International dish / Kaku or swm

[twiecek]

I'll try to make a long story short. Quite a while ago I ordered HD service and International (Polish) service, which requires a separate dish. Somehow the girl (and she was a ditzy girl) didn't hear the international part, so the installer installed only the HD dish. I (re)scheduled install for the International. The installers came yesterday, and it turns out the HD dish I have (actually the LNB) is not compatible with the intl dish. The HD dish is swm, but i need a kaku to attach the intl dish. Huh? So then I got a run-around from D*, and the installation company, and the installers (how many tiers of installers are there??). In fact when a very nice lady at the installation company was reading her notes, Isaac (the installer supervisor) said the order was cancelled because "the customer can't decide which dish he wants." Uhh...NO!!! I know what I want, I just want it. Ultimately, Isaac called me and told me that the kaku is being phased out and that they are out of stock, that he'll have some maybe next week. He also saif that they would have drill 3 more holes since the kaku has 4 cables coming from it.

I also spoke with D* and the installation supervisor there was very confused. She didn't know anything about kaku being "phased out."

If I lived in Cow Dung, Iowa, I could maybe understand this. But I'm in Chicago which is a large market, with a large Polish market. Why isn;t the "new" swm compatible with intl dishes? How can they be out "phasing out" the kaku when its replacement is not compatible? This is all very confusing and frustrating. Could someone explain this in very simple terms.

[veryoldschool]

The SWMLine dish [LNB] doesn't have an option to connect another dish.
"Options":
Change to a Slimline LNB

Use a WB68 multi-switch, which needs four cables from the Slimline + one from the other dish. This will need a cable to each receiver & two to each DVR.
Use a SWM8, which will still need the "four + one", but could be mounted outside, and this will work with your "single wire" wiring.

[thespaceghost]

The word "phased out" was misused. If anything, the international dish will be phased out. The older style (non SWM) KAKU LNB's will not be used on the vast majority of installs. The exceptions would be like ones that require an additional dish, like your circumstance. They aren't phased out, they just won't be commonly used.

The older style KAKU LNB required four lines leading from the dish to the switch. From there, the international dish can be integrated into the switch. The new KAKU LNB only requires the one line,but is not designed to be integrated with any other dishes. The current KAKU setup looks at 5 different satellites and the international programming comes from a sixth satellite, hence why you need a separate dish. DTV's intention/rumor is that the international programming will be moved onto one of the 5 satellites that the KAKU setup can see, therefore doing away with the POS international dish. That is one of the mains reasons why DTV never considered going through the extra trouble to integrate the international dish.

[veryoldschool]

The word "phased out" was misused. If anything, the international dish will be phased out. The older style (non SWM) KAKU LNB's will not be used on the vast majority of installs. The exceptions would be like ones that require an additional dish, like your circumstance. They aren't phased out, they just won't be commonly used.

The older style KAKU LNB required four lines leading from the dish to the switch. From there, the international dish can be integrated into the switch. The new KAKU LNB only requires the one line,but is not designed to be integrated with any other dishes. The current KAKU setup looks at 5 different satellites and the international programming comes from a sixth satellite, hence why you need a separate dish. DTV's intention/rumor is that the international programming will be moved onto one of the 5 satellites that the KAKU setup can see, therefore doing away with the POS international dish. That is one of the mains reasons why DTV never considered going through the extra trouble to integrate the international dish.
You seem to have mixed up KaKu LNBs & SWM KaKu LNBs [single wire].