[edy]

Hi,

I' new here... I've been lurking for a while and finally decided to post. Now, to Get to the point of my post!

I recently upgraded, and received a HR21 from DirecTV. Unfortunately, I have the old round dish with 3 LNBs, so I only get a handful of HDTV channels. I have an appointment to get the new dish upgraded, but it seems that their installers are super busy and the earliest I can get the dish installed is 9/16. Having to wait 3 weeks for what should be a simple install that should take no more than 20 minutes is pretty ridiculous. Needless to say, I'm pretty annoyed.

I've done all the previous installs on our home, so I figured I could maybe get directv to send out the dish and I'd do it myself. I've called 3+ times, each time I've been told that directv doesn't drop ship dishes. I was beginning to accept that... and then I saw this thread (showthread.php?t=137528 - Slimline AU9 Design Question - in this forum) where directv sent him a replacement dish. So, I'm at a loss as to what's going on. I even had a supervisor on the phone tell me that they don't drop ship dishes.

Does anyone know what I could do so that I can start enjoying all there is to HD sooner, rather than later? Maybe someone knows an installer local to me (San Jose, CA) that could help? (long shot, but worth a try!)

 

[tcusta00]

Note that DirecTV didn't drop-ship the dish to him - it sounds as if a local satellite retailer or installer had given it to him. He probably convinced them to let him do the install.

I would find a local retailer and see if they can do the upgrade as they are typically not as backed-up, as least around here.

Good luck and :welcome_s to the forums!

 

[tweaked]

Hi,

I' new here... I've been lurking for a while and finally decided to post. Now, to Get to the point of my post!

I recently upgraded, and received a HR21 from DirecTV. Unfortunately, I have the old round dish with 3 LNBs, so I only get a handful of HDTV channels. I have an appointment to get the new dish upgraded, but it seems that their installers are super busy and the earliest I can get the dish installed is 9/16. Having to wait 3 weeks for what should be a simple install that should take no more than 20 minutes is pretty ridiculous. Needless to say, I'm pretty annoyed.

I've done all the previous installs on our home, so I figured I could maybe get directv to send out the dish and I'd do it myself. I've called 3+ times, each time I've been told that directv doesn't drop ship dishes. I was beginning to accept that... and then I saw this thread (showthread.php?t=137528 - Slimline AU9 Design Question - in this forum) where directv sent him a replacement dish. So, I'm at a loss as to what's going on. I even had a supervisor on the phone tell me that they don't drop ship dishes.

Does anyone know what I could do so that I can start enjoying all there is to HD sooner, rather than later? Maybe someone knows an installer local to me (San Jose, CA) that could help? (long shot, but worth a try!)

Welcome aboard, I'm relatively new here myself (lots of friendly folk and useful info to be found)

Regarding drop shipment of dishes, D* as a rule will not ship Slimline dishes to customers, at least that was my experience. What you may try to do is to have a D* tech rep write up an amended work order that will allow for a 'customer install'. That's what I ended up doing and since you have some previous experience, they'd likely okay it. In my case, I have specific locating and mounting requirements and am more comfortable installing it myself (not leaving it up to an unknown contractor). I'd also mentioned that I wasn't all too satisfied with the condition of the original dish or more to the point, how (and where) it was mounted.

9/16 is a long way off for an installation appointment. If you can get D* to allow for a self install, you might be able to arrange for a drop ship at an earlier date however, the dish will be coming from a local install company or contractor, not from DirecTV.

 

[flipptyfloppity]

User IIP is local to South Bay I believe. He is a pro installer.

But if you want to do your own install, I think you'll find calling solidsignal a lot more cost-effective.

Be ready to deal with swapping poles, the new ones are bigger.

 

[curt8403]

User IIP is local to South Bay I believe. He is a pro installer.

But if you want to do your own install, I think you'll find calling solidsignal a lot more cost-effective.

Be ready to deal with swapping poles, the new ones are bigger.

new pole 2" od GO TO muffler shop

 

[edy]

Thanks for the reply. I called DTV, and tried to get them to amend the work order, but was unable. The rep checked the available dates, and by sheer luck, the 30th (this Saturday) was available. I can definitely deal with this! I don't think I would have called again today had I not seen tweaked's reply!

 

[Johnnie5000]

Having to wait 3 weeks for what should be a simple install that should take no more than 20 minutes is pretty ridiculous.

Don't expect it to be that quick. A lot of work has to go into these new dishes.

 

[evan_s]

Assuming your current pole is well secured I'd recommend http://cgi.ebay.com/DirecTV-AT9-AU9-KA-KU-Adapter-for-old-1-5-8-pole_W0QQitemZ150286975631QQihZ005QQ

It slides over your current pole and makes it the right 2" OD for the new slimline dish to fit. Since you already have LOS from 101 to 119 for your current dish 99 and 103 shouldn't be a problem. I used the adapter for my install and it worked great. They also shipped quickly.

 

[Mertzen]

Assuming your current pole is well secured I'd recommend http://cgi.ebay.com/DirecTV-AT9-AU9-KA-KU-Adapter-for-old-1-5-8-pole_W0QQitemZ150286975631QQihZ005QQ

It slides over your current pole and makes it the right 2" OD for the new slimline dish to fit. Since you already have LOS from 101 to 119 for your current dish 99 and 103 shouldn't be a problem. I used the adapter for my install and it worked great. They also shipped quickly.

Looks neat. But remember that Slimline dishes also need 2 monopoles. Not sure if they fit on that adapter.

 

[techrep]

Looks neat. But remember that Slimline dishes also need 2 monopoles. Not sure if they fit on that adapter.

Good thought, here is a picture.

 

[Mertzen]

Good thought, here is a picture.

LOL those are Superdish or DP500+ braces.

 

[techrep]

LOL those are Superdish or DP500+ braces.

That's true, here is part of the caption associated with the picture.

Shown in the two photos below is a superstrong install done by a customer using our adapter and strong Dish Network SuperDish support struts. The same install can be done using two monopoles and my kit.

 

[BattleZone]

User IIP is local to South Bay I believe. He is a pro installer.

East Bay (Contra Costa county), actually, though during my "career" I've worked in all of the Bay Area counties.

DirecTV's business rules require "professional" :sure: installation of the Ka/Ku dishes, because these dishes are considerably more complex than previous dishes and alignment is far more critical due to the much narrower beamwidth of the Ka signals. The dish is also much larger, heavier, has much more wind load, and requires additional support arms to provide a rigid mounting base.

Having said that, plenty of folks here, who have some mechanical aptitude and armed with written instructions and viewings of some instructional videos, have successfully installed and aimed their own Ka/Ku dishes, in many cases better than the "pros". It certainly can be done, but the average customer who doesn't have the resources available here just isn't going to be able to figure it out with just the paper instructions in the box. Thus the business rules, which must be written with the majority in mind.

 

[K4SMX]

And when you do get it installed on the 30th (?), you want to be seeing tp signal strengths mostly all in the 90's on the DirecTV10 & 11 national HD satellites, 103(c) and 99(c) on your View Signal Strength menu pages......

(Unless it's an HR21-100, which may read a little lower)

Welcome to DBSTalk.com!

 

[orothenberg]

East Bay (Contra Costa county), actually, though during my "career" I've worked in all of the Bay Area counties.

DirecTV's business rules require "professional" :sure: installation of the Ka/Ku dishes, because these dishes are considerably more complex than previous dishes and alignment is far more critical due to the much narrower beamwidth of the Ka signals. The dish is also much larger, heavier, has much more wind load, and requires additional support arms to provide a rigid mounting base.

Having said that, plenty of folks here, who have some mechanical aptitude and armed with written instructions and viewings of some instructional videos, have successfully installed and aimed their own Ka/Ku dishes, in many cases better than the "pros". It certainly can be done, but the average customer who doesn't have the resources available here just isn't going to be able to figure it out with just the paper instructions in the box. Thus the business rules, which must be written with the majority in mind.

Hi IIP! I am hoping you can help me with a location specific question. I'm in San Jose as well. I upgraded to HD in June and got the new 5lnb dish. Everything worked fine until 8 days after warranty expired. I suddenly don't get EPSN, EPSN2, TNT and one HBO station in HD. I get the non-HD feeds without a problem. On top of this, I am going to re-roof my house in a month or so. I want to move my dish off of the roof and hopefully get it installed under the eave. I've seen some under-eave mounts on line that look pretty good. I called Ironwood Communications to see if they would of an under-eave install. Of course they told me that I need to make an appointment to come out. D* told me that I need to pay for a tech to come out to solve my missing HD channel problem. I'm trying to kill two birds at once by having them come out to install under the eave and then fix the missing channels. Any ideas on how I can get this done? Whenever I call D*, I don't get anybody that can answer my questions. Appreciate any help or suggestions you can provide.

 

[texasbrit]

Hi IIP! I am hoping you can help me with a location specific question. I'm in San Jose as well. I upgraded to HD in June and got the new 5lnb dish. Everything worked fine until 8 days after warranty expired. I suddenly don't get EPSN, EPSN2, TNT and one HBO station in HD. I get the non-HD feeds without a problem. On top of this, I am going to re-roof my house in a month or so. I want to move my dish off of the roof and hopefully get it installed under the eave. I've seen some under-eave mounts on line that look pretty good. I called Ironwood Communications to see if they would of an under-eave install. Of course they told me that I need to make an appointment to come out. D* told me that I need to pay for a tech to come out to solve my missing HD channel problem. I'm trying to kill two birds at once by having them come out to install under the eave and then fix the missing channels. Any ideas on how I can get this done? Whenever I call D*, I don't get anybody that can answer my questions. Appreciate any help or suggestions you can provide.

Your mising channels are almost certainly a dish alignment problem, if you check your 99c signals(for a DVR) or 99a signals (for a receiver) you will probably find they are low or zero, they should be 70s minimum and preferably 80s/90s. . When your dish gets reinstalled it will be realigned anyway and that should solve that particular problem.

 

[BattleZone]

Hi IIP! I am hoping you can help me with a location specific question. I'm in San Jose as well. I upgraded to HD in June and got the new 5lnb dish. Everything worked fine until 8 days after warranty expired. I suddenly don't get EPSN, EPSN2, TNT and one HBO station in HD. I get the non-HD feeds without a problem. On top of this, I am going to re-roof my house in a month or so. I want to move my dish off of the roof and hopefully get it installed under the eave. I've seen some under-eave mounts on line that look pretty good. I called Ironwood Communications to see if they would of an under-eave install. Of course they told me that I need to make an appointment to come out. D* told me that I need to pay for a tech to come out to solve my missing HD channel problem. I'm trying to kill two birds at once by having them come out to install under the eave and then fix the missing channels. Any ideas on how I can get this done? Whenever I call D*, I don't get anybody that can answer my questions. Appreciate any help or suggestions you can provide.

DirecTV CSRs really don't know much about the specifics of installing, so they aren't going to be much help.

What you want is an under-eave mount. I'm assuming you have some exposed rafter tails that an undereave mount could be mounted on.

Here's a post from someone I helped walk through doing his own dish relocate onto an undereave mount. ACILLATEM posted a series of pics about 2/3 of the way down.

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=132573

The mount came from Universal Satellite Accessories, who makes all the custom mounts I've used for the last 5+ years, including a few that I helped design.

As I told ACILLATEM, I prefer USA's support arms over the DirecTV monopoles for use with the undereave mount, as USA's are stronger and will make the mount more rigid, but the DirecTV monopoles will work. He went ahead and got the USA arms for his, and agrees with me.

When your dish is relocated, it will need to be fine-tuned anyway, and that will fix your lost channel problem. If you were to post your signal strengths on 99(c) and 103(c), they would be very low. Obviously, your dish is out of alignment, and the HD signals, which come over the Ka-band frequencies, require much more accurate dish aiming than the standard-def signals that come over Ku-band freqs.

If you have Ironwood come out to relocate your dish, there's a good chance that they won't have an undereave mount at all; DirecTV stopped letting them be used, and I'm not sure they are "allowed" again. This happened because undereave mounts are custom mounts, which customers have to pay for (and techs make a bit of money from, to compensate for all of the extra work it takes to put them up), and DirecTV doesn't really like techs making money they don't control. So, they bought a knock-off of USA's mount that was very cheaply made using junk steel, and when we had a wind storm earlier this year, a bunch of them broke, sending dishes tumbling down. None of the USA mounts had a problem, but as is typical, DirecTV banned undereave mounts.

If you have trouble with DirecTV, I know a couple of techs who do good work who do work in the South Bay that I could refer you to. Send me a PM.

 

[orothenberg]

DirecTV CSRs really don't know much about the specifics of installing, so they aren't going to be much help.

What you want is an under-eave mount. I'm assuming you have some exposed rafter tails that an undereave mount could be mounted on.

Here's a post from someone I helped walk through doing his own dish relocate onto an undereave mount. ACILLATEM posted a series of pics about 2/3 of the way down.

The mount came from Universal Satellite Accessories[/URL], who makes all the custom mounts I've used for the last 5+ years, including a few that I helped design.

As I told ACILLATEM, I prefer USA's support arms over the DirecTV monopoles for use with the undereave mount, as USA's are stronger and will make the mount more rigid, but the DirecTV monopoles will work. He went ahead and got the USA arms for his, and agrees with me.

When your dish is relocated, it will need to be fine-tuned anyway, and that will fix your lost channel problem. If you were to post your signal strengths on 99(c) and 103(c), they would be very low. Obviously, your dish is out of alignment, and the HD signals, which come over the Ka-band frequencies, require much more accurate dish aiming than the standard-def signals that come over Ku-band freqs.

If you have Ironwood come out to relocate your dish, there's a good chance that they won't have an undereave mount at all; DirecTV stopped letting them be used, and I'm not sure they are "allowed" again. This happened because undereave mounts are custom mounts, which customers have to pay for (and techs make a bit of money from, to compensate for all of the extra work it takes to put them up), and DirecTV doesn't really like techs making money they don't control. So, they bought a knock-off of USA's mount that was very cheaply made using junk steel, and when we had a wind storm earlier this year, a bunch of them broke, sending dishes tumbling down. None of the USA mounts had a problem, but as is typical, DirecTV banned undereave mounts.

If you have trouble with DirecTV, I know a couple of techs who do good work who do work in the South Bay that I could refer you to. Send me a PM.

Thanks IIP! I'm going to call D* one more time. I assume that I will get nowhere. When that happens, expect a PM from me asking for help. I'm somewhat handy, but don't have too much time on my hands so I think I'd be much happier have a pro do the install. Again, thanks for your help.

 

[orothenberg]

Thanks IIP! I'm going to call D* one more time. I assume that I will get nowhere. When that happens, expect a PM from me asking for help. I'm somewhat handy, but don't have too much time on my hands so I think I'd be much happier have a pro do the install. Again, thanks for your help.

So, I called D* just now and they said that they will do the install for free (since I've been a customer for a while). She said the HSP should be able to do the under-eave mount, no problem. Anyway, I'll give you an update after that all happens to see if they are full of BS or not. The appointment is 3 weeks away. Again, thanks for all of your help.

 

[orothenberg]

So, I called D* just now and they said that they will do the install for free (since I've been a customer for a while). She said the HSP should be able to do the under-eave mount, no problem. Anyway, I'll give you an update after that all happens to see if they are full of BS or not. The appointment is 3 weeks away. Again, thanks for all of your help.

So, the D* guy came this weekend. Of course, he wanted to charge me $100 for a special mount. I told him that was BS and that he needed to wait while I called D*. As I am on the phone chewing D* out, he came in and told me he could install it using the standard mount since me fascia board is actually two 1X4's screwed together (it might actually be a 2X4 and 1X4 screwed together. Strangely, this is the only eave in the house where it was reinforced. So, he installed it using the standard mount. He added three support arms (two to the fascia board, one to the stucco). It looks pretty solid. And, it fixed all of the channel issues I was having. My receiver has done some strange things, but nothing that a reset couldn't fix. I was getting the screensaver when watching TV (not paused) and I have had some minor issues with the receiver not turning on (unplug fixed that one). anyway, thanks for all of the input to all. It is very much appreciated.