Sorry in advance for the long post and the bad news.....I have no information for those of you that are able to get the spot beam, but are still waiting for NBC, CBS and FOX.
However, for those of us that have not been able to get the spot, I have some rather bad news. I sent the following letter to the ceo@dish email address and got the response below my letter.
If you don't feel like reading it all, the short version is they know we can't get the spot beam, they are doing nothing about it, and we are basically out of luck.
Goodbye Dish Network. This is the final straw!!!
MY LETTER:
"I have been a subscriber to Dish Network for over 6 years and I have been very pleased with the service, equipment, technical support, and mostly with the best DVR in the world. However, I have recently tried multiple times to get live chat and telephone CSRs to answer a question without any satisfaction. I am hoping you can help me with a straight answer to a rather simple question.
I live in Lewisburg, PA (17837) in the Wilkes-Barre DMA. I have waited very patiently for HD local channels to become available to my market. I was pleased to see that at least one of my locals (WNEP in HD) was made available to my DMA. I was prepared to upgrade to a VIP series receiver and extend my contract the required term, trusting that the other HD locals would soon become available. This is not a question about when those channels will be available, so please keep reading.
Upon learning of the new local HD channel I contacted a local retailer to confirm that the information was accurate and that this channel was indeed live. He advised me that yes it was, but that in our portion of the DMA (far west side), the spotbeam on which this channel (and all future HD locals) is being delivered is too weak to receive a reliable signal. He advised that the channel cuts in and out, drops audio, and is viewable less than 10% of the time. Needless to say, I was quite disappointed.
Your website initially showed this channel as "available" at my physical address, but has since been changed to show "no HD locals" for my address. This leads me to believe that Dish is aware of the problem. In all my discussions with your CSR's I have been told everything from "Yes, you will get this channel without issue" to "No, it is not available". None of them seem aware of the spotbeam issue.
Can you please confirm if this is a known issue and if anything is being done to deliver HD local channels to the entire Wilkes-Barre DMA? If nothing is being done, does this mean that I am forever "out of luck" when it comes to receiving HD locals from Dish?
I would hate to have to switch to DirecTV or my cable company, both of which have had all of my HD locals for some time now. I have been so pleased with Dish that I was willing to wait for you to catch up to the competition, but now it seems that I will never be able to see these channels at my address. This would really force my hand.
I anxiously await your reply. Thank you.
RESPONSE:
Unfortunately, your zip code falls outside of the spot beam for locals in HD for the Wilkes-Barre DMA. We will not be able to provide these channels to you at this time and there is no timeframe for if or when we will be able to provide you HD locals. I apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused you.
Thanks,
Gregory W.
