As a satisfied DirecTV user, I have a question about Dish on behalf of my 76 year old step mother, as I am not familiar with Dish. She recently paid $100 to upgrade to HD after my stepbrother gave her a new 42" Vizio HDTV for Christmas. She calls the toll-free number on her Dish bill, the tech arrives, replaces her old DVR with a new ViP722k and sets it all up. She says he replaced the dish, but I don't recall what was there and it looks faded and used. That's OK if it's good and works OK. But here's the issue: It looks no better than the SD I have in my guest house on a DirecTV SD receiver. I checked the DVR settings and the TV settings and best I can tell from info I got online from Dish, it all looks correct. IMO, he set her TV to 'Panoramic' to fill the screen, as it's all 480p and grainy. The dish is dual LNB, marked '110' and '119'. Doesn't she also need 129 for HD? None of her programming appears to be HD (720p or 1080p), just stretched-out 480p. And the tech is the one that set up her TV (yes, he used an HDMI cable) and remote. Any thoughts so I can advise her on what to say to customer service when calls to complain? Did this tech see a 76 year old widower with no male figure in the picture, took the easy way out and figured she wouldn't know the difference? Something's not right. I see Dish HD often at friends' houses, local restaurants, etc. and it looks as good as my DirecTV HD so I'm certain something's amiss. BTW, her channel listing indicates that a channel is HD but I swear it looks like my SD and no better than what she had before. This is in Houston, AL zip 35572, if azimuth/elevation is needed. Any advice or insight would be appreciated.
Dish question from Dish newbie
- Thread starter tonyruck
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If in Western Arc, yes you need all three. If Eastern Arc you only need 61.5 & 72.7.
Is "110" & "119" handwritten on the. LNB?
Run a checkswitch to make sure which sats are being seen.
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Is "110" & "119" handwritten on the. LNB?
Run a checkswitch to make sure which sats are being seen.
Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys
You hit the right answer. You need 129 for the majority of HD. Your instincts are also correct, normally you would see a new dish installed, and it would have 3 LNB's. In addition, the receiver has to be set to 1080I, it may not be.
Tampa8, thx for the reply. Pretty sure I have the TV set to 1080 also, but I'll double check as soon as I can get up the road to her house.
Navychop, thx to you as well: the '110' & '119' is molded into the plastic housing below each LNB; I'll run a checkswitch as soon as I can.
Navychop, thx to you as well: the '110' & '119' is molded into the plastic housing below each LNB; I'll run a checkswitch as soon as I can.
This installer needs a serious lesson in repect. If you can't appeal to their sense of doing what's right, you can stick them financially (and it will hurt).
I'd suggest calling DISH and telling them that something isn't right. You can't address what you don't know about.
I'd suggest calling DISH and telling them that something isn't right. You can't address what you don't know about.
Thanks for your input, harshness. I can ad to that and say I avoid addressing anything without first getting the facts and the full story to the best of my ability.
I like to have some knowlege in the ol' tool belt when we call to perhaps avoid the hassle of the scripted, 30 minute, tiered response ("Are you sure it's plugged in?", "Are there bushes or limbs blocking the dish?", etc.).
My stepmom is way too mellow and let's people take advantage of her constantly and she has a difficult time saying "no." I myself am not confrontational but will take the necessary steps to resolve siutuations to my satisfaction. Nothing gets my fur up quicker than finding out someone has tried or succeeded in pulling something over on an elderly person. In fairness, I don't like jumping to conclusions and want to know more about the technical process with Dish's HD before she calls them.
As Stephen Hawking put it, "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
Hit Menu 6, 8. That is the screen for HD resolution. I believe ESPN which is Channel 140 HD. Is on sat 110. So if you don't have the correct dish installed you can check PQ on 140 HD.
Thank you. The technical explanation for your situation is: Her installation was hosed. BAD tech!
Need to call to get fixed. Don't fool around with this. Use DIRT and get it done right and quick.
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Having a Western Arc setup in the Birmingham market is okay, but it needs to be a 3 slot dish (DISH 1000.2) as opposed to a DISH 500 pictured above.
The local HD channels are on 119W so she should be able to get HD local channels with the current setup:
WJSU
WIAT
WTTO
WBRC
WUOA
WABM
WVTM
WBIQ
Missing 129W on DISH is like missing the Ka satellites (99W, 103W) on DIRECTV except that you may still get locals in HD with DISH without the wing bird.
The local HD channels are on 119W so she should be able to get HD local channels with the current setup:
WJSU
WIAT
WTTO
WBRC
WUOA
WABM
WVTM
WBIQ
Missing 129W on DISH is like missing the Ka satellites (99W, 103W) on DIRECTV except that you may still get locals in HD with DISH without the wing bird.
Also important, get it done while the original installer can still be docked pay for short-cutting the installation.
A different Dish installer/tech came out to my stepmom’s Saturday 2/15, took one look at the setup and said...."He should have installed a new dish with 3 LNBF’s, it needs sat 129 for HD”. He said where the old pole and dish were that he couldn’t see 129 through an overgrown bush, which was too big to trim. He installed a new pole about 8 feet to the east to clear the bush and house roof and installed a new black dish with 3 LNBF’s and the words ‘Dish HD’ on the reflector. He dialed it in, works great, nice 1080i HD picture on the new 42” Vizio, just as it should be. As it turns out, my suspicions about having LNBF’s only for 110 & 119 and not one for 129 were right and all you guys confirmed it. The first tech dropped the ball big time, didn’t even upgrade the old dish, just the DVR. This second tech gave me a name and number of an area manager and I will speak with him later to insure the first tech gets a closed-door session. If he was NOT trying to put one over on a 76 year old widow I’d love to hear his explanation. Thanks again to all of you that responded, my stepmom is a happy camper now.
