Should you keep a round dish for emergencies?

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Don’t laugh, I did this for a long time. You don’t want to miss out on satellite TV so you keep an extra dish around. After all that round dish is a lot easier to aim and you can get it going in a hurry in case your dish breaks or is hit by hail or whatever.

Except, you know, now we have the internet and you can stream stuff and whatnot. And to make matters worse, DIRECTV’s latest receivers are SWM-only so you’d have to also buy an extra SWM to have that nearby as well. Or you’d need to buy a whole SWM dish just to keep it in storage. That’s a real pain in the neck.

So, I don’t recommend keeping a round dish in the garage just for fun. I mean, I still recommend buying one if you’re putting TV in that detached garage or guest house and you don’t care that you’ll only be able to get SD programs. It’s still not a bad idea and it’s really nice to be able to aim that one satellite on two axes and call it a done deal. I mean, look, the HD dishes are easy to aim once you’re comfortable with them but come on, there aren’t a lot of people who do it just because they enjoy doing it.

I’m sorry but in this case your wife is probably right. You don’t need to keep spares for every single piece of equipment in the house, at least if there’s a viable alternative.

About the Author

Stuart Sweet
Stuart Sweet is the editor-in-chief of The Solid Signal Blog and a "master plumber" at Signal Group, LLC. He is the author of over 10,000 articles and longform tutorials including many posted here. Reach him by clicking on "Contact the Editor" at the bottom of this page.