Some Dish Receiver & Local (HD) Questions

[sgupta]

Hey all,

In a bit of a bind here and am strongly considering switching to Dish in the Spring. Essentially, I'm in an area where the cable provider sucks and offers little HD. So, I've been with DirecTV for the past 4 years and overall have been fairly happy with them (still have their old HD Tivo). Unfortunately, their migration to a new dish and new sats has become problematic for me as apparently I have trees (one on my property and one off) precisely in the wrong place, and they can't mount a dish so I can get the new signal (though our installer out here is pretty bad and I don't feel like they tried very hard...heh). So I haven't been able to take advantage of any of the new HD DirecTV now offers, and I'm actually about to begin losing channels (notices have started appearing for Showtime along with HDNet).

So, I'm wondering if dish could do better as they appear to offer a lot of HD now. Their new receiver looks fairly nice - are most people generally happy with it? I did read one mostly favorable review. Here's my other issue - I qualify for locals on Dish, BUT, they are not yet in HD (Erie, PA locals). Right now (and for how long, I don't know), through DirecTV I can get the HD NY feeds of the big 4 (NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS) plus feeds of PBS and CW (not in HD; not sure if they're available in HD with the newer receivers). My question is, does Dish offer a way to get the major networks in HD from a bigger area (like NY) if you want them in HD and don't care about the locals from Erie?

Thanks all!

 

[TheKrell]

This is called "moving", as opposed to really physically moving. You call up Dish and tell them your service address has changed to some location in Manhattan, for example. Then you get the locals for NY and not Erie. Now the trouble with that idea is that most locals in the east are on a spotbeam. So you can't be too far away or you'll be out of the spot and not get the channels at all.

 

[Laddyboy]

Hey all,

In a bit of a bind here and am strongly considering switching to Dish in the Spring. Essentially, I'm in an area where the cable provider sucks and offers little HD. So, I've been with DirecTV for the past 4 years and overall have been fairly happy with them (still have their old HD Tivo). Unfortunately, their migration to a new dish and new sats has become problematic for me as apparently I have trees (one on my property and one off) precisely in the wrong place, and they can't mount a dish so I can get the new signal (though our installer out here is pretty bad and I don't feel like they tried very hard...heh). So I haven't been able to take advantage of any of the new HD DirecTV now offers, and I'm actually about to begin losing channels (notices have started appearing for Showtime along with HDNet).

So, I'm wondering if dish could do better as they appear to offer a lot of HD now. Their new receiver looks fairly nice - are most people generally happy with it? I did read one mostly favorable review. Here's my other issue - I qualify for locals on Dish, BUT, they are not yet in HD (Erie, PA locals). Right now (and for how long, I don't know), through DirecTV I can get the HD NY feeds of the big 4 (NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS) plus feeds of PBS and CW (not in HD; not sure if they're available in HD with the newer receivers). My question is, does Dish offer a way to get the major networks in HD from a bigger area (like NY) if you want them in HD and don't care about the locals from Erie?

Thanks all!

E* has two arcs of satellites, western and eastern, with identical national programming. The eastern arc orients to the SE at 72.7W, 77W, and 61.5W. Perhaps that would give you a better line of sight. The western arc is toward the SW, a little further west than D*'s satellites.

The 622 and 722 are most excellent receivers and are very Tivo-like. Some say they are better than Tivo.

Essentially the DBS companies have to provide the locals for the DMA in which you reside. The only way to get the NT HD locals would be to do a "move" to a NYC DMA address. Basically you don't move but tell E* you have and get service transferred to that "new" service address. Even then you have to be within the spotbeam that contains the NYC HD locals. I have no idea whether Erie, PA is in that spotbeam. There are others here that will know. There should be a lot of HD locals going up on the new 129 satellite next month. The SD locals look to be slated for that sat. I have no idea about whether the HD locals for Erie will be available any time in the near future.

You might go to dishpointer.com and look at the angle for the D* sats you need. Maybe you can get a dish mounted on a pole that won't have line-of-sight issues. For installers, time is money, so they often won't spend a lot of time trying to find a place that'll work. Some do, some don't.

I think E* may come out and do a site survey to see if they can get you a signal. You might also see if you can locate someone with an inclinometer so you can try to find a place on your property where you could get a line for your D* satellites.

 

[sgupta]

Thanks for the excellent answers - great to know about the "moving" suggestion. I'm basically on the Ohio end of PA towards the top near the NY state border (not actually Erie...Warren, PA, but our locals are through Erie). Warren's slightly closer to NY, but who knows if I could get the channels. Hmmm.

In regards to D*, yeah, I'm actually thinking of trying to find an independent contractor who does DirecTV installs (insted of Ironwood, who's the local installer D* uses) to try to find a solution. I can't imagine since my Triple LNB works flawlessly right now that there's not a way (I don't have *that* many trees...), but like I said, I wasn't impressed with the installers and felt they just tried a few spots and decided it wouldn't work. Even mounted somewhere in the yard on a pole or whatever would work by me if I could get the signal.

Though I have to say, this is the first time in a long time I've reviewed Dish's programming, and they've got a pretty nice lineup now. So if I do have to switch, local complications aside, I think I'd gain a lot.

 

[garys]

New York comes from NYC and they have the big 4 and CW in HD on spot beams, they would not be viewable where you are. The sd versions are not on spot (along with MyNetwork) and would be, but the rest of the sd NY package is spot as well. You may have to look at Buffalo or Pittsburgh if you want HD.

 

[skyviewmark]

Hey all,

In a bit of a bind here and am strongly considering switching to Dish in the Spring. Essentially, I'm in an area where the cable provider sucks and offers little HD. So, I've been with DirecTV for the past 4 years and overall have been fairly happy with them (still have their old HD Tivo). Unfortunately, their migration to a new dish and new sats has become problematic for me as apparently I have trees (one on my property and one off) precisely in the wrong place, and they can't mount a dish so I can get the new signal (though our installer out here is pretty bad and I don't feel like they tried very hard...heh). So I haven't been able to take advantage of any of the new HD DirecTV now offers, and I'm actually about to begin losing channels (notices have started appearing for Showtime along with HDNet).

So, I'm wondering if dish could do better as they appear to offer a lot of HD now. Their new receiver looks fairly nice - are most people generally happy with it? I did read one mostly favorable review. Here's my other issue - I qualify for locals on Dish, BUT, they are not yet in HD (Erie, PA locals). Right now (and for how long, I don't know), through DirecTV I can get the HD NY feeds of the big 4 (NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS) plus feeds of PBS and CW (not in HD; not sure if they're available in HD with the newer receivers). My question is, does Dish offer a way to get the major networks in HD from a bigger area (like NY) if you want them in HD and don't care about the locals from Erie?

Thanks all!

Get a new installer.. THe new DirecTV sats are so close to the original sats that the chance of not getting them is very slim.. Sounds more to me like you have an installer problem instead of a tree problem.