Well, Voom is in the house. 
I'm running into a problem with OTA channels and the Voom receiver.
(I'm using my own antenna/rotor that I had previously; I did not have the VOOM OTA intenna installed).
For one thing, the Voom receiver appears to be less sensitive (doesn't pick up the channels as easily) than my Dish 811 Receiver.
A bigger problem is NBC.
My Dish 811 finds NBC at frequency 41 and places it at channel 41.1 in the guide, not channel 15.1 like it should (for example CBS is at frequency 48, but is placed properly into channel 03.1 in the guide). It displays the channel just fine though. The Voom receiver, on the other hand, detects a signal at frequency 41, places it into the guide at 15.1, but there's nothing to display. In other words, it sees "something" with a signal strength of 98, but can't display it.
I'm able to get in the other OTA channels just fine.
The fact that the Dish receiver finds NBC, but places it in the wrong channel slot makes me wonder if the local NBC affiliate is doing something nonstandard that the Voom receiver simply cannot handle.
Suggestions?
As far as the Voom install itself, it went pretty well. The installer was about an hour late, but he had called me this morning and said he might be running late, and I had told him not to rush, that I'd be home all afternoon. All in all, the communication was quite good.
He was a friendly guy, and we chatted quite a bit while he was doing the install. He does installs for all of the satellite providers, not just Voom. He said that he has been doing quite a few Voom installs locally as of late, which bodes well. He had no problem with me using my existing OTA antenna/rotor setup.
Due to some issues with the siding/facia on the house, he had to place the dish on the roof itself. It's at the very corner of the house, and I really don't see an issue with snow pileup; if anything it's close enough that snow could be broomed off if necessary.
I had all the connections ready and labeled before he got there, so hookup was a breeze.
He never even raised the issue of phone line being hooked up, which is good, considering I don't have a land line (there was a possibility that this might be an issue, given the relative ferocity with which Voom insists that you have a land line).
I've not spent any major time looking through channels, because the Illini game is on, for Pete's sake! ESPNHD looks the same as it does on E*.
A few downsides that I've found thus far, none of them dealbreaking (and there may be solutions to some that I just haven't had time to research yet):
1. When you display info onscreen for a channel, there's no signal strength indicator like there is on the 811. I found that extremely handy.
2. No way to stretch/pillarbox on-the-fly like there is with E*. You have to go into a menu and change your defaults. Pain in the butt. Luckily I'm also routing the signal via S-video through an Iscan HD, so I can change aspect ratio on-the-fly there for SD (which is most likely where you'd want to change AR anyway).
3. You cannot manually add OTA channels singly, you have to do a complete rescan, which is a pain.
I just signed up for the base Voom package ($54.95/month). I'm toying with the idea of keeping E* just for the HD pack so I can retain HDNet and HDNet Movies, in which case I can route my OTA through the 811 and avoid the Voom receiver anomalies. I think I've read where you can unsubscribe from everything but the HD pack. True?
We'll see how things go (and if Voom stays in business...)
-Dan
I'm running into a problem with OTA channels and the Voom receiver.
(I'm using my own antenna/rotor that I had previously; I did not have the VOOM OTA intenna installed).
For one thing, the Voom receiver appears to be less sensitive (doesn't pick up the channels as easily) than my Dish 811 Receiver.
A bigger problem is NBC.
My Dish 811 finds NBC at frequency 41 and places it at channel 41.1 in the guide, not channel 15.1 like it should (for example CBS is at frequency 48, but is placed properly into channel 03.1 in the guide). It displays the channel just fine though. The Voom receiver, on the other hand, detects a signal at frequency 41, places it into the guide at 15.1, but there's nothing to display. In other words, it sees "something" with a signal strength of 98, but can't display it.
I'm able to get in the other OTA channels just fine.
The fact that the Dish receiver finds NBC, but places it in the wrong channel slot makes me wonder if the local NBC affiliate is doing something nonstandard that the Voom receiver simply cannot handle.
Suggestions?
As far as the Voom install itself, it went pretty well. The installer was about an hour late, but he had called me this morning and said he might be running late, and I had told him not to rush, that I'd be home all afternoon. All in all, the communication was quite good.
He was a friendly guy, and we chatted quite a bit while he was doing the install. He does installs for all of the satellite providers, not just Voom. He said that he has been doing quite a few Voom installs locally as of late, which bodes well. He had no problem with me using my existing OTA antenna/rotor setup.
Due to some issues with the siding/facia on the house, he had to place the dish on the roof itself. It's at the very corner of the house, and I really don't see an issue with snow pileup; if anything it's close enough that snow could be broomed off if necessary.
I had all the connections ready and labeled before he got there, so hookup was a breeze.
He never even raised the issue of phone line being hooked up, which is good, considering I don't have a land line (there was a possibility that this might be an issue, given the relative ferocity with which Voom insists that you have a land line).
I've not spent any major time looking through channels, because the Illini game is on, for Pete's sake!
ESPNHD looks the same as it does on E*.A few downsides that I've found thus far, none of them dealbreaking (and there may be solutions to some that I just haven't had time to research yet):
1. When you display info onscreen for a channel, there's no signal strength indicator like there is on the 811. I found that extremely handy.
2. No way to stretch/pillarbox on-the-fly like there is with E*. You have to go into a menu and change your defaults. Pain in the butt. Luckily I'm also routing the signal via S-video through an Iscan HD, so I can change aspect ratio on-the-fly there for SD (which is most likely where you'd want to change AR anyway).
3. You cannot manually add OTA channels singly, you have to do a complete rescan, which is a pain.
I just signed up for the base Voom package ($54.95/month). I'm toying with the idea of keeping E* just for the HD pack so I can retain HDNet and HDNet Movies, in which case I can route my OTA through the 811 and avoid the Voom receiver anomalies. I think I've read where you can unsubscribe from everything but the HD pack. True?
We'll see how things go (and if Voom stays in business...)
-Dan
