Dale.Traveling
Newport News, VA
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The satellites the service providers use are capable of producing a spot beam that will transmit the local channels for a given major metro area. Usually it's about a 100 miles circle around the metro area. Move outside of the spot and the locals drop off. You can call your service provider and give them your new location if you want but unless you are going to plant yourself for a couple of weeks it's not worth the effort.
When I travel I'll use the sat dish for the subscriber channels (History, AMC, Encore,,,)and crank up the batwing for locals. Go HERE for an example of a spot beam coverage map.
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zman-az
Northern AZ
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Effy wrote:As an example, we lost fox a few weeks ago when travelling from MD to GA. I am not sure if it's considered a local channel but Fox is a national network (wife was wanting to watch Idol) .
Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS are considered local. As mentioned you can only receive those stations within a certain radius of your zone. When traveling long distance you will need to let DTV know (by phone not thru the receiver) your new zip code. They will then set you up with the local Fox station. You will now get the local news in the area you are in rather than your hometown news station (that is what makes it local). I do believe you now have to have the correct zip code in the receiver, in the past with older receivers you did not as it was for dish pointing reference only. I don't know if the change occurs with the broadcast, in the receiver or both. I ran into this problem when we installed a new HD receiver a few years ago at my home.
As far as you getting your receiver to work in the past, you may have just been on the edge of your local coverage zone and you did something to reset the dish to get better reception. I live in AZ and have had hit and miss local stations when in CO and UT.
Years ago I had a friend that lived outside of all local zones. He was able to get on FOX using a national brodcast. They had one for the east coast, midwest and west coast. He lived in WA state and had FOX east coast. He loved it as he was able to watch all the programs like Idol before the west coast people did. This was about 10 years ago so don't know if things have changed or not. I told my dad about it 5 years ago and he asked DTV to set him up with this when he traveled but they would not do it.
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supermod38
Central NY
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Effy wrote:As an example, we lost fox a few weeks ago when travelling from MD to GA. I am not sure if it's considered a local channel but Fox is a national network (wife was wanting to watch Idol) . Perhaps it changes the channel you get in a different area? I do know I had the same issue last year traveling as close as VA and simply changed the zip to the area I was in and I started getting my channels again. Although, as I said before I may have done something else, I didn't document what I was doing. Shame on me. I think it's painfully clear I really have no idea how this system works/tracks/updates while travelling.
Fox is also a LOCAL ch, that's why you lost it!
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CA Traveler
The Western States
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On all of my receivers the only purpose for entering the zip code in the receiver was to display the sat direction for a manual dish setup. I almost never did this - instead point the dish SE (because I was on the west coast) and use the sat finder to located the bird. Non of this applies to the OPs question.
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Effy
MD
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OP here. So if I am understanding correctly, The best case I can hope for is that my dish will auto locate the correct Sat (which it does) but that I can't get my home local (as I am not in that spot) but rather the local pursuant to the location I am actually in. That said, if I want Fox - for example- I would have to find some other carrier's version of Fox? Here's the rub - Idol for example - I did a search for the show - as DTV downloads the guide first. Found the show, but I did not receive the channel where it was broadcast despite the guide tlling me otherwise. My assumption - and I could be wrong, is that my reciever is configured for my home location - for lack of a better word - zip. And it seems to me that regardless if I let it search forever, the receiver is still set to my home location. So, how do I reset it to each new location? That is really the root question. I thought by updating the zip in the receiver it seemed to work, but it may have been a coincidence and I was not far out of my home location. But so far nothing really stands out in posts to say ; Here's how you handle this....
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CA Traveler
The Western States
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Effy wrote:OP here. So if I am understanding correctly, The best case I can hope for is that my dish will auto locate the correct Sat (which it does) but that I can't get my home local (as I am not in that spot) but rather the local pursuant to the location I am actually in. That said, if I want Fox - for example- I would have to find some other carrier's version of Fox? Here's the rub - Idol for example - I did a search for the show - as DTV downloads the guide first. Found the show, but I did not receive the channel where it was broadcast despite the guide tlling me otherwise. My assumption - and I could be wrong, is that my reciever is configured for my home location - for lack of a better word - zip. And it seems to me that regardless if I let it search forever, the receiver is still set to my home location. So, how do I reset it to each new location? That is really the root question. I thought by updating the zip in the receiver it seemed to work, but it may have been a coincidence and I was not far out of my home location. But so far nothing really stands out in posts to say ; Here's how you handle this.... You call DTV and give them a new address for the RV. Your receiver will download it's updated information from the sat.
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CA Traveler
The Western States
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OP, Your receiver will only display the channels that you have paid for through your DTV account. This might include PPV or NFL football package for example. For someone in a spot beam that includes those locals like FOX etc.
Leave the spot beam and you no longer get FOX etc. This was done by the FCC to protect rural TV stations. If you are in a rural area with no spot beam you would then use the OTA stations to receive the local stations. Someone that lives in a rural area out of a spot beam would be programmed to receive the 4 major networks from NY or LA.
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wallynm
Los Alamos NM
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If you full time you can get Direct to give you a east or west coast feed which will give you the national local networks. We use a range extender and try to pick up local channels locally. If not the we live with out the local networks.
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zman-az
Northern AZ
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CA Traveler wrote:Effy wrote:OP here. So if I am understanding correctly, The best case I can hope for is that my dish will auto locate the correct Sat (which it does) but that I can't get my home local (as I am not in that spot) but rather the local pursuant to the location I am actually in. That said, if I want Fox - for example- I would have to find some other carrier's version of Fox? Here's the rub - Idol for example - I did a search for the show - as DTV downloads the guide first. Found the show, but I did not receive the channel where it was broadcast despite the guide tlling me otherwise. My assumption - and I could be wrong, is that my reciever is configured for my home location - for lack of a better word - zip. And it seems to me that regardless if I let it search forever, the receiver is still set to my home location. So, how do I reset it to each new location? That is really the root question. I thought by updating the zip in the receiver it seemed to work, but it may have been a coincidence and I was not far out of my home location. But so far nothing really stands out in posts to say ; Here's how you handle this.... You call DTV and give them a new address for the RV. Your receiver will download it's updated information from the sat.
Bingo, and when you get back home you need to call again to have it changed back.
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dougrainer
Carrolton, Texas
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As I mentioned, the ZIP has NOTHING to do with HOME or in your RV. ALL it does is let you know the Elevation and Azimuth for the ZIP you are located in. For setting up a tripod or roof top dish. The GUIDE will download but because you are mobile, you may NOT get the stations the Guide in that location is giving you. Doug
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