DirecTV Mirrored Receiver Questions (1 Viewer)

[Ronald.H]

Here's the story: I purchased a DirecTV 3-receiver system for my parents for Christmas. DirecTV requires the system be activated within 30 days of my purchase, or I must pay $150 per receiver. My folks are building a new house,and won't be ready for the system until late January, and I don't want to give it to them until then.

I have activated the primary receiver after setting the dish up temporarily on my back deck. To activate the other two, I'm assuming they, along with the primary reciever, need to be hooked up and plugged into a phone line.

What I would like to do is hook up the three receivers, plug them into my phone line and activate them, using mirroring for the other two. Then I'd like to box it all up until we are ready to install it at my parents' house in January.

The DirecTV web site says that if the mirrored receivers are not hooked to a phone line, they will begin charging the full programming fee for those receivers.

Does anybody have any insight in this? Also, if they are hooked to my phone line for a while, and then they get plugged into my parent's phone line after we install it at their house, will that cause a problem with DirecTV?

I've never used DirecTV before, so if anybody has any information on this, I would appreciate it.

Thanks!
Ron

 

[Brian L]

I think you can get away without the phone line connected. They don't use it for initial activation; its done through the satellite.

Secondly, while they do call for a shared line for all three boxes, I don't know how it is checked. I have three boxes in my home, and only two are currently connected to the phone line. I am not running a scam or anything; just the phone line is across thr room for that one DTV box, and I never got around to getting a long extension.

I think it may be a problem if you ordered some PPV movies, however. The billing data for that is handled via the phone line IIRC. I suppose at some point w/o a phone line, there could be something in the software that locked up the box until you connected it (I don't know that for a fact, just speculating).

I suspect what you are trying to do will be fine, but I would not volunteer any info to DTV when you are activating. If they ask if you have the phone lines connected, just say yes ma'am.

BGL

 

[Bruce-E]

Ronald
As long as you activate all three cards within 30 days you shouldn't have any problems.

 

[Neil White]

The phone line connection is not essential. I have 5 boxes. Only one is connected to a phone line (and it's not even the box listed as the primary - just the way it worked out). The phone line is handy for PPV via the receiver (versus the Web or manual phone call).

N

 

[Luke_Y]

I had a similar situation a while back. I didn't actually "activate" the new equipment and set up an account. What I did was call DirecTV and gave them all the serial numbers and they "registered" them in their system. I didn't activate them and set up an account for another year.

 

[Ronald.H]

Thanks for the advice. I have now activated all three receivers. BTW - I was pretty excited about the self-service aspect of Directv.com (activate new receivers on line), however, I was not able to complete the activation process on any of the receivers. On all three, I had to call and deal with an "Entertainment Consultant" who activated the cards.

So, now I will pack it all up and hide it (in case of surprise mom & dad visits) until January (we're having a late Christmas after they move into their new house).

Hopefully, when we hook it up there, the receivers will still be working!

 

[Ronald.H]

BTW - I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on DirecTV vs. Cable. Especially from those who have DirecTV. Personally, I think I'm still in favor of cable, but would like to hear the different arguments.

I'll be posting my detailed thoughts on the matter on my blog at http://rhostetter.blogspot.com.

Thanks!