Hey we have directv in only 1 room in our house (basement). We are going to get it in 3 other rooms, but the other three rooms are not wired for coax cable. I called Directv and they said they can do it but they wont know how much is costs to run cable until they see the house. I have a few questions...
1) Will they charge a lot to run these cables (from each room to the attic)?
2)How do I know if i need a new dish or if my current one can be used still?
3) Would it be cheaper if we ran the cable ourselves?
The new rooms will be one bedroom (top floor, opposite side of house from the attic where the sat. is wired) another bed room closer to the sat. wiring family room on first floor of house almost directly under sat. wiring.
The cost of the installation might not be the primary concern.
I had Dish network come to my home to install their service. We have TV's in several bedrooms plus the TV room. They sent 2 men out to do the installation. They were here from around 11:00 am until 6:00 pm (worked overtime I guess) and they still couldn't get it right. The second day another tech came out. He was here for an hour until he gave up. Several days later the first crew came back. They finally got it working in all but one room.
They charged us the basic fee for the installation but they made a mess, left the insulation in the attic in disarray and left a visible cable running down the wall from the ceiling in the bonus room (Florida speak for a bedroom near the pool). I had to rerun the cable in the wall because they had no idea how to do it.
A few months later, after numerous outages during the thunderstorms that come almost daily in south Florida we went back to cable. All went well until my in-laws arrived from Brazil and the spousal unit insisted we reinstall DISH so they could watch "TV Globo" and "Record" channels.
I own a Tivo-type receiver for DISH which we had from our previous home. DISH came out again, hooked it up and promised it would be working within 30 minutes after they left. "Sign here, please." I should have known better. It's been almost a month and still no DISH service. They've sent a new remote (the old one conked out) and a new smart card. They tried to charge me for the new smart card but I said no way.
Now they're sending out a replacement HDD receiver (they say mine is bad). The "repair" will cost me about $70. I just hope they can somehow make it work before my mother-in-law returns to Brazil. She's only staying until February.
This is a fairly large home (3800 ft under air) and it's not as easy to wire as some but it's also not a mansion and it's not that old. I can't imagine how DISH turns a profit with such incompetent installers.
Based on my previous experience of cable-guy, I think you are better off running the wires yourself if you are handy. The cable guy ran the wire inside the house, and then ran the wire _outside_ the house for
10-ft or something before going back again inside the house. Of course, squirrels found the exposed wire and chewed it up really good. Seem like they will do the "minimum" that can get you going regardless if it will be good in long term or if it is pretty or not.
If running the wiring requires them to open up the wall, I really doubt that they will patch the wall for you. They probably will ask you to find another contractor to patch the wall. I am just guessing here. But I will not be surprised if they don't patch the wall for you.
I finally ran the wire by myself and wire most of my house (expect for two rooms). Then when the DISH people came, they only needed to run the wire to the wiring-closet in the basement. This was better off for them and me.
A replacement DISH receiver arrived yeserday. This morning I installed it, tied to connect. No joy. I called DISH, spent 20 minutes with the level 1 tech-drone, who tried to sell me a DISH Protection plan. I said no, make this work. She said the only way to fix it was a $99 service visit. I said no, fix it free or give me back my money and cancel the acount.
She switched me to a level 2 tech drone. Same conversation. They're coming out on Tuesday afternoon. If they don't fix it then we'ere done. Idiots!
Geez Robert, I thought you were a reasonably competent tech type person. Installing or repairing a dish system is a simple task. The steps involved are the same. You should always start (or verify) with step one:
Locate a mounting position with clear view of the sky in the direction of the satellite position.
Make mounting pole plumb.
Rough in azimuth and elevation on the dish mount.
Connect 1 receiver with TV in view of the dish location and fine tune azimuth and elevation using the installation menu.
Tighten mounting hardware.
Ground the dish per NEC.
Run cables to receiver locations.
Connect switches as needed.
Connect receivers.
Run through setup.
I wouldn't spend 20 minutes on the phone or waiting for these guys to show up. Mounting/repairing a dish system is DEAD simple in most cases. The installation menu in the receiver provides all the information you need for azimuth, elevation and fine tuning.
Dish Network survives because they offer a good product at a fair price. I have found their telephone tech support to be reasonable when asked reasonable questions. Their equipment is reliable (when installed properly) and offers decent value for the money. I wish their PVR software was better but once you are used to ReplayTV the bar is quite high.
I have known a few DBS installers and there in NO money in doing installs for the DBS companys. Unless they are able to generate side income from upgrading the installs they don't last long.
I've been accused of being competent from time to time. I could normally do the installation but the issue seems to be something involving a legacy switch and the new firmware in the receiver. I've exhausted my patience with DISH Network. They can fix it or I'll cancel.
It's already mounted. It was working fine until they downloaded new firmware.
Any primate with a modicum of tool skills and a little patience should be able to get that working, after all its not rocket science. Perhaps you should have called tech support at BHE, I hear they have a tech who can teach anyone to do anything over the phone.
I don't know how I missed the OP,I play with dish and Bevy dish as a hobby,and also h to h motor,he have a small problem with a legacy switch and must be using a switch he provided himself cause he knows the stuff....
that's the type of client every one love to hate...;-)
"Doug" a écrit dans le message de news: iV_7h.3367$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe14.phx...
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