# D* at both my home & cabin



## 2MACcheese (Jul 25, 2006)

Do I have to have two separate accounts for my house and my cabin? I have a small cabin that we go to 6 to 8 times a year. I don't want to pay for full service at each location. If I install a dish on the cabin, can't I just take a receiver out with me when staying at the cabin? I have no phone line in the cabin. Will it still work?

Jim


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## Spicoli (Jun 7, 2006)

2MACcheese said:


> Do I have to have two separate accounts for my house and my cabin? I have a small cabin that we go to 6 to 8 times a year. I don't want to pay for full service at each location. If I install a dish on the cabin, can't I just take a receiver out with me when staying at the cabin? I have no phone line in the cabin. Will it still work?
> 
> Jim


I'm not sure what D*'s policy is on that (home & cabin). I'm pretty sure you can take a receiver with you on an RV, either camping or to a race or whatever. But as long as it's NOT a permanent residence.....


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

2MACcheese said:


> Do I have to have two separate accounts for my house and my cabin?


Yes, you must have an account for each address.

Read the sections regarding Additional TVs and Phone Connections:

http://directv.com/DTVAPP/global/contentPageNR.jsp?assetId=P400042

For those who haven't read the Customer Agreement it a while there's always some interesting stuff in there.


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## AnonomissX (Jun 29, 2006)

2MACcheese said:


> Do I have to have two separate accounts for my house and my cabin? I have a small cabin that we go to 6 to 8 times a year. I don't want to pay for full service at each location. If I install a dish on the cabin, can't I just take a receiver out with me when staying at the cabin? I have no phone line in the cabin. Will it still work?
> 
> Jim


If you install the dish yourself, thats fine...you can have a receiver there and have it activated just before you get there, and deactivated just after you leave, as long as you also deactivate the ones at your house. If you have been a customer for a while I HIGHLY suggest taking a standard receiver you have had since before 03-0-06 to the cabin, that way there is no "return your leased receiver" issues with Directv.

If you want to have locals there and it is a different market from your house you would need to:

1) Give them the alternate address for SERVICE only
2) CAREFULLY indicate which receiver you want active
3) Have them deactivate the other receivers you are not using while at the cabin
4) Call when leaving and have them switch the SERVICE address back to your home address.
5) Have them reactivate the right receivers at your home, and then deactivate the cabin receiver.

1st NOTE: I would make a list of all active receivers in the house, and card #s to match. This way you can ensure the right receivers are active and not the ones you are not using

2nd NOTE: Some people dont notice for MONTHS that they have 1 or more units they dont use or even possess being billed 4.99 monthly mirroring/lease fees. That also increases chances a CSR will make a mistake when making changes you request.


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## 2MACcheese (Jul 25, 2006)

Way too much work. I'll just make the kids watch DVDs.

Thanks for your input


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## samrs (May 30, 2004)

2MACcheese said:


> Do I have to have two separate accounts for my house and my cabin? I have a small cabin that we go to 6 to 8 times a year. I don't want to pay for full service at each location. If I install a dish on the cabin, can't I just take a receiver out with me when staying at the cabin? I have no phone line in the cabin. Will it still work?
> 
> Jim


Don't worry about all that. What D* dosn't know won't hurt you.

Have the equipment installed at your home. The six to eight times a year you visit your cabin take a reciever with you. lots of folks do it. If, all of them are conecected to a phone line at home it won't really matter at the cabin they only call home about once a month unless their Tivo's. There won't be any effect.

When the installer shows up you might tell him what you want to do. I usually show them how to install the dish an allign it using the receiver. Sometimes if I have an extra new dish I might sell it to them or just give them a used dish.

No reason your kids have to watch DVD's.:hurah:


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## sheepishlion (Dec 4, 2005)

You can have the two accounts set up, and suspend one while the other is activated. Call the DirecTV Mover's Department (1–866–929–8668) and they can get you set up with an install at your cabin. Then you don't have to pay for both accounts at the same time.


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## FavreJL04 (Feb 4, 2006)

I wouldn't think DTV has a way of knowing if you move a receiver from home to cabin, unless it is normally connected to a phone line. In that case I am not sure. If it is not connected to a phone line you could drive around the country and watch TV and they would have no way of knowing. The contract that is signed during the installation states that all receivers must be located at the same physical address. A separate account must be set up for a 2nd address. Obviously there are ways around that which are quite easy to do, but the contract says what it says.


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## rbpeirce (Feb 24, 2006)

Years ago, when I ran into the same situation, I called to ask if there was any problem taking a receiver to a summer home. I was told there was not and that there really was no way to know where the receiver was anyhow. It is possible they have changed the agreement since then and restricted this. However, there still is no way to know if you are doing it.


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## TMullenJr (Feb 23, 2006)

This does not need to be so complicated. Hook up what you need at your house. When you go on vacation, you bring the receiver with you and connect it to the dish in the cabin, and you get the same programming. I actually have a dish mounted on a piece of plywood for when I go on vacation. I throw it on top of the van, run the line into where I'm staying, align the dish & I'm good to go. In your case, you would have a 2nd dish mounted on the cabin so you just need to connect your receiver.


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## russdog (Aug 1, 2006)

A few years ago, I worked in another city for about 18 months. I took one of my boxes from our permanent home with me. We kept our DirecTV account at our permanent home throughout, and returned home often. When we got to the other city, I went to Circuit City and bought a dish, some co-ax, some F-connectors, and a co-ax crimper. I hooked up the dish (not hard), plugged in my DirecTv box. I was sure to *not* plug it into the phone line. Everything was fine. No problems. 

I was not stealing service. I paid for each receiver in my household. It's just that my household had 2 locations for a year-and-a-half. There was no way I was gonna pay them for a 2nd account. I simply relocated one of my DirecTv boxes with me for a while, that's all. Without the phone line, they had no way to know where that box was.

I think it's perfectly fine for them to prevent a bunch of different people from sharing one account. So, I understand their policy about not permitting one account at multiple locations. Without that policy, people who live on the same block would just chip in and get several families' worth of service for a 1-family price. Preventing that makes perfect sense to me. But I don't think their valid concern applied to my situation, simply because it truly was one family with one household. It was just a "distributed household" for a while, that's all. We were good customers then, and we continue to be good customers now. They certainly like to cash my checks ;-)

If I were you, I'd just leave a box at the cabin (as long as it's a secure situation). Maybe once a year bring it home and plug it into the phone line for a while so it can do whatever phone-line enabled downloads might occur (new software, etc.). Beyond that, I wouldn't worry about it.


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