I am from the Denver area and now have Dish. I have read the threads on distant networks and waivers from NPS for RVs to get distant networks. My question is: does this apply to all networks? If I want to keep the Denver stations as my local stations, as I travel around the US, do I need to do anything? Right now I still get those stations no matter where I have travelled in the US. I am thinking of moving over to Direct because I heard it was easier/quicker to get the satellite programing (I have had some problems with Dish) but do not want to lose Denver as my local stations. I have talked to both Dish and Direct and they both say you get only local broadcasts from the area you are located and if I travel over 150 miles from Denver I will not recieve the Denver local stations--this has not been true so far --I recieved Denver stations just last month in Ohio. Any thoughts on Direct vs Dish would also be appreciated.

You need to check and see if Denver is spot beamed or has full CONUS coverage, if it is spot beamed once you are out of the beam (a couple hundred miles maximum) you'll get no signal.

Even if they aren't spot beamed now (it sounds like they may not be) they can be switched during a readjustment of the satellite system so you could have them disappear on you at any time. This is a common thing since it makes no sense to broadcast Denver to the whole country when that expensive channel could be used for something that would bring in more money.

Bottom line on any sat service, if you are happy with what you have don't change anything. No telling what you will end up with if you try to switch stuff around other than your billing address.

Stan touched on something that I'd like to expand on further: changing your billing address.

If you want to continue receiving the Denver stations, be sure you change *only* your billing address...leave your service address the same, even if you're no longer living there. If you change your service address to Livington, for example, you're liable to loose your Denver stations.

Thanks for the replies. Stanley, I understand your comment but if I still receive service from the west to the east coast maybe it has more to do with the smart card and how it is programmed than it is with the spot or nation wide service. Also I appreciate the advice about not switching my service area. I do not want to lose the local stations and local sport teams (Broncos/CSU/Nuggets/and even the Rockies). But... my question concerns getting the DNS wavier from NPS, do I need it and what does it do for me? Thanks again for your replies, I am new to this. Since retiring, we travel about 6 months out of the year (several trips a year) for the last three years and are about ready to sell the house and go full time so I will be asking advice from all of you who have made the leap and those who know have already researched the subjects or have learned from the school of hard knocks. Take care and be safe out there.

Legally you are not authorized to get more than two distant network cities so getting Denver, NY and LA is probably an error on someone's part.

Or are you saying you get your Denver signal from the east to west coast... Not getting the east and west signals?

The spot service is a cast in stone kind of thing, if you move out of the spot beam's area there is no signal to receive. A lot like driving along listening to the radio, sooner or later your signal starts to get noisy and then fades out.

The NPS waiver gives you the ability to select a distant network (or two) to receive from the ones that are broadcast nationwide. There are strict requirements that must be met before the waiver will be granted based either on your install location or on having an RV or a commercial truck. Without the wavier you are not allowed to receive a signal from outside your DMA as that would be a violation of the copyright agreements that the signals are broadcast under.

If you are getting Denver wherever you go now and don't want to pay extra for an additional feed I'd do nothing but update your billing address when you switch mailing addresses.

Bottom line on any service for fulltimers is if it is working don't mess with it!

Hi!!

I just have a quick comment here.....BTWay (my DH is Firedad...... and....you are soooooo lucky to keep your Denver Channels..when I first subscribed to Dish I paid xtra for three Denver networks, and when they had all that hoohaa I lost them except for CW and I still pay 1.50 for that. News is not bad but sure miss 9 News. I still have RockyMtn Sports and another sports channel, but don't get all Broncos games and I try to keep up with 9news on the computer. If I were you, I'd keep quiet about still gettin them away....they'll snatch em......right quick! Have a good day. Go Broncos!!!!!! (I was reared in Denver)

Stan was right in a way.

Basically you are not authorized DNS (distance Network services) if you have access to the major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, & Fox) by other means (cable, OTA<over the air>, or spot satellite).

You get DNS is you are not is a position to receive the other methods, or, if you are in an RV or Over-the-Road truck, where by the nature of your traveling, you cannot consistently make use of cable, OTA or spot satellite.

DishTV got in trouble by not insuring the rules for DNS were followed.

If you can get some of the major networks, you are allowed DNS access of only those networks you don't have.

That is a bit more complete, it is an ever more complicated subject as things keep getting shifted around and court cases finally settle.

Is there a good link to a complete explanation out there? The one I had to dish is now dead.

The whole DNS subject was beat to death on http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-network-forum/

Thanks to all. I think I will continue the way I am now and if I lose the denver channels than I will figure out my next steps. Mark and Dale, sorry I posted this on the wrong forum -- I have read all the threads on the satellite forum also. Again thanks for the information and yes I am a Bronco fan and want to watch them as the go for the Surper Bowl this year!

Hay guys.. Give me a legup..
I live in the DFW area and get the local channels for Dallas area with Directv.

From reading posts in the forums and talking to Directv it was my understanding that if I leave my Sticks and Bricks out of the Dallas area I can not pickup my local channels. I know this part to be true because when I went to Ky for LOW I could not get the local channels.

When I go full time I can fax in the DNS (distance Network services) form. If I am on the east or west coast I can still get the ABC, CBS, NBC, & Fox channels but I can not get the Dallas beamed or any beamed signal. If I don't send in the DNS form I can not get any of the ABC, CBS, NBC, & Fox no matter where I am located.

What say you?

quote:

If I am on the east or west coast

Don't confuse your location with the signals you get, that messes up a lot of folks!

Some local signals are beamed to a small area, spot beams, these allow the satellite company to reuse the same frequencies over and over like radio stations.

Some other local signals, usually called east and west feeds (plus some others that vary from time to time) are beamed to the entire US, usually called conus beam. This isn't very efficient as they eat up their frequency for everywhere and frequency space is EXPENSIVE and not to be wasted. Most of the other stuff is on conus beams because everyone gets the same copies of HBO and Showtime and there is no need to send out 50 different copies.

The reasons for the locals being sent out on a conus beam are partly historical, that is all there used to be and everyone was on the same one, as time goes on the number of conus beamed locals has kept going down. The other is because customers outside DMAs (or Rvers and truckers) are eligible to get up to two of the DNS stations. With some other confusing rules based on what ground based TV you can supposedly get complicating things.

So in general where ever you are in the US you can get any station sent out on a conus beam (like the east and west feeds) and if you are in a spot beam the signals on that beam. That is complicated by the rules that only let them authorize the receiver to decode certain ones.

And yes the DNS form is what is needed to get them to unlock the channels on your receiver.

The whole DNS availability is driven by advertising. The local networks re-broadcasters pay the networks based upon the available receivers in their area. If everyone, say in Dallas, chose to watch New York channels, the Dallas advertising would not be seen and the advertisers would stop paying.

So in a perfect world, the networks would prefer everyone to use local access. But this is not a perfect world. There are places local broadcast, including cable, is not possible. And some of those areas do not cover enough people to justify a spot beam satellite. And then there are mobile people like RVers and truckers.

For those who local coverage doesn't work, the networks allow Distant Networks Services (DNS). The keyword is allow. If they could, they would not allow DNS but they need to.

To facilitate DNS, the East Coast Time Zone programming and the Pacific Time Zone are the only zones for DNS. DirecTV uses New York for the East and Los Angeles for the West.

DishTV used the same cities until it got into legal trouble for allowing DNS to unqualified people. The networks made DishTV stop broadcasting DNS. Another company, AllAmericanDirect, leased the transceiver space from DishTV and offers DNS, billed separately for about the same as DishTV used to charge, and the channels are received in the same place in the programming guide as DishTV used to have them. Virtually the same except AllAmericanDirect uses Atlanta for the East and San Francisco for the West.

So your choices for DNS are, yes or no. The vendor, DirecTV or AllAmericanDirect via DishTV, will determine where the network feeds comes from.

If you want your local channels, then you need to be within the spot satellite feed area and by the very statement that you want the local channels, you disqualify yourself for DNS.

If you are a sports nut and want to follow your team, then one of the Premium packages should give you every game. But then, whether you want Baseball or Football will determine which vendor you need to use. I am not a sports nut so I can't tell which is which.

I called and talked to a Rep with DirecTV and was told that once I send in the DNS form I can pickup the East and West broadcasts. If I am in a Metro area like Dallas, Atlanta, LA or where ever for a length of time, I can call in and tell them my service area is Atlanta or what ever and I can get the local channels. When I go to another metro area call in again and they will set the service area for me.

Now they said not to change the mailing address just the service address. Has anyone tried this.

That was how DishTV intended to work when they first lost DNS transmission rights.

If you travel from metro area to metro area only, then go with local spot beams and change the service address like DirecTV said.

If you stay outside metro areas from time to time, and start to switch from local spot beams to DNS, then you can, or will for sure, start to incur change of service fees.

If you have both, you will be doubling up on the fees for national channels. And, DirecTV could be facing the same lawsuit that got DishTV in trouble.

We prefer using DNS as we get two shots at network programming, East and West, and we can record shows that normally conflict using the time shift. We can record up to four shows in the same logical time slot.

If we cared to watch local news, we would use the batwing antenna, but we don't.