I'm brand new here but couldn't help myself on this one!! When my wife and I first learned of the situation, we were sure we'd lose our distant networks because, after all, we lived in Atlanta, so we decided to go ahead and make a choice on which we would like to keep. Since I'm also a Jets fan (in addition to the Bengals), I wanted to keep the New York City locals but my wife, being the huge Guiding Light and Bold and Beautiful fan, wanted to keep the networks out of the Los Angeles area. She's an educator so, by the time she gets to the house, those networks are just starting to roll out the soaps. Anyways, we just signed up for paperless billing and gave them a service address in the Los Angeles area to my wife's aunt. It really doesn't seem as though DISH really questioned what we were doing and the process was as simple as giving them the new service address.
Now, I think everybody else is right (unfortunately) on "tons of other channels". The only networks we get are the Big 4 (CBS, ABC, FOX, and NBC) as well as KTLA. Everything else, as everybody has said, is on spot beam. I did have a pretty reliable friend that works with me indicate that he received some of the other networks from the Los Angeles area at various times of the day but the timing seemed to be sporadic and limited to a few hours. I've not researched the subject enough to indicate anything certain but would assume that, with the channels being on spot beam, you would only get a few hours of programming at best from anything other than the Big 4 and KTLA. All I can say is what I know about spot beam -- it usually sends feeds to a limited geographical area (I do remember a few things from college). With that being said, don't expect anything other than those few networks I've mentioned on a consistant basis.
I personally haven't looked for anything other than the Big 4. I KNOW KTLA is there because I once subscribed to the Superstations package and am aware of where to look for it. My advice: If you want the networks out of Los Angeles, it's a great idea. If you are looking for all those other networks out of the area, I think you may be out of luck (unless someone else knows of a network or two outside of those five). The odd part is this: The only local network we ever subscribed to out of the Atlanta area was FOX 5 which, oddly enough remains there to this day. I'm not sure if it's now considered a "distant" network which will be removed on December 1, or if it's going to stick around!! Regardless, the only reason I had that network was because of weather related issues -- which will soon be covered by the local options on the Weather Channel Interactive.
Here's my question: My brother, who lives one town over, is a huge Tennessee Titans fan so he changed his service address to the Knoxville area (in order to see some of the Titans games). Somehow, he still has access (as I do to my FOX) to all Atlanta networks. How did he swing this?? Are all of these going to disappear (the Atlanta networks) on December 1 as distants, or is it possible to have two seperate addresses on file with DISH?
