Can H21s be used with an 18" dish as an SD-only receiver?

[kucharsk]

If you connect an H21 to a standard 18" dual LNB dish, will it work as an SD receiver, or will D* not enable it just for SD?

My mother-in-law wants to add another box to a bedroom and I'm wondering if we can add an H21 in anticipation of someday getting the dish swapped out or if it just plain won't work and we have to purchase an SD box.

Not helping is the fact that most Best Buys now only carry the H21, not the SD basic box.

[roadrunner1782]

That is very much possible. The only problem is when you activate an HD ird, Directv will put HD Access on your account. Extra 10 dollars a month. I will suggest you could visit solidsignal.com and order just a SD ird if thats all you really need and if you don't wanna fight with D* about the HD Access fee associated with an HD receiver.

[Xoxcatpl]

I did just that about a week ago. My Hughes HAH-SA died and I wound up buying an H20-100 on Ebay. When I hooked it up (I have a single LNB oval dish), I got 95 to 100 on all transponders on the 101 and 119 satellites. When I call D * to activate it, it took a couple of minutes to load the program info and when it settled down, i had all my programming. In SD of course, but it was there. The advantage is I can now get the interactive features such as Local Weather on eights. Also, more channels now play in 16:9 format than on the Hughes receiver. I found out that D * did add the HD Access to my account, but when I called about it and explained that I didn't have an HD dish, they took it off.

[Mertzen]

I found out that D * did add the HD Access to my account, but when I called about it and explained that I didn't have an HD dish, they took it off.

Keep an eye out. They might send a recover kit for the HD box ( unless it owned ) since HD access is required for HD box leases.

[wall-e]

Sorry to bring this thread back from the dead, but I am a little confused.

So if you do buy an “owned” HD receiver from somewhere, activate it with the required HD service, but then are able to remove the additional HD charge of $10/mo because of not having the correct dish?

Every time I have called on to check the “owned/leased” status of a HR20, d** always tells me that the additional $10/mo HD is required while the $6/mo DVR is optional. The only receiver that d** is telling me I can activate is the HR10 without having to activate the $10/mo HD service.

Am I missing something?

I would much rather own a HR20 vs HR10 with the additional $6/mo DVR.

Thanks for any and all feedback.

[CCarncross]

I did just that about a week ago. My Hughes HAH-SA died and I wound up buying an H20-100 on Ebay. When I hooked it up (I have a single LNB oval dish), I got 95 to 100 on all transponders on the 101 and 119 satellites. When I call D * to activate it, it took a couple of minutes to load the program info and when it settled down, i had all my programming. In SD of course, but it was there. The advantage is I can now get the interactive features such as Local Weather on eights. Also, more channels now play in 16:9 format than on the Hughes receiver. I found out that D * did add the HD Access to my account, but when I called about it and explained that I didn't have an HD dish, they took it off.

What dish do you have if you also see 119 if its not the Phase III?