Thank you, now I was hoping to be able to contact Dish and explain the situation to them without going through the usual 30-60 minutes of general troubleshooting on the phone that ensues no matter what, but I guess that is probably not possible.
I think the DISH VIP Support might be the way to go. Try them and see if they will send you a new WAP.Thanks for the tips, I have already moved the WAP as far and high as I can from the hopper without buying a longer ethernet cable to connect them. I changed the channel on our internet modem/router thinking that was causing interference (actually that made a big improvement in the problem as it was doing it constantly at one point) and it is down to happening every 7-14 days, with strong signal and link strength at all other times.
I may try to get a longer ethernet cable and see if that helps moving the WAP to another part of the living room. Usually when it happens there is no one on the main floor where the hopper/WAP are located and nothing else is being used (microwave, etc...). I really think the problem is an intermittent issue related to the WAP itself as it happens with two different WJ's and it performs flawlessly during the up to two weeks between occurrences.
I will see about moving it but think I will eventually be calling Dish for a replacement WAP, I am just not looking forward to the hour of basic phone troubleshooting that I will have to do (and have already done) to get them to replace it. Especially as it is intermittent and resetting everything works for two weeks and so after the reset it won't act up again while I am on the phone with them.