Need 721 advice

[KWarner]

Hey,

I finally have enough money for this thing, and am looking for the
best price. Also, does anyone see the price coming down soon, or
is around $500 what im going to pay? Im having trouble figuring
out if i need anything besides the reciever, i have a Dish 500,
and it runs 2 recievers. Do I need any other hardware besides
the 721 itself?

Thanks

[EvanS]

Originally posted by KWarner
Hey,

I finally have enough money for this thing, and am looking for the
best price. Also, does anyone see the price coming down soon, or
is around $500 what im going to pay? Im having trouble figuring
out if i need anything besides the reciever, i have a Dish 500,
and it runs 2 recievers. Do I need any other hardware besides
the 721 itself?

Thanks

Kwarner,
I just went thru the same thing - Dish 500 with a 501 and 301. In MY case I had a Dish TWIN LNBF which supports 2 tuners. It puts out 2 cables, each of which carry the 110 and 119 sat.
If you are replacing 1 of your current rcvrs with the 721 then you will likely want to go with replacing the current TWIN LNBF and replace with a QUAD. This supports up to 4 tuners with 110 and 119. So, assuming your 2 rcvrs are in different places in the house, this would support 1 of the rcvrs as well as provide 2 additional ports for the 721 - which will need TWO cables run to it.

Best deal I found in this case was Dish Depot special @ $629...which includes the 721 and the QUAD LNBF.
Call Mark at DD and tell him what you have, he'll then tell you what you need, based on your requirements. :hi:

[treiher]

Sounds like you're exactly where I was about 3 weeks ago. To start, $500 for a stand alone receiver is about the best you can do. Believe me, I looked everywhere and that was the best I could do. Since you are an existing customer, you do not qualify for any promotional discounts. I bought mine from The satellitegy.com Standalone Receivers (http://www.thesatelliteguy.com/echostar_standalone.html) . Very pleased with the response. I ordered and it shipped on the same day.

Because the 721 requires two satellite inputs, you will need to add another cable run to your receiver so you have a total of two. Because you have two other recievers, you will need a total of four cables (2ea. for the 721 and 1ea. x 2 for your other 2 receivers). Your Dish 500 probably has a dual LNB with two cables coming out, one to each receiver you already have. You have two routes you can go here.

1. Add a switch which must be Dish 500 compatible than can split the two cables into four, or . . .
2. Add a Quad LNB on the dish, and add two more cables from the dish to your junction box where all your prewired cables are at.

Either way, you are looking at another $150 for the switch or the Quad LNB. I chose to go with the a DishPro Quad LNB. However, you can easily find a new DishPro Quad LNB on ebay for around $80. That helps. Also, the Quad LNB requires no external power supply and it was very easy to swap out the dual LNB on my dish and replace it with a Quad. Before you go with the DishPro LNB, make sure your two recievers are DishPro compatible. I've seen quite a bit of discussion here about the advantages of the DishPro vs. the Legacy. I like the DishPro. It provides stronger signal strength enabling longer cable runs. I think it is reasonable to assume you will have less "rain fade" as a result of the stronger signal strength as well. Another benefit to the Dishpro, the switch check goes through only two cycles, as opposed to 34 (I think) on the older legacy. Switch check is much faster.

So, if you buy the 721 and a Dishpro Quad LNB, you will still have to run two more cables from the dish. That turned out to be pretty easy for me. Be sure and use RG6 cable (quad shielded is better) and if you use quad shielded, make sure you use quad shield compatible connectors. If you're going to do this, it's worth it to go to Radio Shack and buy a cable cutter, stripper, and crimping tool. To run the cables, I just bought some black nylon quick ties from Home Depot, and strapped the other two cables to the existing two which were already mounted securily onto the side of my house. Small detail I know, but it was nice not to have to mount two more cables into brick (which I have on my house).

So, I did all that, and everything works great. For the most part, I am thrilled with the 721. Beware, it will not have Dish Interactive. That is supposed to be out in a future upgrade. I've been pretty free of bugs too, except for a minor problem I saw with the time change. Anyway, that's the way I did it. I'm sure others will have their own preferred way. Good luck!

[JLin]

treiher-

What kind of switch do you need to split two incoming into 4?

Thanks.

[treiher]

I believe what you would need here is an SW-44 switch which is Dish 500 compatible. I spoke at length about this with my original satellite installer who originally installed my dish with the Dish 500 dual lnb and my PVR501 and 301 receivers. They discouraged me from this route, because they said it requires an additional power source (one other thing to hook-up) and these switches tend to fail over time. Since I have no experience with this switch, I can't verify that. I'm sure there are others on this board that might take issue with that. It's my understanding that there is a Dishpro DP34 switch that will do the same, but you would have to have a Dishpro dual LNB first. The DP34 requires no outside power source. So I just decided that if I didn't want to go the SW44 route, and would have to replace the LNB anyway, I might as well do it with a Dishpro Quad LNB and eliminate the need for another switch. Make sense?

[KWarner]

Wow,

Thanks guys, very helpful info. I'll let you know what I do