[Chester Stone]

In the what's it's worth category, I got a letter from Directv stating the rule as of June 24th was that if you have a mobile service, NY & LA, you cannot have a house receiver in addition without paying full price. I now move mine between house and coach. I sent my house receiver back to Directv because I do not want to risk losing my mobile service or risk a back charge.

[Fulltiming]

DirecTV has always tried to play by the FCC rules. Dish didn't and got the right to provide mobile service taken away from them. That is why you have to go through another company to get mobile network stations on Dish Network.

It can be a pain sometimes but the rules were set up by the FCC based on complaints from the local network stations that they were losing advertising dollars when folks claimed mobile waivers when they weren't just to get NY and LA stations. DirecTV has never allowed local networks and the Distant Network Service on the same account. Those that travel extensively and watch the network channels have to have a mobile account because the local networks are all spot beamed and as soon as you drive out of your beam, you lose you local network channels until you return to your home area. The size of the spot beam varies substantially. If another major TV market area is fairly close, the beam area will be smaller. If the population served is small, the beam area can cover all or part of a number of states. Unfortunately, the number of rules and there interpretation can make life more complicated for those of us with RV's.

[HoosierDaddy]

Thank you Michael...I was wondering why that is so complicated!!

[encantotom]

we do not have the mobile package with direct tv. but, we got local channels starting in st george utah and from there down. so the beam seems to have a range of about 400 miles. much wider than i expected.

tom

[Fulltiming]

Not sure how accurate these are but here is a link to a map that shows the spot beams for DirecTV http://www.scottandmichelle.net/scott/dtv.html

These are constantly being modified as satellite transponders are reassigned but this gives and idea of the areas covered.

[encantotom]

wow, they are alot bigger beams than i expected

tom

[Fulltiming]

They are pretty large but you still don't have to travel too far to be out of luck for local networks. Usually just a few hours drive and no locals.

[encantotom]

we got locals 400 miles away

tom

[Chester Stone]

I have a mobile account, but my billing address is in Tucson. My priority is always NY and LA, and I only pick up the Tucson stations when I am in the area. I expect someday to loose the Tucson stations, but care very little since I use NY the most. I like the early broadcast times so that I can record them and watch at my leisure and skip all of the ads. Tom, you may want to get a mobile account and forget about Phoenix, especially if you will be traveling extensively in the future while retired.