View Full Version : How do we become our own contractor
We are a small condo association in SW Florida, 5 bldgs, total 69 units. Some of us want the benefits of Directv and to get away from COM*. There is no contract involved. Is there a way we can be our own installer/contractor and get the equipment from a supplier as opposed to being ripped or even worse, ignored by commercial installers? Several of us are very capable of handling the entire process from a technical standpoint.
At this time we have only 4 units in 1 bldg interested, 1 is already installed and re-installed by myself and has been working since 1997.
To continue and be within the condo guidlines will require the use of multiswitches and SWM's. We could proceed by getting the equipment from a retailer at about $300 per unit but when I read in another thread about them being able to do it for $160 a unit, it makes me want to know more.
DirecTv Chicago
03-10-08, 09:25 AM
We are a small condo association in SW Florida, 5 bldgs, total 69 units. Some of us want the benefits of Directv and to get away from COM*. There is no contract involved. Is there a way we can be our own installer/contractor and get the equipment from a supplier as opposed to being ripped or even worse, ignored by commercial installers? Several of us are very capable of handling the entire process from a technical standpoint.
At this time we have only 4 units in 1 bldg interested, 1 is already installed and re-installed by myself and has been working since 1997.
To continue and be within the condo guidlines will require the use of multiswitches and SWM's. We could proceed by getting the equipment from a retailer at about $300 per unit but when I read in another thread about them being able to do it for $160 a unit, it makes me want to know more.
Please do not listen to the HD Seeker poster about any cost he posted.
When you say unit are you referring to the apartment or SWM? There is not a definitive price per customer to upgrade to MFH2 because it is all dependent on how many tuners each person is going to use. A SWM-8 only allows 8 tuners connected. So one building could cost 3 times as much to install as another based on the size and how many receivers your tenants will want to connect.
AntAltMike
03-10-08, 10:49 AM
You can do-it-yourself, but then you won't be eligible for any kind of "free installations" or other promotions. You can buy an AU9 dish online for each building, and buy your own SWM modules from the guy with the thread that offers them here. A small cluster of a dozen residents trying to use one dish would probably use high frequency splitters to source several SWM units, rather than a pricey and hard to find FMC chassis.
Then, you need to find an internet DirecTV dealer who will ship you your receivers, because DirecTV will NOT ship them to end users, and then you cancel the installation once you have received the receivers. If you order from DirecTV directly, they ship it to the installer, who might not agree to connect it to a system that the customer has designed and installed because he will be responsible for the call-back if the customer experiences any equipment failure.
I'm not sure what kind of warranty exchange problems you might run into if a resident who has done a self installation calls DirecTV to ask for a warranty exchange of a receiver that he has self-diagnosed as bad,. Does DirecTV then ask for an installer ID number as part of its process to first determine that the installation is not at fault? I don't know the answer to that question.
While some of your residents may feel they are capable of installing this from a technical standpoint, what will you do if a problem develops that the resident expert can't remedy? He surely won't have a field strength meter to professionally diagnose the problem, and if there is an intermittent problem, he probably doesn't have the wearwithall to jump out of a hat every time another resident says to jump. Someone would have to pay for an inventory of spare components for shot-gun swapping.
Believe me, there is no way in hell that you are going to do this for $160 per unit. You can buy your own AU9 dish for $100 to $150 Such an installation should also have a Sonora polarity locker powering it. Then, you can buy your own SWM units from someone here for about $300 each. Residents in a do-it-yourself system certainly should not share an SWM module as professionally designed and serviced MDUs do, even if they have eight or fewer tuners between them, because service and allocation of repair costs becomes impractical. How do you power down the receivers in both residences if you don't have immediate access to both units? That might have to be done to re-initialize a shared unit. How do you tell the non-complaining unit that he needs to share the cost of replacing a shared SWM if he hadn't been experiencing the same symptoms that another resident had?
What happens when hobbyist remedies his own problem and then a problem occurs in another unit a few weeks later and that afflicted person says, "I never had a problem until so-and-so screwed around with the dish" Believe me, it will happen. When I did more roofwork than I do now, I can't tell you how many times, when someone has a roof leak, they call everyone who has worked on the roof in the last couple of years, telling them they are the only one who has worked on the roof, and that it never leaked before he did whatever he did on the roof. Sometimes, they really believe the repair person caused the problems. Sometimes they are just posturing. In any case, there will be ill will when any DirecTV customer experiences any operational problems after another resident self-repairs a common reception system.
Unfortunately, you probably can't get an MDU company to give a condo like yours the right time of day, so to get what you want, you probably should find a substantial local installer get involved in this. In other words, who does what HD seeker seems to be doing for a living. But HD seeker has delusions about what costs and benefits commercial MDU installers get from DirecTV and from their master system operators, whom he seems to disdain. You need to find a substantial, independent DirecTV residential installer who will "play ball" with you on this, who will install your parts and be the person who makes the "sales", getting the new customer commissions. The installer will not be getting rich on this, and will have to be authorized to charge the HOA for every service call, whether he finds repairable problem or not.
Chicago and Mike, Unit means Apt. and I was planning on providing 1 of the 2 outputs from the SWM 8 to each Apt., then they can use splitters to get to 4 tuners. It is only possible to get 1 coax into an Apt., I have 3 but you would not believe the struggle I had doing it. When I ordered the HDDVR a few months ago an installer came and replaced my 3 lnb dish with the AU9, unboxed the HR20 and said goodbye. I was happy and took it from there. I currently have H20's in 2 rooms and an HR20 with only 1 tuner and the OTA hooked up in a 3rd room.
Back about 1996 0r 1997 there was a company locally called Golden Sky. They offered to install a dual lnb dish and a receiver for me with free service for a year or so in hopes we could get more Apt.s to sign on. None would and after a while Golden Sky left, I returned their receiver and bought my own. When HD became available I bought the 3 lnb dish and an HD (Hughes) receiver. The hurricane blew it down and I bought another one and so on until I oredered the HDDVR.
Through all of this Directv has been great, providing a replacement for the Hughes and at one time an old Sony. I don't think I have every been or am now considered a MDU but I have been the only user in this building. I tried hard to get others interested but never could. Many are part time residents and just not interested. Now finally I have 1 neighbor interested and he thinks 2 others might be.
So what to do? I want to do what is right by Directv and my neighbors and not lose any of what I have now. Directv support didn't have any suggestions and that is probably because it is to small for any contract installers to be interested.
I thank you both for the informative answers and please respond if you have any further suggestions.
Slowhand
03-10-08, 07:58 PM
KD,
From what you just posted here is an idea for you to get the new HD DirecTV channels. Mount a SWM-8 in an enclosure below or near the dish. Run one wire to your unit and power supply. Install 3 way splitter to your two h-20 and one HD DVR.
Total cost would be around $350.00 for parts and contract with a local DirecTV dealer to do the install for you.
This would make it your system and if someone in your building wants to connect onto it you could split the cost. 4 channels for you and 4 channels for the other person.
I agree with Mike....if you make this too complicated then it will be a nightmare for you or the neighbor that thinks he can handle this because it seems simple and easy. Just remember the system will always go down on Friday night when you are preparing to go away for the weekend.
Slowhand
I finished the install of my SWM-8 and all (HR-20, 2 H-20s) are working great off of SWM1 output thru the appropriate splitters. Next will be to install my neighbor from SWM 2 port.
I am especially hoping that his goes well because we are in a 12 unit condo that is 18 years old so the wiring originally put in for cable is old. I don't think it is RG-59 because it is bigger than that. Comcast has refused to install HD or Internet for any of the 69 units in 5 bldgs, saying they have to rewire all buildings. Not going to happen because so many people are happy with SD picture.
We can run some RG-6 as I did in my building but rewiring each apt is not possible.
One other thing, this job can be done by a 70 year old retiree. Hi! Hi!
I now have my SWM working great with port 1 going to my Apt, split 4 ways and port 2 going to my neighbors Apt. split 2 ways (2 more to com).
A couple of interesting problems occurred during the install of 2nd port. Port 1 was already working so I just thought, plug in the coax from port 2, power on receiver and walla, but not so. I am not sure what actually resolved the issue but I unplugged all receivers on port 1 and port 2, unplugged the PI. Replugged PI and H20 on port 2, it came up. Replugged H20 on Port 1, it came up, replugged HR20 and it would not find all sats. Unplugged it again for 5 mins., replugged and it worked.
Any thoughts?
Second, what is supposed to happen or does happen if a short power failure occurs? Should all of this unplug-replug power be required or should all just come up? I ask because I decided to try it by un plugging PI for 5 minutes and then replugging it. All receivers are on battery backups but PI is not. H20's came back up fine but I had to do the 5 min unplug reset on the HR20-100. Wierd or normal? And it looks to me like I need a small UPS on the PI. Thoughts please.
tfederov
04-05-08, 11:36 AM
I've had power outages here and I've had to do nothing with the PI.
Just to bring this to a conclusion, every thing has been working flawlessly for about a year now. I purchased the SWM8 from the guy (sorry don't remember his name) on this website. Got Directv to install the 5lnb dish as part of an upgrade, got the neighbor installed free including the offered credits of $50 for each of us.
Had a little problem with the installer because he didn't understand SWM and insisted we couldn't use splitters, I finally got him to "just try it". Of course it worked right out of the box.
I learned that the old coax inside the walls of the condo, installed in 1992, does not present a problem. It isn't RG59 or RG6, has an unrecognizable number on the wire which is larger than RG59.
The PI is plugged into an APC battery backup and all survived a very active hurricane, rain and lightning summer last year with no problem.
The other neighbors backed out and went with COM*, which is fine with me.
The President of the Condo Association is the first neighbor and he is happy with his Directv service, the SWM, and his HR-21 and H-21 receivers.
So write this off as a success story and thank you all on this site who provided wisdom and support. Bob
keithff25
08-05-09, 08:05 AM
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