No DISH signal because of trees?

[neomaxi]

I just had Dish come out to install. My wife called and indicated the tech said he might be able to get SD channels.. but no HD channels beacuse of the large trees in our yard.  He told my wife that dish would call me back to setup a 2nd opinion.  But he told her he was a field manager and that sending out another guy would just be a waste of time?  Do you think I should get a 2nd opinion?  I've heard that there is always a way to get a signal.. its just how much effort you put into it?

[basshive]

I can only speak from the DirecTV install perspective.

Tech 1 comes out, hims and haws about how there is no signal, cannot find a spot, spent about 5 mins looking around. If I want to do a pole mount he will sell me the stuff at cost and I can do the mount then he will try to put up the dish.. blah blah blah. The roof was NOT an option because there is indeed one bigass tree blocking my LOS. We do nothing. I also look into this whole me paying for the pole and quick-crete only to find out it is free if the roof is not an option! So this guy was clearly trying to make a buck off of me.

Tech 2 comes out, expresses some concerns but spends an hour roaming around the small area I have to find a spot to hook me up. He finds ONE spot which in my area surrounded by trees and such was amazing. Sure enough, works awesome. Granted my signals are in the 80s whereas everyone else is in the high 90s but I take the good with the bad and accept that I may loose signal a tad more/sooner than others. He also trenched for me with the pole install and gave me a very good deal on that. So he got a nice tip, I got a TON of HD.

I would get a second opinion, walk around your area with the guy. Surely there is a crack in the tree line somewhere

[tbarney]

I just had Dish come out to install. My wife called and indicated the tech said he might be able to get SD channels.. but no HD channels beacuse of the large trees in our yard.  He told my wife that dish would call me back to setup a 2nd opinion.  But he told her he was a field manager and that sending out another guy would just be a waste of time?  Do you think I should get a 2nd opinion?  I've heard that there is always a way to get a signal.. its just how much effort you put into it?

In this area your dish would be set at about 33 degrees elevation, and I think the way the dish is shaped the signal actually comes in higher than that. If you get a dish on your roof it would have to be pretty tall tree to block a signal coming in at that elevation. The other consideration is to move the dish to the opposite end of the roof. For a typical 1000.2 setup you'd be pointing southwest, just have the dish mounted on the far north east corner of the roof so it will hopefully clear all the trees.  When Easter Arc finally goes live in this area you'd be pointing southeast so most likey a completely different LOS. If you really want dish, just wait a few months until EA is launched in this area and try to get setup pointed in that direction.

As far as the 2nd opinion, you'd probably get the same install company coming back, so I'm not sure how much good it will do, but it is worth a try.