Just press the Guide, Menu or DVR button and you should be able to try other channels or watch recordings. And there's nothing wrong with modern Perfect Vision cable that's rated to 3Ghz. In fact it's got a solid copper center conductor while most Dish approved wire only has copper clad steel. Obviously the solid copper is better.
Speaking about cables, when I first had DISH service installed with the Hopper2000, the cable used is the VEXTRA V66, are those cables any good, any idea what kind of shieldling it is since according to this, it's not the quad shield version:
Vextra Technologies - RG6 Coax Cable - CCS Conductor