Colossal Dish Install Failure - ?'s

jdsabin1

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Jan 15, 2005
63
0
Central IA, USA
I *had* a 942 and three 811's until I bought into the 'Dish'n It Up' promo and I had the 622 and the 211 to replace the 942 and one of the 811's. I had a DPP44 already installed for these receivers.

Dish uses a company called 'Blue Sky' to do their installs, etc. First installer comes over last week, replaces the Dish 500 and puts in a Dish 1000.2 (moves the dish over to the edge of the roof to get better signal so I am thinking that move is so the 129 signal can work). Three hours later the installer leaves, telling me everything works great! I am doing work related things on the laptop and not paying much attention but I do notice that neither new receiver is working and he is long gone. I call Dish and they tell me they have to activate the new receivers. No problem still but finally once they are working I am not getting the new HD channels (moving from the standard HD channels to all of them - VOOM, etc). I check the installation and sure enough, 129 is nowhere to be found (just 110 and 119).

I schedule another appointment with Blue Sky and they come out today. A different tech arrives at 8:00 this morning and throughout the day he swaps out the switch, goes through several LNB's, puts up an entirely new Dish in case the other one that the other guy JUST put up is warped, and finally starts talking about replacing all the cable from the Dish to the house. He finally leaves at 5:30 this afternoon (yes he was here 9 1/2 hours) after probably 20 'check switch' tests. At one point he dialed in 61.5 but of course 110 and 119 were gone. By the time he left, he leaves no paperwork, a lot of bits and pieces of cable and connectors behind the house under the roof area where the satellite is mounted, and says I will have to get a new work order to install another satellite dish on the roof and point it to 61.5 instead since 129 can't be found (I have a two story home and there are no trees, etc around. I am struggling with believing 129 can't be located).

At any rate, can someone who knows truly how this all works tell me if this sounds feasible? I am scared to have this company come back out and mount another receiver on the roof if it's not needed. Both of these installers have been with this company no longer than a few months as I was inquiring about their experience.

This just sucks.
 
Hmm...just a thought. Did either installer remove or at least bypass your DPP44 switch? With a D1000.2, said switch is NOT needed. The LNB for the 1000.2 (AKA, DPP Triple LNB) is capable of running three receivers just fine w/o any switches.
 
Hmm...just a thought. Did either installer remove or at least bypass your DPP44 switch? With a D1000.2, said switch is NOT needed. The LNB for the 1000.2 (AKA, DPP Triple LNB) is capable of running three receivers just fine w/o any switches.
Thank you for the quick response. I currently have the 622, the 211, and two 811's so a total of five tuners if that makes any difference. I just assumed the DPP44 would be needed in a case like this but no, they did not try to bypass the switch.
 
Sorry, my fault. I had assumed that the 211 had replaced an 811; for a total of 3 receivers. Any DPP LNB or switch is capable of powering however many receivers the outputs have...regardless if they're single or dual tuners. For example, the D1000.2 LNB is capable of power 3 receivers...or up to 6 (3 X's dual-tuners) televisions.

At any rate, if you're maintaining 4 receivers, then your LNB/switch configuration should be:

(3) DP Duals/Singles...makes no difference. An LNB for each orbital.
(1) DPP 44 switch.
 
I don't have Dish network anymore so don't know the new equipment, but in general I'd think an installer should be able to figure out in a very few minutes whether or not you can hit 129. I'd think all they'd have to do is put a single dish with a single lnb, set the skew and elevation correctly and swing it around until they find it. If it can't be seen, it shouldn't take over 9 hours to figure it out. Something doesn't smell right with your installer.
 
2 different guys and over 12 hours! Thats crazy. When I first got into this years ago I bought a DTV system from ebay and put it all together myself with NO experience in less than 2 hours. Sure it was only 1 lnb for me but and "professional" installer should know what he's doing with 3. The guy I had 2 weeks ago putting mine up after I moved and upgraded showed up right on time, put the 1000.2 up, tapped into the pre-existing cables and got 2 622s up and running in 1 hour. I could hardly understand him (mexican guy) but he sure knew what he was doing. I would do like boba said and send that email.
 
Yeah that is one thing that will always be a gamble and that is installers. Some installers are better than other's and depending on where you live they will very from place to place. Like someone said E-mail Dish let them know what happen and have them send you a different installer from a different company. Its obvious these guys seem to be clueless.
 
Did you also consider talking to the owner/manager at Blue Sky? It could be a complete waste of time, or it might be your only answer. I don't know how much bench strength E* has in your area, but it could be that whatever help E* gives you might have to come through that source. If I were an owner I would certainly want to know there is a problem - maybe he/she already does and doesn't care. But you might also be able to get some additional perks from them for 'your trouble', once the problem is resolved. (E* will also help in this area if you ask.)

Are your HD locals on 129? If not then you lose nothing by pointing one dish to 61.5 other than needing the second dish that they will have to provide. It might even be more reliable in your location.
 
Three hours later the installer leaves, telling me everything works great! I am doing work related things on the laptop and not paying much attention but I do notice that neither new receiver is working and he is long gone. I call Dish and they tell me they have to activate the new receivers.

I would definitely be emailing ceo@ and also talking to whoever owns Blue Sky. The tech should not have left until activating the receivers and verifying software downloads and signal reception on them and demonstrating that to you.

And, NEVER sign anything until you have verified that it is correct and functional.
 
Not only does this install require 3 dp single/dual lnbs and the dp44 switch but the plastic y at the front of the dish needs to changed to accept the 3 lnbs. More than likely these guys were never instructed on this.
 
I had Blue Sky do an install back in 2003. I was not impressed at all. When I came back to Dish early this year after being with cable I went with a local retail. Night and day difference.
 
Not only does this install require 3 dp single/dual lnbs and the dp44 switch but the plastic y at the front of the dish needs to changed to accept the 3 lnbs. More than likely these guys were never instructed on this.

When a 1000.2 lnb is run through a 44 switch ,the switch inside the 1000.2 lnb becomes disabled...so it would work either way...sounds like these clowns just couldn't tune it....and of course if he had 61.5 on a 1000.2 then 119 and 110 would be gone .. If ANY job takes me over 4 hours I've had major problems or obstacles.

Did you have HD before ? You didn't mention what sats you had before they came out.
 

Software

I need a little help

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