.

[DutchmenSport]

There's no perfect plan for everyone. There are plusses and minuses for every option. I don't have Star Link, but from what I understand, it works great for those who camp remotely and in isolation. But.... again ... there is a trade off.... the price!

With a cell phone hot-spot type, there are a lot more options and a lot cheaper rates, but the trade off, cell service is not everywhere.

You have to decide what is most important to you. If you truly need service in isolated locations, then you have to pay the price.

It's just like the fine challenge with driving and especially when towing our camper: Cost vs Time. The faster you go, the less fuel mileage per gallon you get. So there is the trade off: Is the time saved by driving faster and getting less fuel mileage worth it? Or is it more important for the better fuel mileage per gallon but the drive may take longer.

What's most important you to? StarLink no doubt has the technology you are looking for but will cost you, and change is always a hard choice for all of us. .... I totally understand!

[Foldbak]

Originally Posted by Mikendebbie

Tony - how do you monitor data usage for Dish? Is there something in settings? I would like to know our usage.

I use T-Mobile. Their app shows how much data you're using for each line.