There's some
limitation regarding reception
of local (Boston and Providence) channels if I happened to be
travelling long distance on the
boat, but that really doesn't bother me.

Most locals are broadcast in what they call a "spotbeam." That's a focused
signal over a relatively small area, opposed to nationwide coverage which is
called "conus." Once you travel out of the coverage area of a spotbeam,
those channels are gone. They do this to give the sats more capacity to
carry locals.

--Mike