JazzFan, I am not saying you should go out and buy a Joey. Sounds like leasing works for you. In my case, turning in a couple of leased Joeys will save me $14 a month--an amount that quickly offsets my purchase prices of $72 each. And I will be able to turn them back on when/if company comes to visit.
Since Dish now just calls these new units "JOEY" without a version number, I am certain their inventory/order system will not differentiate between old/new/refurb units. In fact, one of my lease units going back to Dish was a China-made refurb and the sticker on it said the model was "JOEY" without the original "1.0" designation at the end.
I have been with Dish for over 15 years. Wife and I love our Dish equipment and service and plan on keeping it as long as it is available. Through the years it has gotten harder and harder to convince Dish to authorize me to continue to do my own upgrades. We have never had a tech out to the house for installs, upgrades, or repairs. I insist on doing it all on my own. All dishes, switches, LNBs, nodes, and cabling have been purchased on my own. Satelliteguys.us has been my go-to reference for learning the fine details of the systems. I originally bought all receivers also, but the upgrade costs got too high. So when I upgraded to Hoppers and Joeys when they first became available, I leased the receivers. I still managed to do so without a tech visit--damn near impossible!
Today I have a non-standard configuration that includes a 30" wing dish (for 129 sat), a separate Dish 500 with individual LNBs (for 110 and 119 sats), and a DPP33 switch feeding my DouNode. For our six HDTVs, we have two Hoppers (one with Sling) and four Joeys. With the Hopper prices coming down to less than $200 each now, I plan to replace my present Hoppers with two owned HWS units before my contract expires in 2015. This should ensure that I should no longer have to fight with Dish over doing my own installs. One thing that has been very helpful is that Dish has flagged my account such that whenever I now call for technical support I am automatically routed to Advanced Tech Support. This saves a lot of time and avoids frustration when asking technical questions.
Your mileage may vary...
Since Dish now just calls these new units "JOEY" without a version number, I am certain their inventory/order system will not differentiate between old/new/refurb units. In fact, one of my lease units going back to Dish was a China-made refurb and the sticker on it said the model was "JOEY" without the original "1.0" designation at the end.
I have been with Dish for over 15 years. Wife and I love our Dish equipment and service and plan on keeping it as long as it is available. Through the years it has gotten harder and harder to convince Dish to authorize me to continue to do my own upgrades. We have never had a tech out to the house for installs, upgrades, or repairs. I insist on doing it all on my own. All dishes, switches, LNBs, nodes, and cabling have been purchased on my own. Satelliteguys.us has been my go-to reference for learning the fine details of the systems. I originally bought all receivers also, but the upgrade costs got too high. So when I upgraded to Hoppers and Joeys when they first became available, I leased the receivers. I still managed to do so without a tech visit--damn near impossible!
Today I have a non-standard configuration that includes a 30" wing dish (for 129 sat), a separate Dish 500 with individual LNBs (for 110 and 119 sats), and a DPP33 switch feeding my DouNode. For our six HDTVs, we have two Hoppers (one with Sling) and four Joeys. With the Hopper prices coming down to less than $200 each now, I plan to replace my present Hoppers with two owned HWS units before my contract expires in 2015. This should ensure that I should no longer have to fight with Dish over doing my own installs. One thing that has been very helpful is that Dish has flagged my account such that whenever I now call for technical support I am automatically routed to Advanced Tech Support. This saves a lot of time and avoids frustration when asking technical questions.
Your mileage may vary...