Alaska Dish Customer Seeks HD

[M.T.Nest]

Hi all,

We've been Dish customers in Alaska for a little over two years. Our experience has been mixed.

Now that our initial two-year contract has expired, and especially since we have just purchased a 1080p TV, we want to either upgrade our Dish service to include HD or switch to either DirectTV or cable.

Our reasons for wanting to stay with Dish:

1) convenience--since we're already customers
2) no need to mount a 6' antenna needed for DirectTV in Alaska.

Our reasons for wanting to look into DirectTV are:

1) Sunday Ticket!!!
2) We'd get our necessary HD equipment free or almost free
3) We'll supposedly need a second antenna for Dish HD anyway...

Our reasons for considering cable:

1) GCI integrated TV and cable modem service offers Alaska Airlines frequent flyer miles, which are like gold up here.
2) HD is available now
3) No long-term commitment?

Many of you know that satellite TV product offerings advertised nationally are not necessarily available here. So I am trying to learn what are the current Alaska offerings from Dish and DirectTV so I can compare them to the cable co.

Does anyone know? I haven't had good success trying to learn this on web.

Thanks in advance,
Kevin

[Nick]

Welcome to DBSTalk, Kevin :wave:

For E* HD offerings in your area, check out http://www.dishnetwork.com/content/programming/dishhd/index.shtml

For D* HD offerings, go to http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/global/secondaryIndex.jsp?assetId=1100083

Also, try doing a forum 'search' here on "Alaska hd" or "ak hd" to find threads/posts which may be relevant to your situation.

Perhaps some of our other Alaska members will chime in here.

If all else fails, call customer (no) service. ;)

[M.T.Nest]

Welcome to DBSTalk, Kevin :wave:

For E* HD offerings in your area, check out

For D* HD offerings, go to...

Also, try doing a forum 'search' here on "Alaska hd" or "ak hd" to find threads/posts which may be relevant to your situation.

Perhaps some of our other Alaska members will chime in here.

If all else fails, call customer (no) service. ;)

Thanks Nick.

(I had to edit the URLs you posted out of my reply since I'm still a newbie here.)

I did search before I posted, but most everything I found concerning Alaska and satellite dealt with some legislation forcing providers to provide equal service to AK and HI...posters seemed to think that's a bad thing somehow.

Anyway, I probably didn't use the best search terms. I can try searching some more.

I visited the D* web site. After searching for offers pertinent to Alaska I was prompted to call a rep due to the s"pecial equipment requirements" in AK.

I did so. The CSR was very polite and friendly, but she seemed very new and unfamiliar with what's available in AK. She totally contradicted what I was told by a local D* installer, which has me concerned.

The CSR was prepared to sign me up immediately, whereas the local installer I spoke to at length insists that D* is not accepting any residential customers in AK until at least November. Does any of this sound familiar to anyone?

My wife seems to prefer to switch to cable, since our neighborhood now has cable service. She'd love to no longer have a big antenna on the front of the house.

I wanted to go with D* because of perceived lower cost to get HD and because of Sunday Ticket.

But, having read more on this site and elsewhere, most people seem to think Dish has better PQ plus more HD offerings--so maybe we'd do alright staying with Dish and upgrading to HD.

We currently have to SD DVRs and two receivers. Whether we go with D* or stay with E*, we'd like the following:

One HD DVR (preferably dual tuner)
One SD DVR (preferably dual tuner, could keep our 510 if we stay with Dish)
Two additional SD receivers

I've read posts of people using dual tuners to run TVs in different rooms. Do I understand correctly that this requires running coax to the remote TV?

Also, apparently I'm not fully qualified to read a calendar. Our initial 24 month contract is over the end of this month. Am I perhaps eligible for one upgrade now and another next month?



I appreciate any and all suggestions. Thanks in advance!

Kevin

[James Long]

The Alaska/Hawaii targeted laws seem to be more restrictive than the rest of the country. They were intended to make sure that residents got their own stations - including HD and were not stuck with distants forever. Hopefully the laws will pay off and you will get HD locals.

[M.T.Nest]

I'm a little sad to say that I signed up for cable installation after getting an estimate on what it would cost to upgrade my Dish service from SD to HD.

In order to get a relaiable all weather signal where I live I would need a 1.8m antenna looking at a separate satellite. Since mounting sa second antenna--especially something that large--on the south-facing front of the house or in the front yard was a non-starter with the wife, we had the installer write up the estimate for a pole mount in the far back yard (the only practical spot). So with the second antenna, pole, trenching, conduit, switch, HD DVR/RXR, and OTA antenna for HD locals I was looking at $2800.

Oh well...