couple questions about directv

[JamesJ]

My parents currently have Dish network, they have 3 recievers in ohio, and 1 reciever in west virginia. Dish Network recently Put Ohio Locals on a spotbeam, where the reciever in west virgina (1 hour over the border in a town called creston west virginia) can no longer pick up their locals from ohio. This is a big deal to them and they want to switch to Directv, my question is does directv operate the same way (meaning spot beam so that they cant get their locals from ohio in west virgina, any help would be apperciated!

 

[charper1]

Yes, LIL are on spot beams. "Technically" it is illegal to provide local affiliates outside of their DMA unless they happen to be part of the DNS (the big 4 for NYC and LA) for unserved viewers or significantly viewed of a neighboring area; but this is just now rolling out slowly and most likely doesn't fit into your situation anyway. Sorry to be the bearer of the bad news.

DMA is old school crap, anti-competition, and anti-viewer; "Thank you NAB & FCC"

 

[JamesJ]

does anyone have a spotbeam map of which spot beam ohio locals would be on? also I know its illegal, but its also west virginia (we get NO Locals whatsoever from antenna, and also dont want to pay another 45 a month just for 3 months (hunting season) at the most usage, we pay for the channels, stupid congress!

 

[charper1]

As there is no specific 110% factual data on sizes; the spot beams range in size depending on the city served. As a best guess, 125- 150 mile radius from the center of said city can be a start. What specific Ohio locals are you looking for and what is your distance from that city's center? I assume you are about that far 150m (I based Cincy to Huntington, WV) and you can't manually change or select spot beams or transponders on your receiver; this is a auto-mapped process and based on the listed service zip code given to the DBS company. The zip code DB they must all use is provided by one or more: FCC, NAB, Nielsen. Also, of the 1 or 2 maps that are out there, they are very outdated and exaggeratedly inaccurate in the details.

If these are still accurate:

Columbus 20 & 12 on 101w

Cincinnati 12 on 101w

Cleveland 4 on 101w

Dayton on 119w

 

[JamesJ]

we recieve the cleveland market locals now, so it looks like if they went the directv route they might squeeze by and get lucky and still be able to recieve them!

 

[charper1]

what is the zip code they will be using? just type in in here:

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/see/LocalChannels.jsp?init=true