DirecTV

[Sylvus]

Anyone have DirecTV? My parents have an old dish and receiver that they cancelled a year or two back, and they said I could have it. We're trying to set one up strictly for tailgating, so think portable.

My question is: If someone has an active subscription, tied to a card (that's how i know it used to work anyway), and I have a dish/receiver with no card, can I put their card into my receiver and have it work? I'd like to avoid paying subscription fees to use something 8 saturdays this year, but I will if I must.

[Taison Earbiter]

Someone correct me on this if I'm wrong...but I'm pretty sure the card is "married" to the receiver and you would have to call DirecTV to allow it to work in another receiver. When you call them to set it up it would no longer work with original receiver you took the card from. There may be some hack to get around this that someone can help you with, but as far as I know it won't work. =\

[Sylvus]

Someone correct me on this if I'm wrong...but I'm pretty sure the card is "married" to the receiver and you would have to call DirecTV to allow it to work in another receiver. When you call them to set it up it would no longer work with original receiver you took the card from. There may be some hack to get around this that someone can help you with, but as far as I know it won't work. =\

Yeah, that's what someone else told me a little while ago. Oh well!

Anyone have any experience with portable dishes, or tripods for a dish? I'll probably be looking into getting one of those as well.

[masteen]

Just use that liquid metal in a tube to weld it to the roof of your Ford Exploder. It's not like it will affect the resale value

[Demags]

I used to work for dish network and set up a number of tripod setups for people's rv's. Tripods are all right but the easiest and most solid setup is a 3-5 gallon bucket (like the ones they sell at the entrance to home depot or a pickle bucket) with a post cemented in. Just make sure the post is vertical and high enough above the rim so the dish doesn't hit it. Once you have the declination set right all you have to do is rotate it till you get a solid signal. Just make sure its a relatively level surface and you should be good.

DirecTV is easier to get working since it only catches one satellite, with DISH you have to set another angle so it will catch two, that makes it a little harder to get a signal in an impromptu situation.

I know DISH receivers have the card married to the box, but I was always under the impression that DirecTV wasn't, since some people I know have had bootleg setups.

[Winnow]

DirecTV is easier to get working since it only catches one satellite, with DISH you have to set another angle so it will catch two, that makes it a little harder to get a signal in an impromptu situation.

I guess it's been awhile since you've been in the biz. The new DirecTV mpeg4 receivers require a dish with 5 LNB's targeting three different locations in the sky. Not as easy as they used to be to line up. If you knew which satellite the Sunday Ticket football gameswere on, you would only need to target that location which wouldn't be too bad.



The old dishes are still usable though and I'm sure the NFL Ticket Channels are on the older satellites so everyone can access them.

DirecTV cards have always married the receiver. The old F cards and H cards were very hackable and from the early 90's up until January 21, 2001 (Black Sunday) when the party stopped and everyone's hacks no longer worked as the stream completely changed to the newer unhackable cards, hacking DirecTV cards was good times.

Before that date, you could reprogram old DTV access cards so that they wouldn't marry a receiver or use an mk-11 to emulate a card so you wouldn't have to use an access card at leaving nothing to zap. The safest hacks were actually getting a sub and then hacking your own sub to open up all the channels. Your own card wouldn't get zapped as it was a legit sub.

Anyways, only a legit access card married to that particular receiver is going to work. I haven't searched around recently to see if anyone's hacked the new cards.

[Demags]

I forgot about all the HD stuff thats been going on there, it was about 5 years ago that I did that work and things have changed a lot since then. I was basing the card stuff on people I know that have hacked directv boxes so I was under the impression that the cards were swappable.

Hehe I feel for the installers now, not only do they have to do ridiculous hours but trying to get all those sats lined up perfectly has just got to suck, especially on the north side of the country where the declination is so low to the horizon.

[Boogahz]

I have been debating on getting DirecTV myself, but I cannot seem to get past the 2-year commitment. Their pricing really is not all that competitive with my cable provider either.

[Zamtuk]

Same here. There is just nothing that DirecTV has that I don't already have. Well, maybe that goddamned BigTen network that just put a monopoly on some UM and OSU games, which is fucking bullshit.

[Boogahz]

yeah, GolTV is the only thing they have which I cannot get through my cable carrier.

[Winnow]

I was a big fan of DirecTV for a decade but they've taken so fucking long to get their mpeg4 satellites up and running and getting HDTV going that it's turned me off from them. They survive due to the NFL Ticket. The amount of subs they'd lose if the NFL wised up and opened bidding contracts to Dish and Cable Networks would crush DTV.

If you ignore NFL Ticket, I'd have to go with cable as well. This year, every Suns game will be broadcast in high definition but I'll only get that on cable.

[Fairweather Pure]

All my friends have those cards that let them watch every single channel from their dishes. They have 6 bajillion channels, including all the sports packages, porn, and PPV movies and events.

Once in ahwile they get scrambled, but they're up and running again in a couple of hours.

[Winnow]

All my friends have those cards that let them watch every single channel from their dishes. They have 6 bajillion channels, including all the sports packages, porn, and PPV movies and events.

Once in awhile they get scrambled, but they're up and running again in a couple of hours.

Sweet. Which service? DTV, DISH, Cable Cards? I had a blast hacking them in the 90's. I have a couple spare DTV cards DirecTV sent me during the card swap upgrade that I never activated and also a fresh card from a receiver I used an old hacked card on that I can play with. It's been a long time since I've seen the nudy channels.

[Fairweather Pure]

They all have Dish. I would do it too, but I'm to lazy and I think the little dishes look ugly.