I'm getting DishNetwork!

[AndrewP]

Don't worry much about DNSC, I always called Dish direct for installation and upgrades. Never had any problem. What I said about diplexers was that it can be done with limited number of lines. But it is always better to run dedicated lines. Max. # of lines is 4 (two for sat, 1 for OTA, 1 for TV2 backfeed). With Dish separator you can have 1 sat. line. If you will not use backfeed to other TVs (watch prerecorded content), then you will must have 2 lines. As I understand you, OTA line is a must have.

P.S. Dish soon will release some new dishes Dish500+, Dish1000+, Dish1000.2
The main reason is the support for 118.7 sat, which will be moved and light up at that position. It is unknown what kind of programming will be on that sat and who will need new dishes.

[SRW1000]

Here's a few suggestions for you:

Don't reuse any existing wiring, unless you know it's RG6 quad shield.  Often, existing wiring is just R59 which can cause signal problems (especially over long runs).

Make sure that both the dish and the coax coming into your house are both properly grounded.  There have been many reports of some installers skipping either one or both of these steps.  If not grounded, you could be putting your equipment and house in danger, and proper grounding is required by law and/or local codes.

Before the installer leaves, make sure you are getting all of the channels you subscribed to and not any extras.  After the installer left my house a couple of years ago, I noticed that I was getting the HD channels, even though I hadn't ordered them.  At first I thought it was a free trial or something, but I called Dish to be sure.  It wasn't, and they insisted that the channels were part of the install.  This was hard to clear up over the phone, whereas I could have taken care of it right away if I had caught it before the installer left.

If you let the guy hook up the wires to your sets, make sure that he's using the correct ones.  Some people have had the HD receivers hooked up to their HD sets with S-video or composite wires, or an analog audio connect was used instead of digital.  (Yes, this can also happen with the cable company).  Personally, I would rather do my own hook-up.

Watch the guy while he's in your house.  Although the great majority of techs are honest, there have been reports of stolen items from bad seeds.

Finally, enjoy your service.  I haven't had cable for years, but the quality of SD channels on a large HD set is not pretty.  Don't be surprised if you notice a lot of pixelization and audio noise.  Because of the huge amount of channels sharing bandwidth, quality of satellite service has decreased in the past few years.  This is even more apparent on a big screen.  The HD channels should look pretty darn good, though.

Scott

[Chinatown]

Another one fallen prey to DNSC what a shame.

I'm afraid you cannot transfer the only way is to cancel and get a refund.

I don't know if it can be done that quick or not if you were in my area I would make the effort but the way they pay now and charge backs its  just not economically feasiable.

Maybe you will get lucky and get someone who is a real tech, but the odds are certainly stacked against you.

Please tell of your experience with DNSC when completed I would be very curious
to know where they came from and what qualifications they have (SBCA, ASCET)
you might want to ask upfront.

From what I have seen lately Dish is supposedly offering a 30 day money back quarantee :confused:  this is a new one can't figure out how they work that one with charge backs.

Someday I quess I'll have to post a little piece on how the sat industry really
works then people would understand why things happen the way they do, (come to think of it that would not be a little post, so thats why I have not done this yet).

Good luck and if you have questions later post them the dialog would be great on this forum to help those in the same situation as yourself and hopefully keep others from having to deal with future fustration of DNSC.

Who or what is "DNSC" ?. Am I to assume it is an independent satelite provider that has a less then desirable reputation.?

[Mark Strube]

Instead of being thru a retail store or regional provider, it's Dish Network's internal installation group, "Dish Network Service Corporation."

[bradsmainsite]

Don't worry much about DNSC, I always called Dish direct for installation and upgrades. Never had any problem.



You are 1 person in one area and do not deal with a region and see the numbers we do, and the problems are getting much worse in the past 3-6 months. My only point here is to make others aware of what is happening and to try and get them the best possible service for their money DNSC will not provide this at least with the people they are providing now, and there are certain reasons for this which I cannot go into details on right now.


Don't think I'm sat bashing because I am not this is becoming a huge problem of which needs to be addressed.  Sat remains an excellent alternative to cable and will remain as such, but there just are not enough qualified installers out there that really understand what they are doing! :mad:


What upsets me the most is they represent all of us in the industry with their losy installs and give the industry a major black eye (just watch those cable commercials once)  :bang:

There needs to be changes by the sat industry, but are unwilling to do it because of the economics of the industry (cable and sat cutting each others throat) good and bad for the consumer, and by the way there are just as many bad cable sub contractors out there screwing up their have of the industry also!

Once again people do your homework and take the extra time to investigate and ask around (referral method) its the best way of assuring you will get quality service in a fast paced nonquality world right now.

[Chinatown]

Don't worry much about DNSC, I always called Dish direct for installation and upgrades. Never had any problem.



You are 1 person in one area and do not deal with a region and see the numbers we do, and the problems are getting much worse in the past 3-6 months. My only point here is to make others aware of what is happening and to try and get them the best possible service for their money DNSC will not provide this at least with the people they are providing now, and there are certain reasons for this which I cannot go into details on right now.


Don't think I'm sat bashing because I am not this is becoming a huge problem of which needs to be addressed.  Sat remains an excellent alternative to cable and will remain as such, but there just are not enough qualified installers out there that really understand what they are doing! :mad:


What upsets me the most is they represent all of us in the industry with their losy installs and give the industry a major black eye (just watch those cable commercials once)  :bang:

There needs to be changes by the sat industry, but are unwilling to do it because of the economics of the industry (cable and sat cutting each others throat) good and bad for the consumer, and by the way there are just as many bad cable sub contractors out there screwing up their have of the industry also!

Once again people do your homework and take the extra time to investigate and ask around (referral method) its the best way of assuring you will get quality service in a fast paced nonquality world right now.

I have never had any problem with any of the installers that "D' has sent to upgrqade or change service.

[bradsmainsite]

I have never had any problem with any of the installers that "D' has sent to upgrqade or change service.

Its just a matter of time!

[Mark Strube]

Well, I've asked around here, and I still haven't gotten any references for better installers! Just your badmouthing of DNSC with no real useful information given to me, besides making me paranoid. Thanks! :wave:

[bradsmainsite]

My intentions were not to make you paranoid but make you check around for someone local.   Did you try your phone book check the web site for a local quy?

You see the good ones are dropping like flies because of changes in the industry
one only needs to check //www.dishretailer.com to really see what is happening in the industry and you will begin to see why DNSC maybe your only source which is a pure shame.

I wish we were closer to you I would have liked to given you a better choice, but
we would not be in business long going those distances for what they are willing to reimburse us.

As mentioned by some previous posts baby sit the guy or girl and question things
that just don't seem right!  Make sure he at least aligns the dish with a sat meter.

If they seem shoddy you can have them stop and request someone else or threaten to cancel a call to dishes 1-800 # should get that going.  Just know if your not satisfied with what is happening take control and request someone new.

I hope this helps if done right you should have a great setup.  If done wrong it will be pure fustration, but don't let that happen make sure its done right in the first place!

If these posts saves 1 person from going through what I have seen many people go through around here with DNSC than it was worth your paranoia, and sorry if you were the guinie pig.

[Mark Strube]

Okay. Yeah I was planning on keeping a close eye on him already. What kind of signal should he be getting on his meter when he's installing it? Since I'm probably not going up to the roof with him, is there any way I can check it on any of the receivers before he leaves?

I'm going to be sure he runs 2 cables from the sat to my DVR, people using splitters seem to be having all kinds of issues lately. Anything else specific to my setup you'd recommend me watching for?

[bradsmainsite]

Meters are just used to peak it but you should be in the upper 60's to 80 on 129
on your sat receiver and in the low 90's on 110 and 119.  This should give you very consistent performance.

If the dish goes on the roof make SURE they use roof tar not silicon!!  It also must me tarred underneath to form a gasket seal first then tarred over the top to hold the lags in place.

Of course cable rated for at least 3gig and proper snap n seal fittings or radial crimp for outdoor with "stuff" used in the outdoor connections (white cream used for waterproofing the connectors).

Watch out for up charges on "extras" they are good at that!

Let me know how it turns out hope you get a good one I will e-mail you my cell phone number if something comes up and you need some advice.

Good Luck!

[Talos4]

Thank You Brad!

Finally, an installer who does not use silicone on a roof.  

Being a commercial roofer I cringe whenever I hear about silicone being put on a roof to seal a penetration.

FYI for others:

Aspahlt and silicone are incompatible.

Silicone does not expand and contract with temp changes on A ROOF enough to maintain a watertight seal.  

Caulk of any type should not be used to seal penetrations in a roof.

Roofing cement is the only product that should be used.  That said, Roof cement in a caulk tube is still roof cement.

A layer should be put on the roof at the point of penetration.  Then install your lag bolts. Then put another layer of cement over the lag bolts and foot pads of the mount.

Overlap the foot pads a couple of inches all the way around the pad onto the shingles. The cement will bond to the asphalt in the shingles and form a solid seal.

Some have said that they don't want these patches of cement showing on their roof.

It's better than waterstains on your ceilings!

[Mark Strube]

The install went great... we got an installer from "Galaxy 1." I basically made a checklist from ALL the advice you guys gave, and showed it to him right up front... he said he was already planning on doing all of that. We ended up putting the dish on a (very sturdy) shed in our back yard... perfect placement for a totally clear view of the sky where it's facing. He ran the wire 4 inches under the grass over to our house where it runs to the switching boxes in the basement. For the non-DVR HD box, and the two standard boxes he used the existing coax in the house, and it presented no problems. For the HD-DVR, he ran two brand new cables directly to my room (no splitting, two cables from the switcher). I don't remember what all the signal strengths were but I do remember the one that Brad said should be in the low 90's was at about 103... he used that signal strength meter quite well, I guess.

Thanks for all the great advice, I'm loving the Dish, and not one break-up yet!

[bradsmainsite]

Awsome Mark,

You will most likely never go back to cable from this point on. Enjoy it and also you will reap its great value for the money.  I really enjoy all the music channels to choose from.

Mark did you get the guys name?

If you did you could refer him to others in you area for which you both will win(dishes referal program)!

Brad

[Mark Strube]

Well, he signed my service agreement "Mike-06," and the phone number to the place he put on all our remotes is 866-335-3474.