Dish Selection Manifesto

[misbehaving]

So I'm continuing to document my foray into the satellite market with an update that includes my order placement process.

Although initially I was just going to go down to my local radio shack and order what I needed, but I had second thoughts and decided to place my order from the dishstore.net instead. I have nothing but positiive feedback from forum posters who had gone this route. So I printed out the details from DISHSTORE.Net Better than Club Dish Promotion, got my clubdish certificate number from my in-laws, and called them up Saturday morning.

I must say that my overall impresion of ordering through the dishstore was that it felt alot like going through the dish builder of the Dish website. The woman I spoke to was very unemotional and sounded like she was reading from a script when taking me through the process. There was one hiccup when she wanted to get my credit card number to charge the $49.99 activation fee to, which would be credited on my first Dish bill, but their promotion clearly states that the activation fee was waived entirely which puts them apart from other Dish dealers. My wife grabbed the phone (she does that alot) and was rather insistent with the woman on the other side of the line, and the matter was resolved quickly. The activation fee was waived. The rest of the process was painless, except that she was about to hang up when I realized she hadn't asked me what type of equipment I wanted. I specified my need for a 722 and 222 and she made the necessary adjustments. She called me back with an install date within 15 minutes and then 15 minutes after that a representative from Dish called me back to verify that date.

So my install date is going to be this Thursday. I have some things to prepare before then, such as my OTA signal and my slave splits. I'll update everybody after my install.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Sounds like you got the after hours operator for DishStore, as when you call between 11am and 7 PM you normally get Claude directly.

Let us know how your install goes!

 

[FitzAusTex]

should he call back and talk to Claude to make sure he's getting all the correct equipment? receivers/dish/lnbs? based off his recap with the afterhours rep, i'm pretty sure i'd call back and make certain they were going to bring what i was expecting.

 

[misbehaving]

Yesterday was the next step of my DISH journey, the INSTALL.

The technician was scheduled to arrive anywhere between 8 AM and noon. I went ahead and scheduled the whole day off from work because I wanted to be there to watch every aspect of install in case I needed to troubleshoot a problem later on.

At 10AM my wife grew impatient and called DISH to make sure the installer was indeed scheduled. DISH put my wife on hold, did some checking, and came back to say he was in line to get the equipment needed and should be there within the allotted time. Minutes later the tech himself calls to tell us he is having difficulty finding a 1000.2 dish and was currently looking for a 1000. He still had hopes of finding a dish and being at the house by early afternoon.

Immediately after ending the call I get on line to check out the differences between the 1000 and 1000.2. The 1000 is slightly smaller, but other than that there are no major differences. I am concerned that this might cause problems picking up an adequate signal from the 129 satellite, but I'll wait and see and if I need to I'll pitch a fit later.

Now it's 3:30 and still no tech. We call him again and he tells us he got hung up on another job. He still plans to be here, but can't yet say when that might be. I've basically wasted a vacation day, but that was my fault for expecting on-time service as scheduled.

At 5:30 I have to leave to go to a soccer meeting and there is still no tech.

At 6:15 my wife text's me to say the tech has finally arrived.

At 6:30 I arrive back home and the tech has already pulled the cable (under the house) from the power box to where the dish was going to be mounted. It just so happens that in the mail that day was my receipt from the dishstore for the order, and on it the hardware listed for install was a 625 and a 322 (I ordered a 722 and 222). I immediately questioned the tech about this, but his workorder stated a 722 and a 222 for me, so we're are not sure why the receipt said what it said.

At 10:30 I finally signed the paperwork and he was on his way. Four of my TV's are set up, and he gave me some tips about how to go about slaving off the other three. I have a strong signal and the picture looks great on all 4 TV's. The tech knew what he was doing, was a real nice guy and put up with me asking him every question under the sun while he was slaving away. He was a contractor, so he didn't work directly for DISH. He left me his phone number in case I ever had any problems.

He finished so late I haven't had much time to sit and enjoy the programming, but I did make sure to check out a game on the NFL network in HD, and it was awesome.

My next major posting will be.....THE FIRST BILL.

 

[misbehaving]

I wasn't going to post again until my first Dish bill arrived, but some recent outages have changed that.

Almost every day since the install my second receiver (222) has run into the acquiring signal issue that has been reported numerous times on this forum. Our main TV where the 722 is located has not seen that problem. Since it is only one receiver I can rule out a dish alignment problem. When the install was done the tech utilized existing cabling to run the feed from the ground to the receiver. That particular cable run is probably 10+ years old and I'm thinking that maybe a new cable run there might solve the problem. Any opinions?

I also had a problem for the first couple days with the TV2 off of the 722 changing channels spontaneously. My next door neighbor has Dish, so i figured his UHF remote was set to my same frequency. I changed the frequency and haven't had a problem since.

MB

 

[mdonnelly]

I wasn't going to post again until my first Dish bill arrived, but some recent outages have changed that.

Almost every day since the install my second receiver (222) has run into the acquiring signal issue that has been reported numerous times on this forum. Our main TV where the 722 is located has not seen that problem. Since it is only one receiver I can rule out a dish alignment problem. When the install was done the tech utilized existing cabling to run the feed from the ground to the receiver. That particular cable run is probably 10+ years old and I'm thinking that maybe a new cable run there might solve the problem. Any opinions?

I also had a problem for the first couple days with the TV2 off of the 722 changing channels spontaneously. My next door neighbor has Dish, so i figured his UHF remote was set to my same frequency. I changed the frequency and haven't had a problem since.

MB

If that 10 year old cable isn't labeled RG6, then that is most likely the problem. Old RG59 cable doesn't have the frequency response characteristics to work well with DBS signals.

 

[mruk69]

If the receiver is faulty Dish will replace it.

I didn't know there were 7 tv's in Arkansas.

Good look my friend.

 

[misbehaving]

I replaced the old cable and I haven't had an issue with lost signal once since then. Problem solved.

I was able to access my first month bill from the DISH website and I must say there weren't too many surprises. First off, your first bill is for a two month period. My service began on 8/23 and this invoice covers from 8/23 - 10/22. The payment is due by 9/13, which means I will be paying for the first month I already had the system plus the second month in advance, which is simiar to how cable billed.

At first the invoice appeared confusing with everything being listed twice, but once you remember it is for a two month period it is easy to understand. Here is how it is broken down:

DVR Advantage 49.99
DVR Advantage 49.99
Dish HD 2 Premium 40.00
Dish HD 2 Premiun 40.00
DHPP 5.99
DHPP 5.99
Add'l Recvr 6.00
Add'l Recvr 6.00
Dish HD Free (1 of 6)-20.00
Dish HD Free (2 of 6)-20.00
HBO/Max Free -20.00
HBO/Max Free -20.00
DHPP Credit -5.99
DHPP Credit -5.99
DHA Credit -49.99

Sub Total 61.99
Tax 7.20
Total 69.19

Everything was as advertised. NO SURPRISES.

BTW....this past weekend was my first college football weekend with HD and it was awesome.

 

[biggwill]

As a Tiger tailgater, I have been lurking on this wonderful site to gain knowledge (solutions) for my mobile satellite issues (for the past 8 football seasons.) This is absolutely one of the best posts that I have ever seen. Good equipment selection. You made a better decision than I did. I recently purchased a dual tuner Direct TV DVR, and I just learned that I will not be able to use it to show two independent games on two seperate TVs. We will have to do the two box deal. It is no problem as we have an extra box, but I do not understand why they couldn't add this simple feature to the box for PIP fanatics. By the way...As a Tiger Fan, I was happy with the outcome of the game...But I will be pulling for coach Croom and them Dawgs for the rest of this year. Ya'll Have a great season!

 

[Claude Greiner]

Since your already installed, send me a PM with your account number.

I'll get your Dishstore rebate processed without mailing in the paperwork and see if it was setup correctly.

Claude Greiner
Dishstore.net

 

[misbehaving]

but I do not understand why they couldn't add this simple feature to the box for PIP fanatics. By the way...As a Tiger Fan, I was happy with the outcome of the game...But I will be pulling for coach Croom and them Dawgs for the rest of this year. Ya'll Have a great season!

I do wish that DISH would move the location of the PIP so that it is closer to the edge of the screen instead of almost dead center, but the split screen helps solve that problem. BTW, for those PIP users out there I discovered that depressing the pip position button on the remote jumps directly to split screen (without having to cycle through to it using the main pip button) and back to normal when depressed a second time.

I too will pull for Mississippi State for the rest of the season. Croom has that program heading in the right direction.

MB

 

[misbehaving]

Since your already installed, send me a PM with your account number.

Done. Thanks!

I had another hiccup last night that I don't recall reading about anywhere on the forum before. This particular problem happened one other time the day after installation, but I blew it off until it happened again last night.

Both times this occurred on my VIP222. Although the sound of the channel would be normal, and the guide would display, there would be no picture on the TV. The first time this happened it was on the TV2 output. The second time was on TV1. When I changed the channel the banner of the new channel would display and the sound would be there, but still no picture. Both times I had to hold down the power button until the system reset, and after everything rebooted (which can take as long as 15 minutes) the picture would display normally. Any thoughts?

MB

 

[misbehaving]

Rain

Still no input regarding my picture loss on the 222, but I'm patient.

In the mean time I need to comment on picture loss during rain storms. For the past two days we have had a substantial amount of rain in our area and I have lost my satellite signal numerous times during that period. I had read in this forum that typically signal loss only occurs when a major storm is in the area. I'm wondering, what constitutes a MAJOR STORM. I would categorize what we have been receiving over the past two days as heavy at times, but not major. This has frustrated my wife to no end as she attempts to watch the US Open and therefore does not bode well for our long term adoption of satellite service.

 

[BigTimMN]

You may want to start a new thread with your new issue, as that way everyone would know its something different... I havnt seen this issue, so i cant really help ya.

 

[misbehaving]

You may want to start a new thread with your new issue, as that way everyone would know its something different... I havnt seen this issue, so i cant really help ya.

I took your advice and posted a seperate entry, to which I recieved a single response that informed me that this is a common problem with the 222 and if it keeps happening I could ask for another box. Not very encouraging, but the problem has not recurred again and we will see.

I have another issue, this time with the 722. I will post it here and then probably submit another seperate thread, but I wanted to keep a journal of my experiences in one location to benefit those prospective Dish adopters.

The new issue is that the 722 for no apprarent reason turns itself completely off. I tried to turn it back on with no affect, and then a couple minutes later it comes on and re-acquires the sateliite signal. This is not due to inactivity because I was watching it at 7:30 CDT last night and had just changed the channel when this happened. My wife had told me that this had happened to her twice before, but I blew it off because this was late at night and I thought the inactivity timer was the culprit. Not so. During the re-booting all of the led's on the front panel lit up. It's operated normally after it completed doing whatever it was doing.

Any ideas on this one?

 

[misbehaving]

I posted another thread about the 722 rebooting and the responses there pretty much agree that the unit is over heating. There is a way via diagnostics to check the high, low and average temperature that the unit has been running at. I will do that tonight. Also, the spot where the box is located is kind of cramped and does not lend itself for good airflow. I will try and move the box to a more condusive location as well.

 

[misbehaving]

Update: My 722 went kaput last night. When I woke up this morning the only light on the unit that was lit was the TV1 light. Then the light went out and the front was completely dark. Then a few minutes later the TV1 light came on again, and then immediately went off again. This continued for several minutes. I finally unplugged the unit until I could deal with it at lunch (it was 6 AM).

At lunch I plugged the unit back in and the same thing contunued. TV1 light on, off, on, off, on, off. The remote control had no affect. I held down the power button for 10 seconds, still no affect. No other lights were lit. I checked the TV connected to TV2 and nothing but snow appeared there.

I have a call into the tech who installed my system. This is EXTREMELY disappointing!

 

[Jim5506]

Call Dish they will ship you a replacement. The tech probably does not have the authority to replace it.

 

[misbehaving]

Call Dish they will ship you a replacement. The tech probably does not have the authority to replace it.

I did just that since the tech never called me back. I've read stories here in the forum about good tech support and bad tech support, and I think mine was somewhere in the middle. I had the hardest time getting her to understand the problem (CSR-"What is on you TV screen?" ME - "Ma'am, as I've said before there is nothing on my screen because I can't get the unit to turn on"). But she was nice enough and did make arrangements to send out a new unit. She said it would be 3 to 5 days. If I didn't also have a 222 on a second HD TV with a college football weekend coming up, I would be PISSED! I also split my OTA signal so it runs through my box and directly to the TV, so I can at least watch my locals in HD.

This has not been a very promising start.

 

[misbehaving]

I received my replacement 722 yesterday from UPS (5 days since my service call). I unboxed it, hooked it up, activated it with a phone call, and everything seems to be back to normal. My old unit is being dropped off at UPS today to be shipped back.

I moved the unit to a different location with greater air flow, so we'll see if the re-booting problems continue.

MB