HD upgrade help

[joejoe81]

I'll try to keep this short.

Parents live in NY, but have a house in Florida. They recently bought an HDTV for their NY home and I bought them one for their Florida home. Right now they have a 311 receiver they bring back and forth, but want to upgrade to HD in both houses with 2 receivers. They also have an older DVR, I think 501, that they own. They want to be able to support 4 TVS, 2 HD, 2SD

Questions:

1) Would the 622 for HD and SD in one house, and 211 and 501 in the other be the best option?

2) What are the extra costs we will be looking at? From what I see it's 75$ shipped for the 622, and 50$ shipped for the 211. Monthly it's $12 for two more receivers + $6 for the DVR, $18 total, Is this correct?

3) Is this something we can install ourselves? Will there be an extra charge or hassle from Dish to install HD in two locations on one account?

Any info or incite would be great.

Thanks

 

[Agonizing Fury]

Not entirely clear on what your goals are on this, but it looks like you want to have service simultaneously in two different locations with only one account? This is technically not allowed (In that case you would need a separate account for each location). Your best option, would be to get a 622 (or 722) and have them bring it back and forth with them as they move back and forth. Do the upgrade at one house, then when they move back, do a dish mover to the other location so that the system will be properly installed for HD at both houses. Then they can just bring their receiver back and forth with them as they move and just call dish to change the address each time they move. This will keep them a little closer to the legal side of the grey area that exists for snowbirds.

 

[garys]

Also consider most HD local channels on 61.5 are on spots and would not be viewable in one of the locations. Moving back and forth would take care of that.

 

[joejoe81]

Ok, so it seems like they're stuck having to bring a receiver back and forth, or get two accounts. At least they'll save some money on not getting the 2nd receiver.

I know they have called to move the service a couple times now, is this something they can continue doing? I figured it would just be easier to keep separate receivers.

 

[garys]

Yes, just make sure they use a dish mover when to change locations the first time otherwise they might not have all the HD channels when they get there. They also have to call each time the change locations to make sure the local HD channels are going to be received otherwise they will see the channels in their guide but not be able to view them due to them being on spotbeams. If they also have an OTA antenna in each location, they will need to scan them everytime they change location. Note: they will save money by not having two receivers. Taking the receivers with them is not that tough, my parents did that for years. The hard part is having both locations wired.