Rant about new HughesNet

[dirkleearm]

I'm thinking of writing a letter to the makers of hughesnet satellite dishes. Don't know who to write to as out area rep doesn't seem to be responsive to much of anything. I do not have the placard of engineer and such so I thought maybe together we could come up with some answers and some more questions. So I will start with mine:

Why do they not have a round dish for the new circularly polorized Skyway system?
(I'm guessing they assumed to retrofit the existing dishes?)

It would seem to me that a circular dish, feed horn and squinters (not that they are a bad idea) would be a bit easier to use and "tune in".

They, in my opinon, should have thrown the prodeline POS out the door and not even considered it for the new Skyway system. It is junk no matter how you look at it. (Be very carefull no to bend it!!!)

The new system seems to work very well with the exception of getting it in the field by bad hardware design. How do I recommend THAT?

Obviously I am not happy with this, but who do I call for some "real" answers?

I'm sorry to say this but HN could use some lessons from Wild Blue as to dish design. If you do both what do you think? Am I just complaining because it is new or do you see the same and more (I've only done a few)?

 

[HCI]

The makers of the dish are Prodelin. The only Prodelin design .74 dish I have ever liked are the old fiberglass dishes. You should see some Raven dishes "who are the same people who make wildblue dishes" start to roll out depending on what distributor you guys go though. We only have about 20 Prodelin dishes left and hopefully thats all we will get. The raven dishes are round and you do not have to skew them. Don't worry EVERYONE is complaining about the Prodelin design so Hughes is getting the message.

 

[dirkleearm]

I didn't know they made the fiberglass dish design, I too think that was a winner.

I'm hoping RSI didn't stock to many of the prodeline. I see too many future return calls coming from them.

I would think a round dish would be MUCH easier to tune in (wonder if the squinter would even be necessary). I also hope they stiffened up the dish on the Raven.

Has anyone tried lubing the squinter so it turns more smoothly?? Was thinking of using grafite or wd40(not sure if it would hurt it).

 

[HCI]

yes squinting will be necessary on any KA dish. Although it is a different squinter. The squinter for the Raven does not rotate, it is fixed. Here are the steps for squinting a Raven.

The feedhorn and the squinter has notches that align with each other. When you assemble put the feedhorn on you will leave the mormon clamp loose enough so the feedhorn will rotate. The squinter only has one level that works on a horizontal axis so the squinter will attach to the feedhorn on the corresponding notches and when the dish is mounted the feedhorn will rotate until the level is aligned on the bottom. The mormon clamp is then tighten. You will then point the dish "take the squinter off". Squinting is then achieved by rotating 180 to the next notch "i.e. the first level you take is the AZ. you will clip the squinter using the notches on the feedhorn so the squinter is vertical on either side for the first reading. When time for the second reading you take the squinter completely off and rotate it 180 and it will clip on the other side. Same for top and bottom." Since you have already leveled the feedhorn on the bottom all other sides will be level.

 

[dirkleearm]

That sounds much better. Thanks

 

[dirkleearm]

I was installing another Prodeline yesterday and couldn't get signal so I swapped odu, still no signal. Loosened the arm bolts and got signal. Rediculous! I put the thing together per the book (no shortcuts). I got the focal point by pushing up on the arm firmly then tightened. Not to say the next one might be just the opposite!

 

[HCI]

I was installing another Prodeline yesterday and couldn't get signal so I swapped odu, still no signal. Loosened the arm bolts and got signal. Rediculous! I put the thing together per the book (no shortcuts). I got the focal point by pushing up on the arm firmly then tightened. Not to say the next one might be just the opposite!

yep. its insane.

 

[wad]

ive put in a few ravens already....i like them alot better. the fine az. adjustment is EXTEREMELY sensitive. but it locks down at the fine az. without pulling the dish out of alignment. there is no rubber gasket like the prodelin. plus there is a ground lug already on the elevation slot.

 

[dirkleearm]

Did another Prodeline yesterday and had to bend the feedhorn sideways to get focal point! I don't know how much wind or snow these things will take, not much I suspect.

 

[barefootbob]

Hughes net keeps adding to what we have to do to make these things work but the pay stays the same.
Once HN made it where your profet is in the form of a commission, if we dont jump through all the hoops we dont get paid. How many jobs will you have to go back to at your expence to fix there problem.
The out of warranty jobs that your expected to suck it up and keep loosing on. We are all victoms of Corp greed and we will keep loosing untill we all stick together and stick it to Hughesnet.

 

[HCI]

Hughes net keeps adding to what we have to do to make these things work but the pay stays the same.
Once HN made it where your profet is in the form of a commission, if we dont jump through all the hoops we dont get paid. How many jobs will you have to go back to at your expence to fix there problem.
The out of warranty jobs that your expected to suck it up and keep loosing on. We are all victoms of Corp greed and we will keep loosing untill we all stick together and stick it to Hughesnet.

Umm. OK. First the out of warranty jobs should go two ways, Hughes charges the customer and pays you just like a normal repair or Hughes states on the SO that the customer should be charged by you at the time of the repair. For example on the SO you will see Billable to HNS or Billable to customer.

As far as going back to jobs to fix there problem I am not sure what that means. The only jobs you should have to go back to at your expense are jobs you did not do something right on.

I myself think that the newer KA system is much easier to install than the KU system.

 

[dirkleearm]

Finally received a Raven dish and as expected much much better. What makes me upset is we had to raise #@$$ with RSI to get it and they said they had them all along. So now I've got a number of POS antennas out their just waiting to fail. In fact I talked with a customer with one I installed a few weeks ago and the signal when I installed was 168 and now is 111. We had very heavy winds a week ago and I suspect the focal point on the Prodeline POS is off. To replace the dish as it is now we have to order a complete system to get a Raven dish so don't know how we are going to "fix" these things.

 

[llockie]

Same problems with the Prodelin dish. Never know which way to tweak the dish.
I finally did a couple of Raven's, and what a difference!
I called the Dealer and told him I would not accept anymore Prodelins. I have 2 in stock I am trying to replace with ravens
Install was a piece of cake with the Raven.

 

[raith1234]

pics of dish

not sure what dish I got but I think it was raven. Frickin collar for the radio could barely tighten, almost striped screws had to buy a pipe clamp to keep it tight. This is my first ka and it has wasted about six hours of my time. I am close to saying screw hughes and only install wildblue. And not to mention the constinant freezing when trying to connect to the modem 169.254.0.1 bullcrap what ever happened to kiss (keep it simple stupid.) I make 200.00 to install but when I have to drive 50 miles one way to Menards to buy clamp to fix there dish then drive back it kinda pississssssss me off.. If anyone has any pics of raven or prod please post them

 

[HCI]

not sure what dish I got but I think it was raven. Frickin collar for the radio could barely tighten, almost striped screws had to buy a pipe clamp to keep it tight. This is my first ka and it has wasted about six hours of my time. I am close to saying screw hughes and only install wildblue. And not to mention the constinant freezing when trying to connect to the modem 169.254.0.1 bullcrap what ever happened to kiss (keep it simple stupid.) I make 200.00 to install but when I have to drive 50 miles one way to Menards to buy clamp to fix there dish then drive back it kinda pississssssss me off.. If anyone has any pics of raven or prod please post them

sounds like you are not putting the clamp on correctly if it is not tightening.

 

[grohgreg]

Help me out here guys, you lost me at "new circularly polorized Skyway system". I thought that Skyway was a one-way system that used linearly polarized SES-Americom Ku-birds. I first thought maybe it was a typo and should have been Spaceway 3. But that's linearly polarized too - isn't it? So how does Hughes fit into the equation?

And FWIW, I just installed a 2w OSIRIS on a Prodelin model 1985 (HughesNet residential account). The thing fine tunes far easier and much more accurately than the old 74cm composite configuration. There's no shifting at all when tightening down AZ and EL. But if the top two POL bracket bolts are loosened more than 1 turn or so, gravity can pull the reflector away from the bracket and introduce an EL error while peaking POL. That said, it's heavy, sturdy, and surprisingly rigid on a 5' standalone polemount.

//greg//

 

[wad]

sounds like you are not putting the clamp on correctly if it is not tightening.

thats what i gather too. i havent had one problem. but i did have a radio where there were no threads for the 1/2" bolts to attach to the feedarm, i kinda thought it was funny.