Hi all,
Tried to defect from E* to D*. The installer seemed knowledgeable, but ultimately the install failed. When he first arrived, I noted to him that we'd have to fishline a second coax feed through my wall for the HD-DVR. He looked around and said it was impossible, even after I mentioned there were maybe two or three staples, and then the idea of pulling string / fishing wire on the existing cable.
So I asked about the SWM. He said they were rolled out to California, but then were completely recalled by D* due to too many service calls, and were totally unavailable. I asked whether the HD-DVR could run in a one-tuner mode off of one feed. He said no. Thankfully, he had a non-DVR HD box in the truck. Grumble grumble, but okay.
He also notes that D*'s HD signal *absolutely cannot* work through flat jumpers that I have laying in a cut groove in my patio door's track. I would definitely need a new feed line run from the dish to my wall-wiring distribution box in my laundry room. That set a red flag in my head, since I've had E* HD running without problem through those jumpers for months.
He gets the dish up where my current E* dish is, worries about getting all five satellites, no biggie. He runs a test cable from the dish to the receiver, just to see if he could get all five satellites. We do, he's surprised. He starts to connect the feed lines to my distribution box, gets no signal on his Birddog from the wall jack. Takes his little cable identifier tone generator, starts going around the condo.
He ends up saying that all five of my condo's wall jacks, despite there being five separate cable feeds in the distribution box, are being fed by splitters in the walls. I call BS, get into a big argument with him, as I've got electrical pictures of the walls before they were drywalled (the condo's brand new). The cables are individual feeds, no splitters. He says he absolutely cannot get a signal on his Birddog through my wall cables, and his little tone tester says all the other cables are dead except for one.
So he yanks down all the D* stuff, packs up, and leaves. I never got his name, he never had me sign anything, and I'm hoping to hell my account is canceled and I get a refund for the $120 I had to prepay for the HD-DVR. Not to mention I had to realign my E* dish, which wasn't *that* big a deal (he says D* Birddogs can't pick up E* satellites). Only had to get azimuth right, he left the elevation and skew angles on the install bracket set.
So basically... Did I get screwed? I got my own cable tone generator, and each cable in my distribution box toned out to a separate wall jack. There was a very little bit of tone cross-talk, because the cables are all in a big bundle when they enter my box. But it's clear they are separate feeds, no splitters. This crap with my wall wiring was the only thing blocking an install.
I can probably try and fishline my own second line to my HD-DVR location. But I'm just wondering what else I can check to make a second D* install attempt in the future successful.
Thanks!
--Scott
Tried to defect from E* to D*. The installer seemed knowledgeable, but ultimately the install failed. When he first arrived, I noted to him that we'd have to fishline a second coax feed through my wall for the HD-DVR. He looked around and said it was impossible, even after I mentioned there were maybe two or three staples, and then the idea of pulling string / fishing wire on the existing cable.
So I asked about the SWM. He said they were rolled out to California, but then were completely recalled by D* due to too many service calls, and were totally unavailable. I asked whether the HD-DVR could run in a one-tuner mode off of one feed. He said no. Thankfully, he had a non-DVR HD box in the truck. Grumble grumble, but okay.
He also notes that D*'s HD signal *absolutely cannot* work through flat jumpers that I have laying in a cut groove in my patio door's track. I would definitely need a new feed line run from the dish to my wall-wiring distribution box in my laundry room. That set a red flag in my head, since I've had E* HD running without problem through those jumpers for months.
He gets the dish up where my current E* dish is, worries about getting all five satellites, no biggie. He runs a test cable from the dish to the receiver, just to see if he could get all five satellites. We do, he's surprised. He starts to connect the feed lines to my distribution box, gets no signal on his Birddog from the wall jack. Takes his little cable identifier tone generator, starts going around the condo.
He ends up saying that all five of my condo's wall jacks, despite there being five separate cable feeds in the distribution box, are being fed by splitters in the walls. I call BS, get into a big argument with him, as I've got electrical pictures of the walls before they were drywalled (the condo's brand new). The cables are individual feeds, no splitters. He says he absolutely cannot get a signal on his Birddog through my wall cables, and his little tone tester says all the other cables are dead except for one.
So he yanks down all the D* stuff, packs up, and leaves. I never got his name, he never had me sign anything, and I'm hoping to hell my account is canceled and I get a refund for the $120 I had to prepay for the HD-DVR. Not to mention I had to realign my E* dish, which wasn't *that* big a deal (he says D* Birddogs can't pick up E* satellites). Only had to get azimuth right, he left the elevation and skew angles on the install bracket set.
So basically... Did I get screwed? I got my own cable tone generator, and each cable in my distribution box toned out to a separate wall jack. There was a very little bit of tone cross-talk, because the cables are all in a big bundle when they enter my box. But it's clear they are separate feeds, no splitters. This crap with my wall wiring was the only thing blocking an install.
I can probably try and fishline my own second line to my HD-DVR location. But I'm just wondering what else I can check to make a second D* install attempt in the future successful.
Thanks!
--Scott
