My wife and I recently bought a house and I bought a new Panasonic Plasma HD set to go in it to replace my old 27" tube. I have been a DTV customer for a couple years, ever since I moved to MI, in order to get Sunday Ticket and all the packer games.

So, on monday of this week I had the DTV installer out to hang my new dish, with an upgrade to HD. Well, after showing up 2 hours late, he walked around the yard for about 10 minutes (never got on the roof of house or garage) and told me I had no line of sight for HD. He seemed to hint that the regular dish was a possibility. But, with that, he pretty much just left without giving me anything.

I was pretty PO'd so I waited a while and called DTV back. The guy I talked to seemed to think this was pretty bad as well and scheduled me another appt and specifically said to send either a senior tech or a supervisor, and they should bring a mast with them in case I need it.

Has anyone else had this issue? Were you able to get it resolved? And (worst case scenario) am I better off getting regular DTV in order to get sunday ticket, or go with cable to get HD? Is it possible to order DTV for ONLY the ticket and not pay for the rest of the service? (I'm guessing not).

Help!

Sounds like you got an installer who didn't want to do the work. The dish can be pole mounted in the ground if necessary to get you line of sight. Hopefully they send a supervisor for the next attempt. You can go to the link below with your question and get very good help.

http://www.dbstalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=113

Kramer, did DTV offer you a credit of $100? When the tech/installer doesn't show up at the quoted time, they will give you a credit of $100 and then they dedcut that from the amount they pay the contracted tech/installer.

quote:

Originally posted by Hauser:
Kramer, did DTV offer you a credit of $100? When the tech/installer doesn't show up at the quoted time, they will give you a credit of $100 and then they dedcut that from the amount they pay the contracted tech/installer.

No, they sure didn't. I will have to speak with them about that... Thanks.

I ran into this problem when I upgraded to the 5 LNB.

The tools told me they couldn't do it. I had 5 installers there checking it out.


I waited about 3 weeks and called DirecTV (hoping to get a different installer).

New installer came in and switched out the dishes in a flash. No problems whatsoever.

quote:

Originally posted by edgefour:
I ran into this problem when I upgraded to the 5 LNB.

The tools told me they couldn't do it. I had 5 installers there checking it out.


I waited about 3 weeks and called DirecTV (hoping to get a different installer).

New installer came in and switched out the dishes in a flash. No problems whatsoever.

That's what I like to hear... I'll be very disappointed if they can't get this to work.

quote:

Originally posted by kramer:

quote:

Originally posted by edgefour:
I ran into this problem when I upgraded to the 5 LNB.

The tools told me they couldn't do it. I had 5 installers there checking it out.


I waited about 3 weeks and called DirecTV (hoping to get a different installer).

New installer came in and switched out the dishes in a flash. No problems whatsoever.

That's what I like to hear... I'll be very disappointed if they can't get this to work.

What is in the way, trees?

They do make chainsaws.


As for your other question. As much as I love DirecTV and the Sunday Ticket, I'd have to go another route if I couldn't get HD.

You'd be severely wasting the capability of your TV. It would be like buying a Porsche and only driving 35 MPH.

quote:

Originally posted by edgefour:


What is in the way, trees?

They do make chainsaws.


As for your other question. As much as I love DirecTV and the Sunday Ticket, I'd have to go another route if I couldn't get HD.

You'd be severely wasting the capability of your TV. It would be like buying a Porsche and only driving 35 MPH.

Yeah, it's trees. Unfortunately, not mine.

I know what you are saying about the HD, but...not being able to get the Packer games would be real annoying to me. (remember, I'm in michigan) And, I really much prefer watching from home then going to a bar every week.

On the other hand, I discovered that I was able to pull in all the local HD channels using a busted old pair of rabbit ears. Go figure.

I've had Direct TV for about 10 years. They suck in every way and the suckiest of the sucks are the lazy/dumb-ass installers. Don't take any crap. Ask the installer who's giving you a load to speak with his supervisor--that should take care of it. They will try to get away with doing the least amount of work in the sortest amount of time. Did I mention they suck?

Well, installer number 2 came out last night and basically told me the same thing. I have a beautiful view of the regular satellite, but the 5 HD sats are too low and the neighbor's trees are in the wrong spot. He only found one spot he thought might work, and that was practically in the street in front of my house, and even then he said he couldn't make any guarantees.

He mentioned that they are eventually going to move the HD sats to a position closer to where the regular one is now, and at that point I'd have a great view. Does anybody know if this is true or if DTV has given a timeframe for that?

So, now I have to decide if I want regular directv w/ sunday ticket or go back to cable to get HD. If only there was a way to tell how many packer games were going to be broadcast locally here in the detroit area.

quote:

Originally posted by kramer:
Well, installer number 2 came out last night and basically told me the same thing. I have a beautiful view of the regular satellite, but the 5 HD sats are too low and the neighbor's trees are in the wrong spot. He only found one spot he thought might work, and that was practically in the street in front of my house, and even then he said he couldn't make any guarantees.

He mentioned that they are eventually going to move the HD sats to a position closer to where the regular one is now, and at that point I'd have a great view. Does anybody know if this is true or if DTV has given a timeframe for that?

So, now I have to decide if I want regular directv w/ sunday ticket or go back to cable to get HD. If only there was a way to tell how many packer games were going to be broadcast locally here in the detroit area.

If they move the satellites I would think they sure are going to have a lot of satellite dishes to realign. And imagine the phone calls.

I don't think the new satellite (that is going to give all the new HD channel capability) is parked yet, is it?

The new satellite is in proper orbit and is being tested. It is expected to be operational sometime in September.

Have I mentioned they suck?

Here's a new question. Does DTV charge a fee for the dish upgrade and/or the installation? We just bought a new high def. TV and got the H-20 receiver for free so now we need to upgrade our dish as well. Just wondering as I'm probably gonna call and get it all set up in the next couple of days. Hopefully we won't have any line-of-sight issues!

They upgraded me for nothing, but I got my HR20 and H20 from them, but then again, they were free too.

What kind of TV did you get? And the H-20 is a DTV product (I think) so they should upgrade you

They won't charge for the upgrade.


Just an extra HD charge per month.


Also, rumor has it that the date for the new HD channels is 9/14.


Whether it is true or not remains to be seen.

quote:

Originally posted by Hauser:
They upgraded me for nothing, but I got my HR20 and H20 from them, but then again, they were free too.

What kind of TV did you get? And the H-20 is a DTV product (I think) so they should upgrade you

We got a 42" Toshiba Regza LCD which is 1080p for $1400 and they threw in a free H-20 receiver and $100 off a Toshiba HD-DVD player as well. It's gotten pretty good reviews from what I can tell and I'm loving it so far. Glad to hear that the dish upgrade will be free!

quote:

Originally posted by MsPacman:

quote:

Originally posted by Hauser:
They upgraded me for nothing, but I got my HR20 and H20 from them, but then again, they were free too.

What kind of TV did you get? And the H-20 is a DTV product (I think) so they should upgrade you

We got a 42" Toshiba Regza LCD which is 1080p for $1400 and they threw in a free H-20 receiver and $100 off a Toshiba HD-DVD player as well. It's gotten pretty good reviews from what I can tell and I'm loving it so far. Glad to hear that the dish upgrade will be free!

Make sure to upgrade to a 5 LNB dish.

We were supposed to get the HD-DVR and an HD reciever free. Then on our next bill a $99 charge showed up for the HD reciever. A call to their Customer Service people and they refused to reverse the charge (and wouldn't forward me to a supervisor). So I cancelled NFL Sunday Ticket. When I went to cancel NFL Sunday Ticket what did they tell me...that they were authorized to give me a new HD-DVR for free. What a joke! I got tired of playing games with them.

OK, so I'm scheduled for the 5 LNB dish upgrade for Aug. 25th...yippee! Then I think I'll call them up and threaten to cancel my Sunday Ticket to see if I can get the Super Fan for free.

quote:

Originally posted by kramer:

Yeah, it's trees. Unfortunately, not mine.

You could try seeing if there are any big dish installers left in your area. Many have 20+ years of experience installing real satellite dishes and may be able to figure out a method of getting you a clear path to the satellite cluster you wish to view. In your case it may be worth it to pay extra for a good, clean, professional installation.

Trees are always an issue but particularly with smaller dishes like DTV's pizza-pan dishes where there is little margin for error. For example, our big dish looks right through a neighbor's tree to successfully pick up Galaxy 15 and other western satellites. The larger the reflector size, the more signal is actually reflected back to the LNB which is why, among other things, big dishes don't have any "rain fade" issues.

quote:

Originally posted by BadgerzFan:

quote:

Originally posted by kramer:

Yeah, it's trees. Unfortunately, not mine.

You could try seeing if there are any big dish installers left in your area. Many have 20+ years of experience installing real satellite dishes and may be able to figure out a method of getting you a clear path to the satellite cluster you wish to view. In your case it may be worth it to pay extra for a good, clean, professional installation.

Trees are always an issue but particularly with smaller dishes like DTV's pizza-pan dishes where there is little margin for error. For example, our big dish looks right through a neighbor's tree to successfully pick up Galaxy 15 and other western satellites. The larger the reflector size, the more signal is actually reflected back to the LNB which is why, among other things, big dishes don't have any "rain fade" issues.

That's great and all but it's not going to get him NFLST.