DirecTV or Dish Network as a new customer

[Joel Weiss]

Joel, I just wanted to pipe in and say that I have had several dealing with RF Mogul and found them very customer oriented, professional and knowledgeable.  They have years of experience with RV antenna and support their product well.  They had a booth at the Perry GA FMCA rally.  I would highly recommend them to anyone looking at a new system or needing service on an old Moto Sat system.

Norm:

I don't doubt that the folks at RF Mogul are great, but I still wouldn't pay >$1000 for a complex product produced by a company that has been in business for ~a year in an industry as volatile as the RV one.  Not when there's a proven product available made and backed by a major company.  JMO

Joel

[Gerald Farris]

Joel,
I appreciate you feelings about not wanting to do business with a company that you perceive as a start-up. RF Mogul is a little over three years old as a company, and even though the owner, managers, and engineers are basically the MotoSAT company who developed the first mobile internet dish for RVs and the first HD dish for an RV, and dominated the open face RV dish market that Winegard was not even in, the RF Mogul company is relatively new.

Buying any durable item runs the a risk for future support. Just because a company is old, that is not a guarantee that they will be there or still manufacture and support the item. Remember Oldsmobile and Pontiac. They were not deemed profitable and were dropped. I buy the best quality product from someone that I trust.

Gerald    

[Joel Weiss]

Gerald:

I think the issue really depends on whether or not one considers the product a commodity that simply gets replaced when it breaks or a capital improvement that one would repair rather than replace.   One participant in the thread was concerned that repair of his Trav'ler was a considerable expense and then we got into a discussion of the relative cost of repair parts for the Winegard and the RF Mogul.  If I don't expect to repair an item the availability of repair parts is of less concern.  

It's been many years since I last worried about repairing electronic devices rather than replacing them.  The rapid evolution of electronic devices of all sorts has been such that the new product will no doubt cost less and provide improved performance compared to the one it is replacing.  Furthermore, most electronic components cannot be repaired in a cost effective manner.  When I owned an electronics online store a few years ago, large screen TVs damaged in shipment were of value only for salvage parts since there was no way to repair and offer them for sale at a competitive price.  In that respect the Trav'ler is no different.

My own Trav'ler is in its fourth year of daily service.  Since we travel a fair amount it is deployed and stowed many times a year.  If it were to fail I seriously doubt if I would spend $800 plus labor to replace just the base of the unit when the entire system can be purchased new from Amazon for $1488.   It will probably cost more in labor to detach the base and replace it than it will to replace the entire assembly.  If I stick with Winegard the control cable is probably still the same which would greatly simplify inside installation.   I might consider the RF Mogul, but unless it was pin-compatible with the Winegard it wouldn't be worth the extra installation effort without even considering whether the company would be there to honor its warranties.

Lastly, it's my understanding that the folks that run RF Mogul closed MotoSat and walked away from it in order to form their new company.  From what I read on various forums, it appeared that customers with MotoSat equipment were somewhat hung out to dry.  I don't see that as a track record that gives me a good feeling about becoming a customer of theirs.  As you noted the amount of time a company is in business is not a guarantee of its lasting power, but how it treats is customers is something that is a function of the people who run it and not the company.  People who walk away from their customers rather than creating a long term plan for servicing them aren't high on my list.

Jowl

[Doug Wray]

A different take on Dish vs Direct...
If you plan to spend time outside the US such as Canada or Mexico I would advise you to look into getting a "Shaw" system from Canada...
Where we winter far south in Mexico all the Canadians use Shaw and get perfect reception both in the US and Mexico...
My Dish system does not work down here even though I can pick up good signals from all three satalites...

[Keith Oliver]

Shaw system:

Here is what I have been told by Shaw, (and a tech in CA):
Available if you have a BC, Alberta or some eastern provinces address for service.
The footprint of the original Shaw satellites, Anik I, Anik II covers all of the lower 48 US, bits of Mexico, most centers of population in Canada,.
The Anik I and II will not be there forever, as the FCC rules have changed since they were launched and Shaw has launched a newer, FCC compliant satellite that doesn't work in the lower 48 or Mexico.  Any new installation will be given access to the newer satellite, not the older ones.  If you have issues with your service and call Shaw for help, they are not allowed to help you if they know you are out of the allowed service area (FCC rules). 

As i now own a site, so don't point my dish at their satellites from a multiplicity of different locations, I have tried the local cable Co this year, Time Warner, and for $10 per month on top of my internet account, I get more TV than enough.  Shaw went up this year to $40 for a basic package.