Ground it right. Try calling the installation company and getting them to do it - you might get lucky. If they balk tell them you'll complain to Dish, BBB, or whoever you think is right to call for your locale.Guy Owen said:
Dish Network Install Story - Curses!!!
- Thread starter Guy Owen
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Send this fiasco to ceq@echostar.com, Charlie really has egg on his face for this install, especially if DNSC did it. Charlie owes Guy a HDTV system for this install more than the 10,000,000th customer.
Over a month ago I ordered dish network service from their website. I ordered america's everything with locals and a 3 room dvr setup. that would require a superdish. I ordered the service a month ago so the installer would have ample time to inform me of any problems. Well he called today to let me know he was on the way over when the installer refused to install a superdish since i live in an apartment. Ok, so i asked to forego the local channels since my apartment comes with free cable (only locals). I wish the website had told me that a superdish had to be mounted on a pole in the ground and not on a balcony or I would have just ordered the package without locals. So anyway, I asked the installer if he could just bring over a Dish500 instead. He said he would check and see if he had one in stock. Then he asked if the apartment already had holes for cables. I have a latter of permission from the landlord stating no holes are to be drilled (there are already holes in the balcony for mounting). He said he would have to use flat cables and outright refused to do the install because he "doesn't like using flat cables". I proceeded to tell him that i didn't care about reliability of flat cables vs regular but he said he could not put his name on a job with flat cables. So Dish Network just lost my business. The ONLY reasons I selected Dish over DirecTV was GolTV (which DirecTV will eventually have) and locals (directv doesn't have 'em, and if i can't get 'em on dish without a superdish dish essentially doesn't have 'em either)
DirecTV is sending an installer out on thursday to hook me up. It's a shame. with the rate in which I order Pay Per View soccer Dish Network would have made a buttload of money off of me had their installer not been so difficult.
Anyway, is this something I should expect from every installer? outright refusal to install because they don't want to use flat cables?
DirecTV is sending an installer out on thursday to hook me up. It's a shame. with the rate in which I order Pay Per View soccer Dish Network would have made a buttload of money off of me had their installer not been so difficult.
Anyway, is this something I should expect from every installer? outright refusal to install because they don't want to use flat cables?
Flat Cables
These frequently give problems with Dish Pro in my experience and neither I nor most of the guys I work with will use them for this reason and also for mere economic practicality, WE have to pay extra for those as no Dish install house I'm aware of supplies them to their guys. Why are WE supposed to EAT THE COST of every oddball supply that ISN'T used in 99% of work? Dish Network pretty much FORBIDS passing the cost along to the customer. DirecTV doesn't but a lot of DirecTV contractors who sub work to you do.
Mis-Pointing
A compass/inclinometer like that offered by Suunto is required for this work, and every address can be looked up online for its exact pointing angles, never mind just simply inputting the zip code to the receiver set-up screen. Getting this completely wrong is insane and the mark of someone who wasn't trained at all or by a trainer who was incompetent.
Grounding
NEC regs are where local codes START and this requires that the dish assembly be grounded AS WELL AS the shield layer of the coax at the ground blocks. Ground MUST be to the household ground, NOT a separate ground rod, NOT to concrete, and NOT to hot water, oil pipes, or for crying out loud, gas pipes. This means to cold water where it enters the foundation before the water meter IF the cold water is strapped to the service ground, an eight foot ground rod IF the ground rod is strapped to the service ground, or to the electrical service panel conduit. Anywhere else is asking for problems.
Bad Installers
It's been my experience that 75% of installers are under twenty-five, not trained or badly trained, and motivated solely by making big bucks which they only can if they A)install through trees during the fall and winter, B)fail to take time for elementary grounding and tying down, and C)cut every corner possible.
What you have to remember about them is that they're largely eating the cost themselves of all supplies which can run over $200 per week, they are faced with as bad as 70% No Line of Sight, and 50% of all MDU installs failing to have permission to drill and install or with explicit condo/apartment rules which are so restrictive as to make it impossible such as requiring the dish to be no higher than three feet off the ground and five feet from the common wall to the domicile and in back of the building when line of sight is from the front only.
Never mind gas costs running as much as $600 per week.
DNSC guys are largely paid UNDER $12 per hour which is more than $3 per hour LESS than your average warm body tossed into an IT trench roll-out job with a tech temp company. They typically don't have the option that in-house cable guys have of calling dispatch and having jobs that they're running late on getting to pulled off their schedule and sent to someone else and are expected to get a job done no matter how complex, if it has line of sight.
Contractors are often in a worse position as they are almost totally treated as employees for the purposes of command and control and as contractors solely for the purposes of avoiding tax withholding and benefits which in every state in the USA is a flagrant violation of labor laws and given the failure to withhold, is TAX EVASION. We either put up with it or go hungry without work fighting a fight we will win but without any pay in the meantime.
On top of this, we have to deal with customers who vary between being totally normal and nice to totally nuts and sometimes downright dangerous, always given absurd expectations by a sales force which LIES THROUGH THEIR TEETH whenever they get the chance. "No problem. Our guy will put it on a pole at the back end of your farm and trench the line back to your house no matter how far it is."
Yeah, I'm gonna put in a twelve foot pole and trench seven hundred feet of .5 in. hardline, at my cost, just to get paid $70. Or mount the dish on a mast mount FORTY FEET HIGH.
These frequently give problems with Dish Pro in my experience and neither I nor most of the guys I work with will use them for this reason and also for mere economic practicality, WE have to pay extra for those as no Dish install house I'm aware of supplies them to their guys. Why are WE supposed to EAT THE COST of every oddball supply that ISN'T used in 99% of work? Dish Network pretty much FORBIDS passing the cost along to the customer. DirecTV doesn't but a lot of DirecTV contractors who sub work to you do.
Mis-Pointing
A compass/inclinometer like that offered by Suunto is required for this work, and every address can be looked up online for its exact pointing angles, never mind just simply inputting the zip code to the receiver set-up screen. Getting this completely wrong is insane and the mark of someone who wasn't trained at all or by a trainer who was incompetent.
Grounding
NEC regs are where local codes START and this requires that the dish assembly be grounded AS WELL AS the shield layer of the coax at the ground blocks. Ground MUST be to the household ground, NOT a separate ground rod, NOT to concrete, and NOT to hot water, oil pipes, or for crying out loud, gas pipes. This means to cold water where it enters the foundation before the water meter IF the cold water is strapped to the service ground, an eight foot ground rod IF the ground rod is strapped to the service ground, or to the electrical service panel conduit. Anywhere else is asking for problems.
Bad Installers
It's been my experience that 75% of installers are under twenty-five, not trained or badly trained, and motivated solely by making big bucks which they only can if they A)install through trees during the fall and winter, B)fail to take time for elementary grounding and tying down, and C)cut every corner possible.
What you have to remember about them is that they're largely eating the cost themselves of all supplies which can run over $200 per week, they are faced with as bad as 70% No Line of Sight, and 50% of all MDU installs failing to have permission to drill and install or with explicit condo/apartment rules which are so restrictive as to make it impossible such as requiring the dish to be no higher than three feet off the ground and five feet from the common wall to the domicile and in back of the building when line of sight is from the front only.
Never mind gas costs running as much as $600 per week.
DNSC guys are largely paid UNDER $12 per hour which is more than $3 per hour LESS than your average warm body tossed into an IT trench roll-out job with a tech temp company. They typically don't have the option that in-house cable guys have of calling dispatch and having jobs that they're running late on getting to pulled off their schedule and sent to someone else and are expected to get a job done no matter how complex, if it has line of sight.
Contractors are often in a worse position as they are almost totally treated as employees for the purposes of command and control and as contractors solely for the purposes of avoiding tax withholding and benefits which in every state in the USA is a flagrant violation of labor laws and given the failure to withhold, is TAX EVASION. We either put up with it or go hungry without work fighting a fight we will win but without any pay in the meantime.
On top of this, we have to deal with customers who vary between being totally normal and nice to totally nuts and sometimes downright dangerous, always given absurd expectations by a sales force which LIES THROUGH THEIR TEETH whenever they get the chance. "No problem. Our guy will put it on a pole at the back end of your farm and trench the line back to your house no matter how far it is."
Yeah, I'm gonna put in a twelve foot pole and trench seven hundred feet of .5 in. hardline, at my cost, just to get paid $70. Or mount the dish on a mast mount FORTY FEET HIGH.
You just happened to run into another lousy installer. The D* installer may or may not be any better. Heck, it might even be the same guy!
Walk in the front door....
Dude, I'm not trying to laugh at you, but maybe that's a sign from God or something....
Dude, I'm not trying to laugh at you, but maybe that's a sign from God or something....
One other thing. Dish Network and DirecTV are both massively guilty of the one most important thing in the process of selling satellite services: lack of customer preparation.
They NEVER ask the customer if there are trees in the direction of SW on the compass, they NEVER ask if you have not only permission to drill but permission to INSTALL as well, and NEVER check to see if your domicile has any covenants or group restrictions. Half of every apartment building has no line of sight, more if it is other than rectangular. Most condos have idiotic restrictions. Many customers have gigantic trees in the SW.
If you think you don't like bad news, imagine how we feel driving forty to seventy miles at $2/gallon to find you have no line of sight from the structure and marginal line of sight from the edge of the property eighty feet away and knowing we have to drive another thirty miles then to buy concrete and posts and then thirty miles back to do it and after five hours get paid under $100 out of which comes the cost of concrete and posts and usual supplies. And we get no benefits, no withholding, etc.
They NEVER ask the customer if there are trees in the direction of SW on the compass, they NEVER ask if you have not only permission to drill but permission to INSTALL as well, and NEVER check to see if your domicile has any covenants or group restrictions. Half of every apartment building has no line of sight, more if it is other than rectangular. Most condos have idiotic restrictions. Many customers have gigantic trees in the SW.
If you think you don't like bad news, imagine how we feel driving forty to seventy miles at $2/gallon to find you have no line of sight from the structure and marginal line of sight from the edge of the property eighty feet away and knowing we have to drive another thirty miles then to buy concrete and posts and then thirty miles back to do it and after five hours get paid under $100 out of which comes the cost of concrete and posts and usual supplies. And we get no benefits, no withholding, etc.
SimpleSimon said:
after I ordered from DirecTV I called their installations department so I could directly talk to the installer, and verify it was not the same guy. Definitely not the same guy.
there are 8 other dishes on my apartment building so there must be a way to install here. If I have to drill the holes myself before the dish guy gets there and take the rap for it when I move out fine, I will. But whatever the case may be, the guy that refused to install did so over the phone without even coming to my apartment to look at the situation.
Hell, I'm even willing to leave a window cracked so the cables can get in. I don't care, I just want my satellite!
I talked to a neighbor last night. He said he and his son installed their own dish in about 45 minutes. I think I could have done it, as well. I've got to run a proper grounding strap soon, anyway. I might even try moving mine up onto the roof at some point since they already put in the screws, etc.
