My Sister’s Upgrade from 722 to Hopper3

[dweber]

I convinced my sister to upgrade herVIP-722 receiver to a Hopper3 and wireless Joey. Her installer had done installations for 6 months. I was very disappointed in his performance. She lives in Conneaut, Ohio on Lake Erie. She gets Cleveland, Ohio stations which are available on both Eastern Arc (61.5 transponder 22) and Western Arc (129 transponder 1). I had her using Western Arc because Eastern Arc had line of site issues.
The installer insisted she should be using Eastern Arc. I talked to the installer by phone and convinced him to use Western Arc. He changed out the LNB’s, finished the installation and left.
My sister called me and said that the wireless Joey would not work and the TV pictures did not look good. I went through the setup with her by phone.
1) The TV connected to the Hopper3 was setup as 480i instead of 1080p. After setting the correct resolution and Adjusting Screen the picture was great.
2) The Wireless Access Point Switch was set to Client instead of Access Point. This fixed the problem with the Wireless Joey in her bedroom. The installer must have accidentally flipped the switch when he was installing a surge protector after doing the installation. This took me a while to troubleshoot by phone.
3) The TV connected to the wireless Joey was setup as 720p instead of 1080p. After setting the correct resolution and Adjusting Screen the picture was great.
4) I then talked my sister through setting up timers (722 did not allow you to save timers to remote), setting favorite channels, setting up PTAT, and picking names for the Remote and the Hopper3. I had my sister run diagnostics and everything looks good.
The Dish technicians that I have had were always very thorough although they were uninformed on how to install two Hopper3 receivers. My sister’s installer was very poor. Either he was not taught how to do a “complete install” or he was lazy. Dish needs to clone Hipkat and JSheridan for all of their installers.

 

[HipKat]

I'm not surprised. A little disgusted, but not surprised. I see shoddy work everywhere I go. BTW, nice catch on the WAP. Some of them DO come out of the box set to Client. It's a good idea to check each one when you unbox it. Also, even in my office, where I preach this to everyone in earshot, almost no one sets the menu items up correctly. Remote Room name, TV Resolution and screen size, Power to Last Channel instead of Smart Channel or the stupid Home Screen, Etc.

Did he even connect it to her internet? He wasn't driving an old station wagon with a cooler full of beer next to the Dish, was he?? lol

It's sickening. In my mind. we're supposed to be professional. As professional as any other trade but some of these clowns don't give a damn about how it looks (BTW, how DID the install look?), how it works, if the customer is totally satisfied, et al.

Sorry for her bad experience but thankfully she has a brother that hangs out on SG's forum

 

[JSheridan]

We recently saw a DirecTV 'tech' pounding a new pole into the frozen ground with a sledge hammer. No concrete, just ice.

 

[Bobby]

We recently saw a DirecTV 'tech' pounding a new pole into the frozen ground with a sledge hammer. No concrete, just ice.

And in the Spring thaw it will be known as “the leaning dish of Upstate NY!”

 

[JSheridan]

And in the Spring thaw it will be known as “the leaning dish of Upstate NY!”

You got that right. I've seen them do this before. They soften the ground a little with hot water and pound away. Then the water freezes around the pole and it hardens until the weather turns warmer. Then in the spring when the 'tech' who did it is no where to be found the customer calls us for a repair and says how much they wish they had called us in the first place.

 

[ChadT41]

I always found it funny when I would explain to a customer that scheduling a pole mount in a frozen area would not be recommended. They get pissed when you explain to them why they should wait until the ground thaws some.
On a side note, I was never surprised at the folks that demanded it be done right away, and had to call back in the spring/summer for signal loss. I LOVED getting those callbacks because I would explain the same thing I explained months prior.

 

[HipKat]

I always found it funny when I would explain to a customer that scheduling a pole mount in a frozen area would not be recommended. They get pissed when you explain to them why they should wait until the ground thaws some.
On a side note, I was never surprised at the folks that demanded it be done right away, and had to call back in the spring/summer for signal loss. I LOVED getting those callbacks because I would explain the same thing I explained months prior.

A little off topic but I love when a customer tries to avoid a roof mount by telling me he doesn't want holes in his roof and I point out the Chimney, the Furnace vent, the Plumbing vent...... I bet 99% of the time, they end up on the roof, a corner mount or last gasp - the fascia

 

[ewindowman]

I had a tech come out a few years ago to upgrade the Dish from a Dish 500 to a eastern arc . He was looking all around the property to install the Dish and asked if it would be ok for a roof mount. I have a lower level roof on the back of my house about 8 feet up . Safe access so I said drill away.

 

[ChadT41]

I have two antennas. One on the west side and one on the east side of my house. One is a DPH and the other is a DPP, both WA. Both on the corner of the roof.

Now on a different note, I need to find a tech that can do broadband really well, and I mean outside just Dish. Broadband is my weak point, and I know I don’t have my router configured the best way, and it strongly affects my Dish system. I don’t trust Cox, because, well I know the people I have gotten jobs there and yea, I would rather just skip on that BS. Phoenix is huge, so you would think it would be easy to find someone with all the knowledge I need, and that I can combine with mine. I haven’t found anyone yet... grrr.

 

[dvrexpander]

Dish techs are usually employed by RSP's or regional service providers and don't pay jack!!! They constantly find ways to screw the tech out of money so their main goal or at least those in my old crap RSP I used to work for ViaSat was to get in and get out fast. You got only $25 a service call regardless of how far you drove to the call and drove to the next call with no pay for drive time. You maybe got $30 for a two room upgrade and so on ...you get the idea.
If the customer couldn't change inputs on the VCR in 12 days after you left and called in for a return service call you were screwed out of that pay and then some for months later. If they didn't press all 0's on the survey you were also ripped of money for months on end although the customer thought 10,10, 10 mean TENS across the board but instead you got a 1 for every other question. I can go on and on and I'm sure others here can too.
The revolving door of techs now is because of how low they are paid so don't blame them entirely for what they did they aren't exactly trained well and all the good ones were pushed out the door years ago cause of the crack down on ratings as mentioned above.

 

[TheKrell]

at least those in my old crap RSP I used to work for ViaSat was to get in and get out fast. You got only $25 a service call regardless of how far you drove to the call and drove to the next call with no pay for drive time.

ViaSat is indeed a crap provider. I heard the $25 figure from one of their techs. When I moved into my current house, they did our Dish Mover and screwed up just about everthing they could possibly screw up. (I posted about that back in 2004.)

 

[navychop]

So I guess my $20 and $40 tips really meant something.

 

[HipKat]

So I guess my $20 and $40 tips really meant something.

They do but don't ever tell anyone you tipped a tech. It's a fireable offense to accept a tip. I swear, this is true.

 

[HipKat]

Dish techs are usually employed by RSP's or regional service providers and don't pay jack!!! They constantly find ways to screw the tech out of money so their main goal or at least those in my old crap RSP I used to work for ViaSat was to get in and get out fast. You got only $25 a service call regardless of how far you drove to the call and drove to the next call with no pay for drive time. You maybe got $30 for a two room upgrade and so on ...you get the idea.
If the customer couldn't change inputs on the VCR in 12 days after you left and called in for a return service call you were screwed out of that pay and then some for months later. If they didn't press all 0's on the survey you were also ripped of money for months on end although the customer thought 10,10, 10 mean TENS across the board but instead you got a 1 for every other question. I can go on and on and I'm sure others here can too.
The revolving door of techs now is because of how low they are paid so don't blame them entirely for what they did they aren't exactly trained well and all the good ones were pushed out the door years ago cause of the crack down on ratings as mentioned above.

You're not very wrong. When I started, a New Connect for a top tier tech was $72.00 plus $15.00 for each additional room. Now we go off a point system - every job has a certain point value. 1 room new connect is 18 points, each additional room is 4 points. I'm a top level Tier 6 tech with a bonus for over 4 years with my company so I get 2.65 per point. Now that New Connect pays $47.70 and $10.60 per addt'l room. Dishnet was $91.00 and @10.00 if you sold a router, which was an easy sale since the Modem had no WiFi. Now it's 30 points or $79.50.

As for CSAT, they changed it to 9's being the best, since so many people didn't get that there's no 10 button on a phone. We have to beg for 9's because the threshold for a 3 month score period is like 8.75. If I drop a tech level, that's 33 cents a point - for 3 months. Do that math at 100 points a day, 5 days a week, 12 week score card period. So do your tech a huge favor. Take the survey and just hit 9's. It doesn't save you money to fail him.

And as posted, a 12 day return call is death to a tech and those wonderful CSR's LOVE to create TC's for things like Pole Mounts, upgrades, etc. Anything to make the customer not yell at them more about the $10 tech visit fee.... And the biggest thing on Dish's agenda is sales. Sales trump everything. A garbage tech that can sell his butt off is gold where a stellar tech that can't give a screen cleaner away is ostracized. It's worse for Internals. I have no idea how they ever get promoted...or pay their rent, for that matter.

But Dish is totally cool sitting near the top of the "Worst Companies to Work For" list, year after year

dvrexpander My buddy that works for Hughesnet says he just calls in and has them create a reinstall work order on service calls. Not sure if Exceed/Viasat is the same way or not

 

[JSheridan]

They do but don't ever tell anyone you tipped a tech. It's a fireable offense to accept a tip. I swear, this is true.

Not at our dealership. We gratefully accept tips.

 

[HipKat]

Not at our dealership. We gratefully accept tips.

Retailers can, I would imagine. Internals can't and we we were kindly informed that we'd get fired. Pretty sure no one is giving back any tips though

 

[navychop]

I think all my work was done by Viasat. I don’t recall ever seeing anyone else. In fact, it’s been years since I’ve seen ANY Dish installer around here.

I guess they’ve saturated the market.