Ordering SWM

No. They are not officially being used for residentail installs.

In some areas, SWM-integrated Slimline dishes are used, but only for new installs with 4 or more receivers with one of them being an HD-DVR. These SWM-line dishes haven't been rolled out to the entire country yet, and, again, are only to be used in certain circumstances.

Those restrictions may be relaxed as volume production of the SWM-line dish increases, but since they will always cost more than a standard dish, there may always be some restrictions. Also, if you have any non-SWM receivers on your account, you won't get a SWM dish, as legacy receivers aren't supported.

kturcotte said:

Is it possible yet to call Directv and order an SWM kit?

Click to expand...

Apparently not - but you can get it from SolidSignal. And am I glad I looked at this for you - the price dropped again in the last week or so - now it's well under $200.

http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_display.asp?PROD=SWM-8

Out of the 12 Ive installed only one of them has been a new customer. The other 11 were former installs.
Most had legacy recievers that we upgraded at no charge. The only exception was a couple of old Tivos that the cust had to pay the $99 upgrade fee to get new R-16'sthat were compatible. If the cust doesnt want to upgrade the dvr's we just install a normal slimline.

Also 5 of the installs didnt have and hd ot dvr's at all, just basic recievers.

Basically everything we were told about the customer qualifying for a swm has been completely wrong. lol

Wow, that price on the swm8 has definitely dropped. Wonder if it will keep dropping like that.

dbmaven said:

Apparently not - but you can get it from SolidSignal. And am I glad I looked at this for you - the price dropped again in the last week or so - now it's well under $200.

http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_display.asp?PROD=SWM-8

Click to expand...

holy crap. thats the best deal i have ever seen. they dropped it $100 overnight. if i were you i would jump all over that price

dave29 said:

holy crap. thats the best deal i have ever seen. they dropped it $100 overnight. if i were you i would jump all over that price

Click to expand...

Coming from you, Dave, that's high praise.
I've been watching it for a while, and was on the verge of contacting you a few weeks ago.... I couldn't believe my eyes when it dropped that much that quickly...

What's scary is that from talking to a few people who recently had installs done, Halstead Comm. (including supervisors) are still in the dark about SWMs. A supe told one person that with an SWM they only needed 3 downlinks from the dish (oh my god!!) and a powered splitter at the receiver to connect 2 lines to the both DVR inputs (double oh my god!!!).
Maybe this is yet another case of just being unlucky to get clueless techs/supes, but it shows that DirecTV really needs to get their act together with the installation contractors...

dave29 said:

holy crap. thats the best deal i have ever seen. they dropped it $100 overnight. if i were you i would jump all over that price

Click to expand...

I wonder if the 'fire sale' indicates that they'll stop selling them soon and just sell the SWM dish instead.

Redlinetire said:

I wonder if the 'fire sale' indicates that they'll stop selling them soon and just sell the SWM dish instead.

Click to expand...

"they" may stop selling them, but by no means will they stop being produced anytime soon

Looks like it was a "July 4th" sale - the price at Solidsignal is back up to $219.

dbmaven said:

Looks like it was a "July 4th" sale - the price at Solidsignal is back up to $219.

Click to expand...

its still a good price though.

dave29 said:

its still a good price though.

Click to expand...

I agree. I would pay that if I didn't have a SWMLine already.

MIAMI1683 said:

I agree. I would pay that if I didn't have a SWMLine already.

Click to expand...

looks like they are in fact coming down in price as my salesman emailed me today and tried to get me to buy another lot of 50. pretty good pricing though as they would be about $200 shipped.

I asked today, via e-mail to D*, about getting an upgrade to a SWM8. I was told they are still in testing and not available to the general public. A D* installer who is a friend of my next door neighbor said that two groups of techs for his company (Ironwood, I believe, in KCMO area) have been trained on installation already, and have been getting work orders to install them....