Wiring for the Hopper

[rgregj]

I have been a Dish customer for over 10 years, but have never upgraded to HD in that time (still using a 500 Dish). Finally broke down and purchased some flat panels. Scheduled a Hopper upgrade. Technician told me I needed to have 3GH cable and that a new DISH needs to point in another direction (so either on the other side of the house or on the roof). He stated I would have to drill into the house to put the cable in. I understand this is all pretty standard, but I was not ready to drill in my house nor necessarily ready to put a dish on the front of my house on the roof. I am also not sure the RG6 is the cable run in my house 12 years ago, but the house is only 60 feet across.

I was really interested in the whole home dvr.

So I am reluctantly going to see if DirectTV can provide whole home DVR since Dish could not given my requirements. I see other DirectTV dishes and they appear to fall in line closely with the 500 Dish direction, so they may be able to use my existing pole. If they can not, I will be forced to at least put a Dish on the roof of my garage and use only a 612 and two 211's. This is a last resort for HD (Comcast is too expensive). I am used to my old 100 Hours storage that I got with the 510 receiver and would like to maintain that.

Only question I have is that if I go with the 612, is there an extra charge for activation to use an External Hard Drive? I realize there is a charge to activate the 211.

Thanks,

 

[TheKrell]

No charge for the EHD on a 612.

The Dish tech was almost certainly talking about putting up an Eastern Arc dish, since it's in "another direction" from your dish 500. For me here in northern VA, the EA satellites are at a much higher elevation (44 deg) than Western Arc satellites, so I can hit them easily firing over my roof and a tree in front of the house. Are you certain you don't have a good location for the EA dish?

On the 3GHz cable, that's most certainly true of the cabling between node and Hopper. But I see no reason to change out good RG6 for the dish/node run...

 

[garys]

I have been a Dish customer for over 10 years, but have never upgraded to HD in that time (still using a 500 Dish). Finally broke down and purchased some flat panels. Scheduled a Hopper upgrade. Technician told me I needed to have 3GH cable and that a new DISH needs to point in another direction (so either on the other side of the house or on the roof). He stated I would have to drill into the house to put the cable in. I understand this is all pretty standard, but I was not ready to drill in my house nor necessarily ready to put a dish on the front of my house on the roof. I am also not sure the RG6 is the cable run in my house 12 years ago, but the house is only 60 feet across.

I was really interested in the whole home dvr.

So I am reluctantly going to see if DirectTV can provide whole home DVR since Dish could not given my requirements. I see other DirectTV dishes and they appear to fall in line closely with the 500 Dish direction, so they may be able to use my existing pole. If they can not, I will be forced to at least put a Dish on the roof of my garage and use only a 612 and two 211's. This is a last resort for HD (Comcast is too expensive). I am used to my old 100 Hours storage that I got with the 510 receiver and would like to maintain that.

Only question I have is that if I go with the 612, is there an extra charge for activation to use an External Hard Drive? I realize there is a charge to activate the 211.

Thanks,

It's not a question of what equipment was installed but converting over to HD. The 612/211 will require the new dish and the pointing of it in the other direction as well. Not knowing the type of wiring inside the house may not seem important to you, but if I had the chance to have it rewired with new runs, I would jump on it.

 

[JM42]

There are only two reasons you should have to switch to the Eastern Arc - either your locals are only on the EA or you don't have line of site to the 129 sat location. If you have locals now, then that probably isn't the cause. Line of sight could be legit. Go to dishpointer.com and enter your address, you can choose EA or WA and get a good idea of the sight lines for each.

 

[rgregj]

As far as satellites, he said the ones in the same direction of the 500 dish did not have many HD's. I will look at DishPointer.com and see.

He was only talking about the Hopper and 3 GHz cabling. The shortest route was above my garage to my outlet in my bonus room. Nice hole and wiring 10 feet up which did not make the wife happy(nor I for that matter). If I put it on the other side of the house, he would have to run the cable all the way around the house to the junction box and drill into my family room. No easy way to do that given the layout of my back walls (doors, screened in porch, sidewalk).

I completely understand about the wiring and the need of 3Ghz depending on the frequencies being used for communications. I was just not willing to do that because of the asthetics. If I go with the 612, the satellite has to change and probably go on the roof, but at least no holes in my house and the wiring can be made more discreet.

Again, if DirectTV can give me that without to much hassle and whole home dvr, then I switch. Otherwise, I will make do with 612's and a dish on the roof.

Thanks for the input. I do appreciate it.

 

[rgregj]

I am confused by DishPointer.com. The Dish 1000+ (110W, 118.7W, 119W, 129W), Dish 1000.2 (110W, 119W, 129W) look like they would work where my current 500 dish location resides. The closest to what he was saying was Dish 1000.4 (61.5W, 72.7W, 77W) and I could see that potentially being a problem, but it looks like he was pointing further East when he was showing me. Are there different HD feeds on Dish 1000.4 vs. 1000.2?


Thanks,

 

[rgregj]

Found my own answer. Looks like it is my HD locals which are on 61.5W.

Thanks,