Expressvu/Star Choice

[Don Barber]

Hi
I know this has been discussed before, but I want to let anyone coming down from the north that Expressvu will not allow you to get all transponders from about the Northern Virginia border and further south. It is a real pain. As a test this year we brought both systems down and began using Star Choice from Virginia on down and it works great. We phoned home, put Expressvu on holiday mode and will cancel it in the spring when we return. Although Expressvu has more HD channels we find the overall quality of Sat TV to be good enough that we don't miss HD TV. SC also has a little receiver that fits great into our moho. Hope this helps
Don Barber

[Don Barber]

Hi
I know this has been discussed before, but I want to let anyone coming down from the north that Expressvu will not allow you to get all transponders from about the Northern Virginia border and further south. It is a real pain. As a test this year we brought both systems down and began using Star Choice from Virginia on down and it works great. We phoned home, put Expressvu on holiday mode and will cancel it in the spring when we return. Although Expressvu has more HD channels we find the overall quality of Sat TV to be good enough that we don't miss HD TV. SC also has a little receiver that fits great into our moho. Hope this helps
Don Barber

[Suncruiser Ron]

Don, is this something new this year? We used ExpressVu in Florida last winter with no problems.

[Don Barber]

Ron, happened to us last year as well, that's the reason we took Star Choice with us. On Xpress we lost about half of the transponders- the half with what we watched the most. Also if we had a problem as we did last year when we phoned Bell ( to get a price break seeing we couldn't get half the channels) it soon became obvious that we should'nt have our Bell system in our motohome, let alone across the border. Came close to losing the use of it last year All in all happy with SC. Will have 4 Bell receivers for sale when we get back. PS one other note xpress-vu is much easier to get the signal, but after a few times it does get better with Star Choice
Don B

[Roulotte]

Does anyone have an "Dome-type" Satellite dish on their RV and receiving Star Choice signals, including HD?

Comments?

[Groveite]

Can't say anything about Star Choice however this winter I got all my locals (I only have the minimum service for the news really) until getting down to Mission in the RGV. Then I lost Hamilton local and a couple of others but kept London which worked out fine. Only an educated guess but I think a larger dish might solve that problem. Here are a couple of links that may be of use to find footprints for the sats....I did have a nice map that showed all the footprints but can't find it right now. I recall that it showed the Bell to be fringe south of Dallas.
http://www.kusat.com/go.php?path=/install/look.php

http://www.lyngsat.com/america.html

Ian

[Groveite]

Here is a link to a very handy map list showing the footprints of many sats....
http://www.kusat.com/go.php?path=/install/foot.php

Ian

[Matt Cassels]

StarChoice won't work with any dome type dish.
The only automatic roof mount system that does is this one http://www.explorersc2000.com/en_about.html<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Roulotte:
Does anyone have an "Dome-type" Satellite dish on their RV and receiving Star Choice signals, including HD?

Comments? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

[The Shadow]

We found about 7 of the transponders could not get signals just south of Tampa (got them all in Southern Georgia however) and several people in our park moved to StarChoice. In the middle of the winter season all transponders started working again - kind of strange. Then they disappeared after a couple of weeks - then returned for the rest of the winter season.

Hard to know what is happening.

[Skip298]

I have Bell in operation at home....and I have a star choice and direct tv in the garage..(inoperative)...If I renew my star choice subscription I will be able to set it up when I do get to the RGV??( are they picky about crossing borders and using the system) or would I be better to get the direct system going again? ( I suppose I would need a proper US address to do this) ?? thanks

[Groveite]

I used the Bell this winter in the RGV...no real problems until down around Brownsville where I lost some locals. Hamilton (CH) as i recall but still got London. It was great being able to get the CDn slant on the Olympics and some Cdn newsand I keep just the minimum pkg for that reason.
I did dwnld the set-up specs, before we left, for several places in the south (Carlsbad, San Antonio,McAllen Galveston etc....much easier than guessing at angles and elevations

[Don Barber]

Hi,
I phoned Star Choice told them I was going on the road in my RV and they said great phone us when you want to turn on your system. With Express vu my son-in-law is honest and told Bell that he uses one receiver on the weekends at the lake and every weekend he is there he has to phone Bell and turn off the one at home and restart the one at the lake and then reverse that on sunday nite. Their comment is to pay for another new connection at the lake and he wouldn't have to do all that work.He realises that if he had been dishonest and told them that he just uses the other receiver at home he could of gotten away with all the hassle. This is what bugs me about Bell. When we were going south 2 years ago year we phoned Bell to report the problems with reception and we were lucky to keep the reduced service we had. When they found out we were in a RV in the US they screamed about the fact that we were in a piracy situation, breaking all kinds of laws etc etc. I just found it really unsatisfactory on their part, customer service it wasn't. To say I don't like Bell is an understatment and I want to point out that my statement is to sway anyone I can away from Bell.Their policies are not well published and they are adamant that it is their way or the highway. In our case it would be Star Choice and the highway
Don Barber

[Skip298]

I will try and revive the old star choice and se if I can get basic service for 6 months...do they get uptight about using it in the US??..maybe I should tell them that I winter in Canada and summer in the southern US...

[WilleyB]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">that I winter in Canada and summer in the southern US... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Gee! South in the summer and North in the winter,
isn't that what the polar bears do?

Cheers Willis