Dont go by a training communication for details, having worked for dish in the past I can tell you that they arent spot on for acuracy specialy when it comes to roll out dates. Rule of thumb for dish is the same thing for companies like sony or microsoft and nintendo, when something new comes out from them it will be in short supply for atleast a year and not everyone will get the new product right off the bat.
Be sure to add 12 degrea's to that to get the right look line. From what you said in a later post I would agrea that you do have a line of site issue with those tree's so you will need to call and have someone come out to either repeak the dish or whats more likely to relocate it to another location.
Its more rediculous that you have to start a sentence with WTF. If your signals sucked then go back and look at your line of site and recheck your equipment because you shouldnt have had an issue with poor signal unless there was a problem with the install location or a part of the system.
Duct tape is your friend. I just had a new Dish Network install done on August 22, 2008. I ordered only HD channels (TurboHD Bronze) and HD local Channels (Minneapolis, Minnesota).
I ordered vip722 and vip222 HD receivers.
After looking at the install I can see I am on the Western Arc not the new Eastern Arc.
The Eastern arc was available on the 20th. Why would I get the old stuff?
Should I be concerned about it
If the elevation says 31 then the actual descent into the dish is 10 degrea's higher and not 12 as I suggested earlier. All of dish network and directvs dishes for that matter are offset dishes where the arm is at the bottom of the dish instead of in the center of it so the signal comes down at an angle and reflects back out at a focused angle into the lnbfs. You can get an idea of what Im trying to describe by standing directly infront of a mirror with a flash light and shining it square at the mirror. Put a box or lamp to your left, now turn to the left a couple inches and shine it to where the light is hitting the box or lamp and you get a rough idea of whats going on specialy if you can draw an imaginary line from the box to the mirror. Some FTA and commercial dishes have center mounted lnbfs and most cband dishes are this way as well so when they call for an elevation of 41 degrea's then that is the actual look angle for that particular satellite.
TO PROPERLY INSTALL ANY DISH THE TECHNICIAN NEEDS TO KNOW BOTH THE COMPASS DIRECTION AND THE ANGLE OF ELEVATION FOR EACH PARTICULAR SATELLITE TO GET A CLEAR VIEW TO ALL OF THE SATELLITES. IT WAS SO MUCH EASIER WITH ONE SATELLITE (GOOD OLD DAYS). WITH THE COMPLEXITY OF THE NEW, MORE SOPHISTICATED DISHES, IT TAKES A PROPERLY TRAINED TECHNICIAN (NOT JUST AN INSTALLER) TO DO THE JOB CORRECTLY.
