Botched Install

[jtravel]

I had dish in my home about 3 years now using a 522
The Dish 500 was mounted on the roof with Twin cable along the roof over hang
then down the wall and thru a hole in the wall the installer drilled about 2 inches above the ground. The twin cable feed from the dish went to receiver 1 & 2 inputs
on the 522. TV 2 out was connected into my prewired cable run next to the TV and then connected with the cable feed going to my second room at the whole house junction box at the front of my house.
I moved into a new home recently and took my receiver using the dish mover program. The dish installer arrived by himself in a dish truck and wore a Dish uniform.
The new home was pre-wired for cable and DSS and the guy did a excellent job of mounting the dish on a brick wall instead of on my tile roof. It took him maybe 45 mins max and everything worked great and looked professional. I was really happy.
My daughter moved into my other house and signed-up for Dish for a standard
dual channel receiver that replaced the 522 , It looks the same as my 522 but has a number like 622 I belive.
Should have been a simple install as the dish,LNA's and all cable were in place.
she wanted the same setup as I was using with the back feed going to the same second room. My daughter informed me two installers showed up in a Dish truck but no dish uniforms. They seemed confused about how to install the receiver and took over two hours. I just checked the house and they replaced the Dish 500 with another Dish 500, left the old dish on the ground but it has no LNA's
Cut the twin cable off where it use to connect to the dish and ripped it out thru the wall of the house. Left the old twin cable that I had painted and blended in well with the roof where it was. Ran single cable from the dish along the same path and into the old hole. the hole was large from the twin cable so the left a large blob of clear RTV to seal the cable entrance point up.
They ran a second line from the Dish over the top of the house roof and down into
where my house connects to the carport. They cut all the cables running from my whole house junction box at the front of the house at the point where they enter the house near the carport and tied the second line from the dish in here to feed room two. It looks like crap with a cable running over the top of the house plus old cut off twin and a new single cable running along the roof overhang.
My pre-wired cable lines have been cut. They are using two switches at the receiver and then another 1 or two swithces at the dish that I never had with the original 522 dish install.
Can anyone explain why any of this would be needed and why they couldn't have just connected a new receiver and been done?
I called dish and got a brush off that the installer must have needed to replace old faulty cable and equipment. I told them thats not true as it was working fine when i disconnected my 522
sorry but Im steaming Mad at this point and don't know who to complain to about it.

 

[Pepper]

The simple answer is that you know more about how the previous setup worked than the techs that were sent to do the job. Rather than spend a few minutes figuring out what was there, they just decided to rip it all out and do what they knew how to do.

 

[stone phillips420]

replaced 522 with a vip622 hd dvr and put up dish 500 instead of dish 1000?
that doesnt make sense buying/leasing hd dvr without hdtv

 

[jtravel]

replaced 522 with a vip622 hd dvr and put up dish 500 instead of dish 1000?
that doesnt make sense buying/leasing hd dvr without hdtv

Sorry,
I gave the wrong number, It was a 625 standard dual channel DVR
I had a 522 and all they had to do was connect the new 625 to the twin cable feed that was already located right at the TV.
I told my daughter this in advance and she told the installers but they claimed
they couldn't use the old dish and setup. They also didn't connect the phone line
and asked my daughter if they should take the phone line that came with the new receiver and throw it out with the box the receiver came in.
The original installer three years ago failed to ground the system. This latest installer could have corrected that but did not. its still not grounded.


My questions are:

If you alrerady have twin cable installed from the dish to the house why would you cut it off and run new single cable to a dual receiver?

Is running cable over the top of the house with no tie down a acceptable install
practice?

Is it acceptable to cut and damage pre-wired cable that feeds the whole home for cable serivce.?
I feel They should have ran the cable out to the home access box at the front of the garage and connected in there instead of cutting the feeds where they enter the house.

 

[boba]

As Pepper already answered the installers are 10 minute wonders and did what they knew how to do, they were lost in what was already a working install. Did your daughter sign off accepting the install? If yes then it is acceptable by DISH. No I wouldn't be happy and I would use the ceo@echostar.com address to get satisfaction.

 

[rich88]

Yeah, definitely contact somebody in charge. Make sure your system is grounded and "properly" grounded at that also.

 

[mikethedishguy]

Dish has requirments that have to be reached. In fact they are so restrictive that it is almost imposible to meet the codes.

NO Ground is an automatic FAIL and the tech could be charged back for the full install.
Running a line over a roof is dumb and though over the 7 years or so I have been installing I have done so it is only a avenue of last resort.

The only reason that they might have rewired from the dish is to ground the dish with a messinger wire.



Call dish and complain they will listen; contact customer retention.

 

[jtravel]

Thanks everyone for the comments and advise.
I have emailed the ceo address and will see what they have to say.

 

[jtravel]

Update:

I sent a email to CEO@echostar.com as recommended by Boba here on the BBS.
Anthony Alcázar from the Executive Communications Team contacted me by phone and advised I call 1-888-332-3474 and use option 7 to get to the right department to start a cliam for the damages.
After doing this I was contatced by Clint from the local installation office and we setup a apointment to meet at the house. I received a call the day of the apointment from Matt at the Corp office that day telling me I had a apointment with the local installers at 2:30 pm.
I left work early for the appointment but clint did not show up. I called the office and was told clint was off. I explained I had a apointment and was put on hold and latter told the installer who was to meet me left work early due to a emergency. he apolgized and We setup another apointment for the next day and I was told travis would be coming and assured he would be on time.
The next day Travis showed up 25 mins late. We walked around the house and I showed him the items that needed to be fixed. He kept answering calls on his cell and ended up going into his truck to talk.
When he was done talking he told me someone would have to come back to make the repiars and claimed he couldn't do it now because he didn't have patching compound for the hole in the side of the house.
we Made a apointment for Saturday at 10 Am and he told me it may be a different person coming to do the repairs but he would brief them on what needed to be done.
I was at the house Saturday at 10 am but had to leave at 11:20 after the dish installer did not showup. Called the office and was told they were running late as if I didn't already know that. My daughter and son-in-law were briefed on what exactly needed to be done and said they would wait. The installer showed up 2 hours late and told them travis knows he does not start work untill 10 am and has to report to the office first to get assignments for the day.
He also didn't seem to know exactly what he was suppose to do but my son-in-law walked him thru it. took him just over 40 mins to correct all the issues.
Im glad its over as I have personally wasted several hours of my time trying to get this resolved and waiting on installers that never showed or showed up late
and couldn't do the work befor this was actually corrected.
This has left a bad impression for me of Dish installers and the local Tucson office that was suppose to correct the issues.
With my very first Dish install the installer went over what they were going to do and asked for my verbal permission to do it.
During this install my daughter told them upfront all they needed to do was install the box that everything else was setup the way we wanted.
They ignored her and did what they wanted without getting her permission.
I now suspect that because she was a women they may have just dismissed her.

 

[Jared Twomey]

just to play devil's advocate here a little bit... they may have re-ran all of the wire because the wire was not "approved" and the backfeed for tv2 may have been RG59?
But i'm kinda doubting it if they didn't ground the system either.
The only reason they would be worried about using non-approved wire would be if they may be getting checked by a QAS, but if they failed to ground it wouldn't matter anyway.

And this is why I would hate to deal with an install done by DNS, there is no real personal responsibility for the work done... how many people have you talked to at this point... its rediculous, i'd fire off another email to the ceo address until you finally get the install resolved.

 

[jtravel]

The pre-installed cable runs inside the house were put in when the home was built in 1985 so its RG5 or even older.
Problem is when they did the botched install they still used these same old internal cable runs. They cut these cable runs where they enter the house and connected a new line from the Dish to one of them.
I had previosly used these runs to feed high speed cable internet service into my home office. The Line in the livingroom wall was used to back feed TV2 to the master bedroom. This was already connected inside my whole house access panel mounted on my carport wall.
They didn't use the access panel and instead cut all the cables from it at the point where they pentrated the house exterior wall.

It should have never happened in the first place and it took way too many calls and apointments to get it resolved.
Dish has however corrected all the issues now so I can atleast put this one behind me.
I will never let a dish installer into any of my properties again without being there
to make sure they know what I want done.

 

[topcat0399]

just to play devil's advocate here a little bit... they may have re-ran all of the wire because the wire was not "approved" and the backfeed for tv2 may have been RG59?........

There is nothing wrong with installer using existing RG59 for a TV2 backfeed if it is in good shape. It is the SAT feeds that MUST be 2150 Mhz RG6 (or better).

Im betting the house internal SAT feeds are RG59 - which is not OK. It might hold up, it might not. Depends on the quality of the RG59.



As with any service company - the quality of the installer will vary greatly. You might get a newb (they have to start somewhere), you might get a lazy old salt (tired of installing), you might get a HIGH SPEED LOW DRAG (someone who actually cares) kinda guy. its a crap shoot.

sorry you had troubles.

 

[GJJR]

Why can't the 722 be a centrally located recorder available to all rooms?
Please let me know if this not the right forum for this question. I am trying to prevent a possible "Botched Install". My old knowledgable installer is out of business and I can't find anyone who understands my setup. I'm new to this forum and no expert. But I do not understand why....

An HD signal travels through thin air to a satellite dish. Then through coax cable to a receiver. Then from the Receiver to an HDTV that has an HD tuner. Yet I'm told that the receiver has to be connected to the HDTV with a very short special cable that can carry an HD signal.

Why can't a single receiver like the PVR 722 be used in one central location in a house and then distribute the HD signal to HDTVs throughout the house? Why do I have to have a separate HD Receiver and HDTV in each room when I have coax cable RG6/7 to every room?

Why wouldn't it work If you attach a PVR 722 to a video modulator with output to a coax cable throughout the house? I know this works with standard definition tv signals. Why not with HD?

This would allow DISH Programming on TVs in every room to be controlled by a single UHF remote.

It seems there should be an ingenious way to do this. If it can't be done, I'd like to hear that news from some independent experts and not the "botchers". Thanks for your help.

 

[Claude Greiner]

If your not happy loosen one of the connections and call Dish and say it does not work.

Setup a trouble call and make them fix it when they come back out!

 

[Agonizing Fury]

Why can't the 722 be a centrally located recorder available to all rooms?
Please let me know if this not the right forum for this question. I am trying to prevent a possible "Botched Install". My old knowledgable installer is out of business and I can't find anyone who understands my setup. I'm new to this forum and no expert. But I do not understand why....

An HD signal travels through thin air to a satellite dish. Then through coax cable to a receiver. Then from the Receiver to an HDTV that has an HD tuner. Yet I'm told that the receiver has to be connected to the HDTV with a very short special cable that can carry an HD signal.

Why can't a single receiver like the PVR 722 be used in one central location in a house and then distribute the HD signal to HDTVs throughout the house? Why do I have to have a separate HD Receiver and HDTV in each room when I have coax cable RG6/7 to every room?

Why wouldn't it work If you attach a PVR 722 to a video modulator with output to a coax cable throughout the house? I know this works with standard definition tv signals. Why not with HD?

This would allow DISH Programming on TVs in every room to be controlled by a single UHF remote.

It seems there should be an ingenious way to do this. If it can't be done, I'd like to hear that news from some independent experts and not the "botchers". Thanks for your help.

This might have been better as a new thread, instead of hijacking the old one, but I will address your question anyways (still kinda new here, so if this is unacceptable, please let me know in a PM and I will avoid doing so in the future).

The biggest reason for not doing this, in my opinion, is control. HDMI cables (the short specialty cables they were talking about) allow the receiver to and TV to talk using encrypted Audio and Video Signals preventing any possibility of recording the digital stream. Dish is pretty much required by many of it's channel providers to use this type of setup. Although they currently allow HD signals on the un-encrypted Component cables, there will come a day when the receiver will be instructed to downsample the HD signal for certain shows on the un-encrypted connections. Using ATSC signals (Digital over the Air type as you suggested) for HD to TV2 was discussed in an e-mail to tech forum on Dish channel 101 a few months ago, and they gave this (although a slightly less in depth answer) as the reason they will not do it.

Agonizing Fury

 

[Pepper]

Plus, it seems that modulators for ATSC are still hideously expensive.

There are ways of getting an HD signal to a remote location, most of them involve building a very long HDMI or component cable.

(perhaps a mod will happen along, and split GJJR's question and our replies into a separate thread)