Charlie Chat comments.....

[Uncle Peter]

So, what did you all think? Did he answer all of your questions? Comments?:(

[Steve Mehs]

Well, I was disappointed he failed to address the outages and I thought it was not a good call to have a special guest start off the show.

[Scott Greczkowski]

My feeling is Charlie knows less and less about whats going on about his company.

With two MAJOR outtages in a week there should have been some appology or something.

Seems like the attitude at Dish is "If we can't beat them, join them" More and more each day they are acting like a cable company instead of being a leader in satellite television.

[Ronmort]

I sense a change in customer feelings toward Dish Network. Directv went through this a few years ago, and Dish became more attractive. Most of the negative comments were directed toward DTV. I think the wheel is coming around, and there is a lot less excitement about Dish Network.

I'm also sick of hearing of his tough negotiations. Almost every new local package was missing a network or two. There is no YES, no talk of MLB EI package, and I kind of felt sorry for that guy from Milwaukee who had to listen to that lame answer about putting Grand Rapids on the spot where Milwaukee was going to be becuase of more failed negotiations. Despite all his tough talk, his prices are going up anyway. I just don't care for this guy. I think he is a carnival barker who tries to fake us out with that humble demeanor and stupid grin.

[yankee_fan]

im sure the addition of nba tv is worth the extra 2 bucks... right Charlie? Charlie is just going to pocket the extra money he will receive from his subs and maybe in a few years add a quality channel to the lineup... Cheap Greedy Charlie!!

[Steve Mehs]

[Steve Mehs]

During the outage my mom said this is ridiculous and they better get their act together. I was surprised to hear her say that, she never talks bad about E*.

In the last month-
1- Dead SW64 (replaced for free under warranty, but its the principle of the thing that we didn't have decent tv for 2 weeks)
1- Dead 2800 (now using the spare I used to have)
That Error 120 situation I posted about the other day
2- Outages in less then a week
and a $2 price increase to boot

Hey D*s Total Choice Plus w/locals is a great deal, we can get some awesome new sub deals on the 18X20" triple LNB dish with DirecTiVo 2s. And for the supers, point the 61.5 dish toward Nimiq and get a 3100 from Ebay and Bell has a few superstations plus the local feed of WGN.

[MarkA]

"but its the principle of the thing that we didn't have decent tv for 2 weeks"

How did a bad switch mean no TV? TV on only two sets (for each sat), yes. But you should have been able to get all your channels by routing the signal by hand through a barrel (take the satellite you want to watch on a TV, connect it to the barrel, then connect the receiver you want to use up to it). You just had to switch between receivers and satellites by hand, and only two receivers could watch a satellite at any time... A pain, you betcha, but it would still be better than not watching TV :)

[moltjes2]

I am glad that I recorded it on my pvr and only watched about 20 minutes of it and still there was not much information on it. Since November, the Charlie Chat has been disappointed to say the least. But again, what more do you want? Next time pvr it and don't watch the entire thing. I get more information from this forum than his show... It has become another hour of wasted TV time...

[rolou21]

I am so sick of cheap charlie who does not have any clue what goes on with hios sinking company alongside with his dummy side kick defranco. They failed to report the 2 outages during the past couple of days....failed to inform viewers especially here in Ny about the progress of the yes network...prices continue to rise..bad customer service...need I go further...
I will wait till about tax day april 15.....then I will jump ship to a real provider...DIRECTV! Take that cheap charlie!!!!

[Steve Mehs]

Originally posted by Zac
"but its the principle of the thing that we didn't have decent tv for 2 weeks"

How did a bad switch mean no TV? TV on only two sets (for each sat), yes. But you should have been able to get all your channels by routing the signal by hand through a barrel (take the satellite you want to watch on a TV, connect it to the barrel, then connect the receiver you want to use up to it). You just had to switch between receivers and satellites by hand, and only two receivers could watch a satellite at any time... A pain, you betcha, but it would still be better than not watching TV :)

We would get stuff in and out from the three locations, but running up and drown from the roof evertime we wanted to watch something from a different satellite would have been a PITA. I go from Metal Mania on VH-1 Classic on 110 to ESPN on 119 to Locals on 110 to Courtv on 119 for NYPD Blue repeats, while my mom watches her Lifetime crap at 119 and locals on 110.

[Dgenx321]

I wish I could have stayen awake, but I would rather watch Martha Stewart Living than Charlie mummble about Credit Card AutoPay.

[Mark Holtz]

There was no mention of CC AutoPay last night, and the only mention of the merger was the result of a call.

[HTguy]

I was disappointed that they "didn't know" about any outages but I recall that they did point out there could be temporary losses while they move channels around from satellite to satellite and transponder to transponder. However, the outages in question pale in comparison to some of the extended outages cable companies have.

We had some strong winds in our area last week that took down some poles. One of my friends went without any TV for several days. (This is an older gentleman I set up on D* years ago who went back to cable when he got some kind of Senior discount because his wife couldn't his wife couldn't learn how to work the RCA remote control.)

Also, neither of the big boys or VP Jan Johnson seemed to know that some 8VSB modules had noisy fans even tho current President (then VP of engineering) Mike D. addressed the issue on a Tech Forum more than a year ago.

I didn't like C's answer to the 4-sat switch question either. ("You don't need it!")

Sure, it's not economically practical to manufacture & distribute a 4-sat multiswitch for the relatively few subs who would want one today but C could have referred the caller to a local pro who could do a 4-sat install for him w/ a SW-64 switch & cascaded SW-21s.

:shrug:

[Steve Mehs]

I didn't like C's answer to the 4-sat switch question either. ("You don't need it!")

Yeah I didn't care much for Charlie's responce to that either, but for a different reason. What about Philly locals at 129. Sure the dish and swithes are provided for free, but he could have at least made a blurb about it and said some subs are looking at 4 satellite locaions right now to get all of their locals along with HD or int'l programming.

[Jacob S]

The Philly locals do not take up that much space do they? If not and if they are adding all kinds of other locals, then how come do they not add the Philly locals to the 110 spot or at least the 61.5 slot? Is there no room on the spot beam satellites for Philly or something? It would be a lot easier to have them on 61.5 with an 18 inch dish instead of a bigger dish at 129.

[BobaBird]

The 4-sat response was almost flippant. Another group that "does need it" has Sky Angel at 61.5 and minor locals at 148. Also, is there a DishPro 4-sat solution coming? He could have said few people have a need, then referred the question to the Tech Forum. <-- Hint

[Darkman]

hehe, BobaBird - i noticed that comment :)