Has DISH discontinued the OTA dongle?

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Two tuners would be great for OTA. I just hope they fix the problem on play back on the 4K joey, and allow us to add or remove stations. I really don't need to surf through 32 Spanish stations. Sure I have a lot of locals on DISH, but I don't have METV, and others so there are times I do like my OTA, especially during storms. So I'm glad they are working on a new and improved OTA dongle, I just hope is ready when we get it, and I'm not a beta tester.
 
I have two HwS's and got the OTA dongles before I scheduled the install of the HwS's as proper "protection". It's come in severely handy and what I have found is that OTA PQ is far better than through DISH. If this unit works on HwS that would be great to have two OTA sources. Fingers crossed.
 
stardust3 said:
Looks like a USB Dual-Tuner Dongle is under development, from the latest retailer chat.
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I Hope so, and I hope that they are using my suggestion for the two ota tuners Echostar/Channel Master unit for the dongle, complete with internet wifi/wired connections, for full guide data on all channels and sub channels. But if we still can't change the way we add ota channels, not just scan , some will still have trouble. I just wish that the ota dongle reception would be closer to what my tv antenna gets. Multi-path rejection is a lot worse using the ota dongle than my tv antenna. I get anything less than 70 on strength on ota channels and the picture drops out. My tv antenna picture stays solid. This needs massive improvement.
 
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Since I have the OTA dongle attached to my HWS I have 4 tuners. If Dish made a dual tuner OTA dongle would that provide me with 5 tuners? Of course, 2 of those tuners would be for OTA only.
 
MikeD-C05 said:
. . . just wish that the ota dongle reception would be closer to what my tv antenna gets. Multi-path rejection is a lot worse using the ota dongle than my tv antenna. I get anything less than 70 on strength on ota channels and the picture drops out. My tv antenna picture stays solid. This needs massive improvement. . .
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I remember with my 722 when "multi-path" issues came up. My TV's were just fine and the DISH boxes were failing and DISH couldn't/wouldn't explain why. About that time was teh HD switch over and I got a sample/beta HD antenna that I put up. It was a directional antenna that has a 50 mile range, towers are 15 miles away and I get 100% signal on all channels. Although I have to shoot through two groves of trees. Since the OTA PQ is far better than DISH retrans. So after taking care of the antenna we never had any problems now especially with the HwS OTA dongle.
 
My Mom and Dad live less than 5 miles from me. They have the 722k with the ota module and I have the hopper 3 with the ota dongle. I live in a mobile home park and my dish is on a pole facing an open field and no trees on the utility lot where it is located. I get good signals on my main locals and subs ,but there are a group of channels that come in near 62- 72 strength and it drops out quite frequently. I just delete them from my menu because I don't have to have them. We both live within the 25 miles from the broadcast towers for our main ota stations.

My Parents in a single story house , have a two story house on the right and on the left of them. They have a huge TREE in the neighbors yard that blocked off western arc for them and I switched them to eastern arc to keep their signals good. There ota channels fluctuate on even some main ota channels like Fox and CBS ,which are both uhf , from 72 down to 65 and then drop out. The VHF delivered ABC and NBC and sub channels come in at 100 %. I think that they are experiencing multi path rejection due to the huge tree and 2 story house where the antenna/sat dish is located on their roof top. I have tried different directions to aim the antenna and even different antennas and they just can't maintain the signal. I even called the CBS station to get them to up their signal and it worked for a few weeks till this last week and now it is back down to 65 and lower. But the tv hooked up to the same antenna in my house and my parents house , NEVER lose signal on any of the stations. That is the same coax split into one for the tv and one for the sat receiver. There is definitely a weakness in the DISH ota module and the ota dongle , to multi path rejection.

That is why I wish they would work with the tv makers to manufacture their ota dongles. They seem to know what they are doing.
 
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I asked Dish via Facebook about when the new OTA dongle will be available, and they replied "I do not have that information as to If or When it will be made available for our customers." The "If" in the reply sounds like they may not be making a new dongle at all, which would be seriously disappointing.
 
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crodrules said:
Of course, when All American Direct went out of business, Dish said that they were looking for a new distant network supplier, and we all know how that turned out.
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Can't say I remember DISH saying that. I don't believe there was or is anyone else that does it via satellite. As much as some of us here who are in no way representative of the viewing public would like Distants, there would be no demand for it especially at the cost involved. If there was All American or a successor company would exist.
 
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John Nv said:
I asked Dish via Facebook about when the new OTA dongle will be available, and they replied "I do not have that information as to If or When it will be made available for our customers." The "If" in the reply sounds like they may not be making a new dongle at all, which would be seriously disappointing.
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People take Facebook replies by who knows what person is responding way too seriously. It's like asking them if a channel is coming, unless announced by DISH it doesn't exist. Scott would be a better source and probably as close to getting the info before being announced as you will get, unless an installer finds out in a Chat and posts it.
 
Tampa8 said:
People take Facebook replies by who knows what person is responding...
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If the person who responded was an actual Dish employee, it would actually be a DIRT member. The "I" in DIRT stands for "Internet" - they cover message forums like this one, Facebook, Twitter, and so on.
 
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There you go - answered by @mikeH_dishNetwork
 

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