Cable vs. satellite

Our Lil' Family wrote: I don't know if I'm wasting my time doing this because I think DH is against satellite but I'll get opinions.

If you have weighed them both tell me why you went with the one you did.

It seems that satellite is the better option but you have to sign a contract...not a fan of contracts. I don't know...I can't decide.

mckayleesmom replied: I do cable...we had Direct tv before and it goes out when the weather is bad....Its just as expensive too.

mckayleesmom replied: Also...I don't like the sound of contracts either....Espeically with the inflation going on right now with everything. You never know when things come up and you need the money for something else. Its much better to be able to make cut backs if neccessary.

lesliesmom replied:
I have found that to be the opposite for us. Our cable would go screwy at night (when more people were doing the interactive stuff) and we couldn't get it to do anything for hours at times). We have not had any problem with weather interrupting our Satellite service except once or twice (we have now been with DirecTV for about 3+ years) and even then it was for no more than 15 minutes. We also find Satellite to be cheaper than Digital Cable. We paying about 90/m for DVR, HBO and 2 additional receivers - this includes all the kids stations we need (PBS Sprout, Noggin, etc) and the NASCAR package. We were paying close to or over 100 for just the channels (no premium and no NASCAR).

mckayleesmom replied:
Well...it has been a couple years...We had it when we lived in Minnesota..when it was fairly new and it cost us 170 dollars a month and whenever it snowed..we lost it all day. Maybe they have changed. Mostly though..I don't like the contract thing.

gr33n3y3z replied: Cable in our County is the pits anyway so we have Sat and its so much better and way cheaper then cable

coasterqueen replied: We had satellite because we got more baseball games that way and then they changed it so we got less than what we would get on cable so we switched. That plus out where we live if you have any kind of wind or bad weather it would go out. Cable only goes out when the power goes out. The bad thing is now cable is showing less baseball games and satellite is showing more. We'd switch but we get a deal on our cable/modem so we'll stay for now.

grapfruit replied: We HATED satellite. If it was cold out (like below freezing) but sunny, sometimes we STILL didn't have picture. (water would melt in the sun and drip onto the dish and freeze).

We'll never go there again.

mckayleesmom replied:
ditto...sometimes it just had to be super cold out and no tv for you.

Boys r us replied: We have satelite b/c of the NFL football package they have...heaven's knows we have to have every single game aired on television... ..but I'm not a big fan of it b/c there are times(not that often) when the signal does get lost or shakey due to extremely high wind gusts or heavy snow. But, the main reason we keep it aside from the football thing is b/c we wanted to get HDTV and they have more HDTV channels on sat than on cable.

My3LilMonkeys replied: I guess it really all depends on where you are. Where I live satellite is cheaper formore stations. Ours does go out in really bad storms (maybe 2-3 times a year). The contract was I think for 1 year and after that it's just month by month and it doesn't have a fee for switching packages (even to a smaller one), just canceling. For us it was worth it because we can't even pick up local stations without the satellite so unless times got really tough we wouldn't cancel outright - I couldn't live without TV at all.

My2Beauties replied: Our cable company has a package deal where you get your phone, internet (cable modem) and cable TV for one price per month, it's like $99 per month. So far it has only went up $5 per year. That doesn't include movie channel packages, but that does include a sports package, kids package (Noggin, extra Nick stations, extrea Disney stations etc..) and one more I can't remember. That is why I stick with cable. Now I have no personal experience with a satellite, I always had cable, but I know a couple of folks who switched to cable from satellite because of the picture and the fact that it went out on them all the time.

Crystalina replied: I have sat. and love it (DishNetwork). For Izabella's birthday we stayed at a hotel with cable it it was horrid! We can't get cable where I live out in the stix but even if we could I'd stick with my satellite.

luvmykids replied: In our area cable is ridiculously expensive compared to sat. We have tons and tons of snow too, all we do is sweep off the dish with a broom and no problems. And like Pam said, you can change your package as often as you want, even down to the cheapest (which is $29.95 I think) without penalty.

Our Lil' Family replied: Wow, just about split. I'll talk to DH again about it. I really want DVR and HD (when we eventually get a new tv) so we need to weigh those options too. Thanks y'all!

Maddie&EthansMom replied: We like our cable much better. We have DVR and HD channels as well. We didn't get the sports package, but it is available.

Crystalina replied: Do any of you who didn't like satellite live in town? I'm wondering if satellite is worse in town due to the buildings and congestion and stuff. Snow slides right off our our satellite so that's never an issue. I'm sure it has to due with what position it's in. The only problems we ever had was one time a chicken was sitting on it and blocked service and two mornings ago it wasn't working because we had snow ( ) and the snow was weighing down the branches of my Dogwood and they were hanging over the dish. I just pushed them behind and it came right back on.

coasterqueen replied:
For us, we live in the country and I'm not sure about others, but ours is on our roof so it's not easy to brush it off when it snows. Our problem isn't just snow, it's high winds and heavy rain that does it, too. We live in a river bottom area so it seems to get that tunneling wind effect quite often.

Maybe if we just had it on a pole in the ground it would be better. Dh did not like the look of it so he paid someone more to have it put on the roof.