All of the satellite service providers are going to give you a free complete satellite system when you sign up for an extended programming contract. It is then your system, just as if you bought it at an electronics retailer and you are responsible for its maintenance and repairs if they are needed. If it breaks down, or any one of its functions begin to not work properly, your service provider will not give you another one for free and they arent going to fix it for free either.

Your free satellite TV system is a one shot deal and it is as simple as that. Not all of them give the system completely free of charge though and there is a good reason why. DirecTV charges a little money when you get a high definition receiver from them, to help to offset the added expense that comes with the higher quality and durability of Hughes electronics components.

All of the electronics equipment that DirecTV supplies their viewing family members with carry the Hughes name exclusively and it also carries with it the Hughes reputation for quality and reliability. High definition receivers are more expensive than standard programming receivers and if a satellite TV service provider will give you one free of any cost at all, it is because it is a cheap unit and that is how they are able to do it and stay in business.

They know that when it breaks down, it is your problem and you will have to fix it to watch the programming that you are paying for. Everyone has had some experience with cheap electronics components. You get it home and it looks great and works fine for a while, then it starts to give you problems. A function only works sometimes and a light that is supposed to stay on starts to blink on and off.

One day it smells like burning wires when you turn it on and something else stops working. You give it a little shake and you can hear something rattling around inside of it, a loose screw, or something that has come unsoldered. When you take it to get repaired they tell you it will cost just as much money to buy a new one, as it will cost to repair the piece of junk.

Satellite service providers like to give their electronics equipment snazzy names, with lots of letters and numbers in them, as if they were naming a military test aircraft, or a sports car, but underneath the flashy sounding name is cheap electronics gear. When you go with the unpretentious Hughes name, you get the long standing reputation for quality and durability that comes with that name.

A high definition receiver is a complex piece of equipment, especially if it has a DVR installed inside of it and paying the minimal amount of money that DirecTV asks to offset the added expense that comes with the higher quality of Hughes product, is cheap insurance that you are not going to have to buy a new system, or have yours repaired further down the road. Free stuff is great to get, unless it is cheap junk.