posted
Thanks Bill. I did as you suggested and finally spoke to an American! He was quickly able to tell me that there was no record of receiving my paperwork. A little more investigation and we figured out that DirecTV has the wrong address on the web page that explains the process. It was not the same as the address printed on the declaration form itself. I had cut and pasted from the web page into Word when I printed out the envelope.
I have sent it in again so the wait starts over.
Posts: 146 | Registered: Sep 2003
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Glad to help but sorry to hear the results! I have changed my address to OR and I am going to try calling for my PBS channel again. Yeah, right! That's gonna work!
-------------------- Bill Adams Winegard Company Posts: 15697 | From: Traveling the Western US | Registered: May 2003
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I called today and after dealing with a nice frontline person who of course couldn't help me I did compel them to transfer me to the Distant Network Service group which, in her own words, "also likely can not help me but I'll transfer you anyway if you really want me to."
After the person in DNS telling me that channel 384 was for some reason not available for my account I repeated the mantra that I am "mobile and unserved" repeatedly until she agreed to "make the request for a waiver from my local PBS affiliate."
I reiterated that as a mobile DNS user I am considered by the FCC to be unserved and not subject to the waiver approval whims of any of the local affiliates, PBS included and that if she were to keep checking she'd in fact be able to verify this and enable 384 for my account.
After being on hold for about 5-10 minutes she returned to tell me that 384 had just been enabled on my account and it should be active right now.
I now have SD east and west networks, PBS on 384, west coast networks in HD and the appropriate local networks package for my "installed" address.
Thanks to all the diligent work of Escapees and PBS to finally make this possible and for the words of encouragememt to continue to press on DTV firmly and politely until I found the person who could get it done. My insistence was totally based on the recent successes of others before me and I hope others feel empowered by by success to do this for themselves.
At the end of the call she thanked me for educating her, as she'd not known this was possible until I convinced her it was and said the next mobile user to call into her asking for 384 wouldn't have to jump through the hoops I just had to.
If anyone wants PBS/384 make sure you have your RV/Mobile waiver in place and don't waste your time with the front line, insist that your call is escalated to the DNS group and don't give up -- it really is possible.
ps: For what it's worth, she said that there is no DNS group in Utah, just ask for the Distant Network Service group and repeat "mobile user, waiver on file, unserved" over and over as you work your way up the food chain.
posted
OK, Direct TV is getting faster. Called the standard customer service number and asked for PBS to be turned on. The rep gave me the impression that this might not be possible. He said he would transfer me to the tech spt dept. I asked him to, instead, transfer me to the DNS group. By the time they, DNS, answered the phone I turned around and looked at the TV and PBS 384 was active. Total time on the phone about 4 minutes. Three cheers for those in the past who have done the grunt work to get this accomplished. Thanks.
-------------------- Joe and Donna Josephson F1/D2/DW7000 117W 2004 Phaeton/Honda CRV Toad. Posts: 44 | From: Full Time RVer | Registered: Feb 2005
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Well I can not believe it, but as of this moment I finally have PBS. The call(s) took over 40 minutes and I was cut off twice. Even changing my address to OR did not help as they said that the local PBS was available there. I claimed DNS, didn't matter. I re-iterated that locals were not available to us as we were in an RV. Then she said that the PBS was included in the $9/month DNS package so we should be getting them. I mentioned that the PBS feed was separate and cost an additional $1.50 month and that's why it had not be activated in the past. She assured me that "This is what I do so I know what I am talking about". Not seeing any reason to disagree with that I waited patiently and she turned me on (literally). So even though they tell you that you can't, you can. I certainly didn't find any magic formula with this call. As I mentioned before I guess it's just the luck of the draw as to whether you find someone capable of thinking. I do know that the folks who answer the first call and the first tier tech. support people cannot get the job done. You have to get to some level above that.
-------------------- Bill Adams Winegard Company Posts: 15697 | From: Traveling the Western US | Registered: May 2003
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Up until the time a couple of years ago that PBS was eliminated from mobile service it was $1.50 per month in addition to the $9.00 for DNS service. I expected to see it the same price or more now that it has be made available again.
-------------------- Joe and Donna Josephson F1/D2/DW7000 117W 2004 Phaeton/Honda CRV Toad. Posts: 44 | From: Full Time RVer | Registered: Feb 2005
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I do not believe that the PBS programming is included in the DNS package (never had been) and the DNS package costs $9/month. The PBS feed has always been listed as costing $1.50 extra. But if that's what she needed to believe to get me turned on, she can believe whatever she likes. When my bill arrives I am sure there will be an extra charge.
-------------------- Bill Adams Winegard Company Posts: 15697 | From: Traveling the Western US | Registered: May 2003
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Got my PBS (384) added today. Hardest job was getting by the first person who said they could not transfer me to the DNS group because they did not have one. After getting to the DNS group, it only took about 3 minutes.
They did nab me for the $1.50.
-------------------- '06 Revolution LE/towing '07 Suburban LTZ F1 Datastorm/W 2watt BUC |D2 3.7.1|DW7000|89W/1390| Secure Wireless Winegard Trav'ler HD-DirecTV www.charlieandrachel.com chunter@astrotravel.com See our current location Posts: 362 | From: Tallahassee, FL | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Not to make anyone feel bad, but I didn't even know there was an issue with PBS -- I set up a DirecTV account in May, got the waiver (although it did take two calls and much inaccurate information along the way, the waiver form arrived in the mail and service was activated about a week before they said it would be), never thought to ask about PBS, but got it anyway. Just checked the bill I got yesterday and I'm being charged $9 for DNS and $1.50 for PBS.
Just thought I'd make my first post on this forum a positive one! I'm still so dumb about the Datastorm I wouldn't know a problem if it hit me in the face (or how to describe it if it did!) unless it stopped working altogether. We did have a problem with the router in the last campground, but decided that it was because we were parked between two antennae for the campground wireless. Sure enough, we moved and the problem went away.
Margaret
Posts: 74 | From: Phoenix AZ | Registered: May 2006
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Welcome Margaret. Glad you posted and glad you are here. If we can be of assistance, please let us know. Congratulations on getting PBS without a hassle.
-------------------- Michael Day F1|D3|7000 5.8.0.72|Currently no Hughes|1 Laptop: XP Home|1 Desktop:Vista, 1 Win7|Cradlepoint 1400|Verizon MiFi 4GLTE| Newell Coach, PT Cruiser Turbo Find Me Here (Map) Donations Help Support This Site Posts: 2815 | From: Everywhere (home is Austin, TX) | Registered: May 2003
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posted
If anyone is interested, I did a little more (thanks to Bill Adams' installed system) and have the citation from the law if you want to wow the DirecTV agent. The "Law" they always cite but never know can be found at the following website: http://vlex.us/codes/section/2300-1016&desc_01&docum_19244012arch If you have problems logging in, you can type in the site address but must put in an "_" in the spaces.
Everytime they told me that it was "according to the law," I would ask "what law" and they never could answer. It happens to be US Code - Title 17: Copyrights, Chapter 1 : Subject Matter and Scope of Copyright, Sec. 119. Limitations on exclusive rights: Secondary transmissions of superstations and network stations for private home viewing Revised: 19-01-2004
posted
Penny, the "law" that is normally talked about in this case is not copyright law.
It is SHVIA (Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act, 1999) and SHVERA (Satellite Home Viewer Extension and Reauthorization Act, 2004).
These acts, while ostensibly offering more access to distant networks, actually reduce access.
DirecTV has always taken a tight, "more than the letter of the law" approach, while Dish Networks has always taken a loose, "Anyting we can get away with" approach.
The latter has lead to successful federa suits against Dish. While they are appealing, things are not looking good for them, and the most recent appellant court has ruled that the trial judge erred by not cracking down on them even harder, to the point where all of their waivers are supposed to be revoked, even for people who were entitled to them.
PBS has always presented a particular problem for DirecTV, because stations are fundamentally independent of the national network. As such, the network couldn't set standard rules on who qualified for waivers, and who did not. Each station decided on who would be waived.
I don't have a cite ready, but the head of PBS in a speech to member station managers in December of 2004 acknowledged the problem, and said they really needed to make it work the way it does for other networks. Apparently that has now happened, but many DirecTV workers are slow to get the word.
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