I had all sorts of fun with my 2 Hopper / 1 Joey installation today. The installer arrived at 7:55am and just finished some 6 hours and 40 minutes later.
It stated off badly as his work order was written up as a 1 Hopper / 2 Joey installation. When he called into Dish to have the order corrected, they told him that it was not possible to order 2 Hoppers & 1 Joey. Go figure.
He handed his phone to me and I spent the next 25 minutes attempting to persuade the CSR that I was promised and had ordered 2 Hoppers and 1 Joey. The CSR finally pulled up a copy of my chat transcript and was able to confirm that I did indeed order 2 Hoppers and 1 Joey. It took them another 15 minutes to figure out how to correct this on their new system. They ended up having to change the order to 2 Hoppers and 2 Joeys, with the installer un-installing the second Joey after its activation. It was pretty frustrating to have to convince them that I had ordered a 2H/1J system. I had PM'd and emailed 2 DIRT team members as well as chatted online with a Dish CSR before placing the order. None mentioned that there was any problem with ordering 2 Hoppers and 1 Joey. The installer said that these issues come up a lot at the time of installation. There is really no excuse for this. The sales order should have exactly matched what I had ordered. I'm just glad that I placed the order via online chat, so that there was a "paper trail".
Next issue was that the installer did not have a Duo Node in his truck. He went back to his office and picked up a Duo Node. On with the install...
The installer decided it would be easiest to remove my current dishes and replace them with a single DishHD 3 LNB dish. Installation of the dishes and Duo Node went pretty smoothly.
Now onto the Hopper installations. He connected the first Hopper and it started its usual Check Switch and software download routine. He then proceeded with installation of the second Hopper while the first was downloading. The second Hopper downloaded its software and was ready for activation in about 20 minutes. The first however was still on the download screen after 45 minutes. He restarted it, reset factory defaults and tried again. Same result, it was still hung after another 25 minutes. He decided that there may be an issue with the receiver and swapped it with another Hopper that he had in his truck. Same result with the next receiver. He then decided to recheck all of the cabling and detected what appeared to him to be a bad LNB. He replaced the LNB, but the problem remained. On a whim, he disconnected the ground wire from the Duo Node. After doing so, the cabling and LNBs checked out fine. With the ground wire disconnected, the 2nd Hopper downloaded its software in about 17 minutes.
Before installing the Joey(s), the Hoppers had to be added to the account and activated. Apparently Dish is having some difficulty migrating to a new activation system and the new system was not working consistently when he called in. It took about 90 minutes before Dish had the receivers activated.
The installer isn't really to be blamed for any of these issues. Most of it (except for possibly the ground wire weirdness) was out of his control. Dish probably could have picked a better time to deploy a new activation system than during the Hopper/Joey roll-out.
After a lot of undue stress and a lot of waiting for software downloads and receiver activations, all appears to be working. Now I am off to a very late start to my work day. I'll have to wait until tonight to give the system a good going over.
It stated off badly as his work order was written up as a 1 Hopper / 2 Joey installation. When he called into Dish to have the order corrected, they told him that it was not possible to order 2 Hoppers & 1 Joey. Go figure.
He handed his phone to me and I spent the next 25 minutes attempting to persuade the CSR that I was promised and had ordered 2 Hoppers and 1 Joey. The CSR finally pulled up a copy of my chat transcript and was able to confirm that I did indeed order 2 Hoppers and 1 Joey. It took them another 15 minutes to figure out how to correct this on their new system. They ended up having to change the order to 2 Hoppers and 2 Joeys, with the installer un-installing the second Joey after its activation. It was pretty frustrating to have to convince them that I had ordered a 2H/1J system. I had PM'd and emailed 2 DIRT team members as well as chatted online with a Dish CSR before placing the order. None mentioned that there was any problem with ordering 2 Hoppers and 1 Joey. The installer said that these issues come up a lot at the time of installation. There is really no excuse for this. The sales order should have exactly matched what I had ordered. I'm just glad that I placed the order via online chat, so that there was a "paper trail".Next issue was that the installer did not have a Duo Node in his truck. He went back to his office and picked up a Duo Node. On with the install...
The installer decided it would be easiest to remove my current dishes and replace them with a single DishHD 3 LNB dish. Installation of the dishes and Duo Node went pretty smoothly.
Now onto the Hopper installations. He connected the first Hopper and it started its usual Check Switch and software download routine. He then proceeded with installation of the second Hopper while the first was downloading. The second Hopper downloaded its software and was ready for activation in about 20 minutes. The first however was still on the download screen after 45 minutes. He restarted it, reset factory defaults and tried again. Same result, it was still hung after another 25 minutes. He decided that there may be an issue with the receiver and swapped it with another Hopper that he had in his truck. Same result with the next receiver. He then decided to recheck all of the cabling and detected what appeared to him to be a bad LNB. He replaced the LNB, but the problem remained. On a whim, he disconnected the ground wire from the Duo Node. After doing so, the cabling and LNBs checked out fine. With the ground wire disconnected, the 2nd Hopper downloaded its software in about 17 minutes.
Before installing the Joey(s), the Hoppers had to be added to the account and activated. Apparently Dish is having some difficulty migrating to a new activation system and the new system was not working consistently when he called in. It took about 90 minutes before Dish had the receivers activated.
The installer isn't really to be blamed for any of these issues. Most of it (except for possibly the ground wire weirdness) was out of his control. Dish probably could have picked a better time to deploy a new activation system than during the Hopper/Joey roll-out.
After a lot of undue stress and a lot of waiting for software downloads and receiver activations, all appears to be working. Now I am off to a very late start to my work day. I'll have to wait until tonight to give the system a good going over.
