DishNetwork: Employee pay rates, Benefits?

[Van]

I cant complain about my pay and benefits that I get from working for E, my hourly pay is very good and my work week schedule allows me to spend enough time with my family that I wouldnt normaly get at most other jobs. I may not make as much as some techs and sub contactors but E has been good to me.

 

[goaliebob99]

$13.00 isnt the starting wage for chicago or any other market, its lower than that by a few dollars. Benefits are as follows.

Actually that is not correct.. First off it is because of cost of living standards here are higher, that is why its 13.00 hr. I started off at 11.00 a year ago, then I transfered to chicago. Was still getting payed 11.00 hr. Then early this year about jan timeframe echostar raised the pay rate for this area because of the cost of living standards.. plus my 1 yr raise brought me up 14.33hr if you dont belive me I have pay stubs to proove it.

 

[Van]

I can tell you right now that techs in california wich has a higher cost of living start out at the $10 range, theres probably more playing into the change in your pay than just a scale adjustment such as the yearly cost of living adjustment plus your advancement in certifications wich will also move you up. Unless chicago's cost of living has skyrocketed past that of california then $13.00 wont be the starting wage for chicago dns. Its also possible that a manager may have moved you up in pay as well, its not common but it does happen.

 

[wobbie]

Simon, keep up the good work. I myself did a 652 install yesterday, was at the customers house for 5 hours and I still need to go back to finish the upstairs rooms. I did use the 625 for P.I.P and am in the process of mirroring outlets in all the rooms. Every room room in the house will be set up for the option of TV1 or TV2 viewing. The only extra charge I get is for 2 additional UHF remores. Do I mind taking that musch time... no, but then againg this customer is a local home builder and I was referred to him by another builder.

P.S. Papalittle.. good to hear that you did a 625 install in 15 minutes. My guess is you never bothered to check for sunken fittings ot maybe misture in the connections and I would be really happy to be a "NEW" customer knowing that I was getting all the used equipment.

 

[ken]

SimpleSimon, It use to take me 3-4 hours for 1 receiver so I know how you feel. Thats why I'm not in the satellite business anymore (it was just a small part of my security business). But thats also why I love being self employed, I set my own hours and work level and if anyone bitches, I can fire them.

 

[OoTLink]

Yeah I bet your pay rates are awesome if you crunch out installs in ~1 hour tops each one, and do 10 a day, then you get all mad when you get chargebacks/callbacks huh.

Since you're talking about installs and timing, let's just say the first guy who came by to install our dish stuff took 7 hours... 4 rooms (2 322s) yes, but he didn't have to run wire for the 2 upstairs runs just the 2 downstairs ones (which the cable guy went and had to do himself later in about 40 mins)..

Err, but anyway, 7 hours later he left, it was kinda dark so I didn't get much chance to double check, but when I went out the next morning I found the DP34 was sitting in the gutter on the roof, well uh... as for the wires, let's put it this way..

It looked like Mickey Mouse had turned into Medusa and died on our roof. There was coax hanging down like nobody's business.

Speaking of that, the poor guy was in such a big hurry (I have no idea what the heck he was doing the whole 7 hours but my guess is he probably got a DUI on the way home).. he left a spool of coax sitting in the middle of my room and just up and left (I was kinda mad because I didn't want it)..

So we called and the day after that two nice guys came and fixed it all

 

[Van]

Sounds like you got a very fresh rooky installer that came out and did your install. Dont get that guys amount of time spent installing your system confused with a quality install that takes 4 - 6 hours to do, there is a majour difference between the two.

 

[RandallA]

My installer took about 4-5 hrs. to install 4 receivers. He needed to run the cables from the dishes to the switches (100 ft) and a cable run to one receiver (50 ft.). For the other 3 receivers we used the existing wire. I didn't like the way the cable runs (dishes to switches) looked and reran them myself. He wasn't slacking or anything, it just takes time to run cables.

 

[webbydude]

Exactly!! I don't know why some people are riding Simon so much. I've had a few 4-room installs completed in less than 90 minutes. But those were very much "gift-installs" where the previous person had either Dish or Direct. It still takes time to verify all cabling, set UHF addresses, educate customer and...yee-ikes...re-running defective cable runs.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Thanks guys!

I'm not surprised that I'm only a little slower than the many quality installers that post here.

 

[TheDishNetworkInstaller]

Sure some houses take a bit more. The typical house in our area is a single story, open basement, or crawl space.

You’re lucky. Here there mostly 2 story brick or stucco with either no crawl/basement or attic access.

Those that do have crawl spaces are usually a 4x6 dirt room for Tornado shelter. (That’s what I have under my house)

Of course that’s what I get for living in the middle of Nebraska. Farm houses are usually the cake walk as they at one point had a C-Band Dish and I can tap that wiring if it was 2G RG6 wiring.

Some areas of Omaha were a PIA because like Simon most of my installs were in the high dollar section of town. Two 4 room installs with locals and MC for Sky Angel or Chinese/Indian Channels were the norm for those houses.

 

[Van]

You use old ribbon cband for the sat feed for the new dish? Considering that many cband systems are on average 15 years old, that %100 are not grounded, and the likelyhood that they are not rated to 2300mhz is grounds for alot of trouble calls.

 

[TheDishNetworkInstaller]

You use old ribbon cband for the sat feed for the new dish? Considering that many cband systems are on average 15 years old, that %100 are not grounded, and the likelyhood that they are not rated to 2300mhz is grounds for alot of trouble calls.

Well you can only dick around trying to explain to the customer for so long before they get fed up or you get fed up. I make one go at it and if they persist I note the account and the Contract.

And I don't use the buried stuff. If I have to use a pole I do it with new cable. The only part I use (if customer persists) is the stuff in the house. I ground it to code (Power meter since most are wells) and go from there.

Since most farmers wives have spent years getting there house just the way they want it, there not the easiest to get them to allow you to drill new holes in there house.

 

[sksatellite]

I did an 4 rooms installation year back in a county road, a house without any wall jack, it took me 6 hours and more then half the roll of RG6 cable, this is a loss installation on my history and damn, it was the prime TV installs.

 

[inwo]

You use old ribbon cband for the sat feed for the new dish? Considering that many cband systems are on average 15 years old, that %100 are not grounded, and the likelyhood that they are not rated to 2300mhz is grounds for alot of trouble calls.

Sweep testing is highly over rated. I have yet to see any problem caused by poor rated or old cable. If the connections can hold up to the dc current, you are not pushing the length limits, and cable is not damaged it "will" work.

I have seen cu braid rg-59 with solid dielectric work DP for 125". These were C-band upgrades near by. Customer was informed of possible problems, and given lifetime guaranty for problems with cable loss. Never had to change one yet.
That being said:
I would not recommend this as there are times when you just can't take a chance. The worst part is: when a problem does come up, you just can't be sure.

 

[dwain]

dns sucks

i dont know about where you are at but here in wv they fired me with no reason over the phone i was there a year and a day most experienced and rolled on the most jobs and the pay started at 11.25 in a super dish market failure to say i am back to contracting and our gas is 2.99 a gallon here

 

[ZandarKoad]

Well, right now I don't have a meter that's powered by a battery, so that's a big fat inefficiency. But after a year of doing installs, I'm frustrated by a 3 hr, 4 tuner N.C. Not that I don't run into them occasionally, its just well above the norm. I'd say I spend 2 and 1/2 hours on an average 4 tuner.

This is how the perfect install goes: Finish all outside work immediately: never go inside after install overview until all outside work is done. Once inside, only visit the basement twice (three times if counting install overview).

Run through house with customer, verifying work to be done, tv locations, junction locations, and dish mounting location.

Back to van to get gear, and throw up SD mount.

Pull up cable to SD, fasten all the way to point of entry, cut enough cable to reach junction, feed in, and seal point of entry.

Peak dish with Sat Buddy

Go inside, bringing cable and all tuners. Poke holes to basement, feed through dual cable from dual tuner location. Feed through single from backfeed location. Unpack all tuners.

Go to basement, bringing DP34 and grounding gear. Find dual cable, and backfeed cable. Run backfeed to where dual is comming through. Run dual to junction. Mount DP34, connect all existing cables. Ground system. Fasten all cabling.

Go upstairs. Cut cable, hook up first dual tuner and backfeed. Poke holes for other 2 tvs. Drop cable as before.

Go to basement, make final connections, fasten final cable.

Go upstairs, check switches all around, begin customer education and paperwork. Activate system after recivers are reset, verify channel reception.

Leave.​

 

[Van]

Well you can only dick around trying to explain to the customer for so long before they get fed up or you get fed up. I make one go at it and if they persist I note the account and the Contract.

And I don't use the buried stuff. If I have to use a pole I do it with new cable. The only part I use (if customer persists) is the stuff in the house. I ground it to code (Power meter since most are wells) and go from there.

Since most farmers wives have spent years getting there house just the way they want it, there not the easiest to get them to allow you to drill new holes in there house.

As an installer your there as a professional, if you allow the customer to dictate how you do your job then you have no control over the install and this can follow into alot of problems. All of last year I ran a management area of 3 full counties and parts of 4 other counties with all being superdish country installs. I never used a single cband coax for the sat feed or even the backfeed from the dual tuners, most of the customers were more than happy to have the ribbon cable mess removed and the 20lb door jam of a receiver tossed to the ditch. Bottomline is never give up control of your job or your going to set yourself up for an unhappy situation down the road.

Sweep testing is highly over rated. I have yet to see any problem caused by poor rated or old cable. If the connections can hold up to the dc current, you are not pushing the length limits, and cable is not damaged it "will" work.

I have seen cu braid rg-59 with solid dielectric work DP for 125". These were C-band upgrades near by. Customer was informed of possible problems, and given lifetime guaranty for problems with cable loss. Never had to change one yet.
That being said:
I would not recommend this as there are times when you just can't take a chance. The worst part is: when a problem does come up, you just can't be sure.

Ive seen 25 yr old rg-59 from grandpa's old rotary used on a system that has been installed for 5 years still work yet Ive been in a brand new construction home that was wired with rg-59 that a system went into 3 days earlier and it stopped working half an hour after the installer left. General rule of thumb I use is not to touch any rg-6 thats more than 5 years old, replace the fittings, replace the wall plates, and never use anything that looks questionable.

 

[ZandarKoad]

Here here, Van. It's all about control. I never let a customer order me around. I ask the certain questions to get certain information at certain times during the install. Often times they'll insist on talking about where the dish is going before I even get in the house. I simply tell them there's no point in discussing it until I know the layout of the TVs and the basement.

Then again, there are times when line of sight is a major issue, and there are only 1 or 2 places the dish can eve go, period. So I won't even bother going inside if I think they job might go down because of LOS, until I climb around on their roof for a while.

 

[OoTLink]

ZandarKoad: I never let a "professional" tell me how they're going to screw with my house and then take no considerations for what I think works best either...