MPEG2 Western Arc shutoff

[navychop]

Unlaunched = not to be launched.

 

[telstar_1]

Maybe the "unlaunched" Echostar satellite will be loaded to the gills with spotbeams ?

Right, I forgot about all those locals being on spotbeams, so they can re-use freq's.

 

[RTCDude]

Slightly off subject, but related….

For the second time this week, Dish rolled an unsolicited appointment to my door trying to get me to upgrade my equipment to a whole-house Hopper 3 system. I’m not ready to upgrade yet, so I turned them both away.

While I appreciate Dish is trying to give me a free upgrade, it seems a little aggressive to start pushing appointments on customers they didn’t ask for and had no notification of. In both cases the installer seemed to be under the impression that I asked for the appointment; I did not. The last installer said “Ya, Dish is doing this a lot now”.

When I ready to upgrade, I’ll do it in my own time in my own way.

 

[Jim5506]

Slightly off subject, but related….

For the second time this week, Dish rolled an unsolicited appointment to my door trying to get me to upgrade my equipment to a whole-house Hopper 3 system. I’m not ready to upgrade yet, so I turned them both away.

While I appreciate Dish is trying to give me a free upgrade, it seems a little aggressive to start pushing appointments on customers they didn’t ask for and had no notification of. In both cases the installer seemed to be under the impression that I asked for the appointment; I did not. The last installer said “Ya, Dish is doing this a lot now”.

When I ready to upgrade, I’ll do it in my own time in my own way.

When Dish shuts off MPEG2 transmission on WA (110/119/129) your 625 will be a doorstop. You should let them replace at least that one if not replace your entire entourage of receivers with a Hopper 3 /Joey 3 setup. You may actually end up paying less in receiver fees Hopper = $15 + 2 Joeys = $14 total $29, current estimate 2 722+ 1 625 = 3 X$10 = $30.

 

[Jim5506]

MPEG2 and MPEG4 are merely modulation types, both can carry SD/HD and audio signals, BUT MPEG4 is about twice as efficient as MPEG2 so Dish can put in 2 MPEG4 channels for each MPEG2 channel they remove.

Eastern arc has been operating for years on two satellites with full MPEG4 capabilities but receivers must be VIPs or Hoppers, anything else can't receive the MPEG4 transmissions.

Any and everybody with old 625 or other non VIP/Hopper receivers will soon have NO SIGNAL.

Get them changed out BEFORE Dish does the switch or you may be weeks getting them replaced when the panic sets in.

MOVE IT OR LOOSE IT!!

 

[tjboston5676]

Slightly off subject, but related….

For the second time this week, Dish rolled an unsolicited appointment to my door trying to get me to upgrade my equipment to a whole-house Hopper 3 system. I’m not ready to upgrade yet, so I turned them both away.

While I appreciate Dish is trying to give me a free upgrade, it seems a little aggressive to start pushing appointments on customers they didn’t ask for and had no notification of. In both cases the installer seemed to be under the impression that I asked for the appointment; I did not. The last installer said “Ya, Dish is doing this a lot now”.

When I ready to upgrade, I’ll do it in my own time in my own way.

The reason that's happening is because dish doesn't want your service to be interrupted and they have tried contacting you but your contact info probably isn't correct. They've probably sent a letter in the mail as well as try calling. So they are setting up mandatory appointments as a last resort. But if you want to learn the hard way, then so be it.

I've had a few of these appointment and it was exactly the same on each one, tried calling multiple times to let them know I'm on the way and not a single one of these jobs did I get ahold of anyone. Which tells me phone numbers are no longer correct. So I'd call back to dish, uodate your into and schedule an appointment that works with your schedule (we do work Sat and Sun too.) you've got about 2 months before you no longer have service.

 

[Josh.M]

The reason that's happening is because dish doesn't want your service to be interrupted and they have tried contacting you but your contact info probably isn't correct. They've probably sent a letter in the mail as well as try calling. So they are setting up mandatory appointments as a last resort. But if you want to learn the hard way, then so be it.

I've had a few of these appointment and it was exactly the same on each one, tried calling multiple times to let them know I'm on the way and not a single one of these jobs did I get ahold of anyone. Which tells me phone numbers are no longer correct. So I'd call back to dish, uodate your into and schedule an appointment that works with your schedule (we do work Sat and Sun too.) you've got about 2 months before you no longer have service.

This is accurate. With the major outage that affected our ability to take calls and schedule technicians we lost a lot of time to get people in correct equipment and installations. This is an effort being made to correct installs that we've identified will be affected by all of the channel moves that are currently happening.

 

[odbrv]

I hope Dish can move some local HD channels back to the western arc. I have 2 dish antennas on the house one for 110,119,129 and one for 61.5. The 61.5 was to get Lubbock, Tx locals in HD. The sd locals are on 110. The wing antenna for 61.5 is now having reception problems due to the neighbors trees getting tall. The western arc antenna has a totally open view.

 

[Josh.M]

I hope Dish can move some local HD channels back to the western arc. I have 2 dish antennas on the house one for 110,119,129 and one for 61.5. The 61.5 was to get Lubbock, Tx locals in HD. The sd locals are on 110. The wing antenna for 61.5 is now having reception problems due to the neighbors trees getting tall. The western arc antenna has a totally open view.

Lubbock (and most of TX to be honest) is in a grey area. There will likely be changes to these markets in the very distant future as we're trying to avoid split markets between WA/EA. Maybe you can relocate your 61.5 antenna in the meantime, but I don't have any other details that would help unfortunately.

 

[HipKat]

Slightly off subject, but related….

For the second time this week, Dish rolled an unsolicited appointment to my door trying to get me to upgrade my equipment to a whole-house Hopper 3 system. I’m not ready to upgrade yet, so I turned them both away.

While I appreciate Dish is trying to give me a free upgrade, it seems a little aggressive to start pushing appointments on customers they didn’t ask for and had no notification of. In both cases the installer seemed to be under the impression that I asked for the appointment; I did not. The last installer said “Ya, Dish is doing this a lot now”.

When I ready to upgrade, I’ll do it in my own time in my own way.

There were no notifications because of the hack. Techs are rolling and not getting paid and taking hits on their completion metric because of customers who choose, or think they have the ability to choose not to do the upgrade. Those metrics affect the offices as well as the techs.

If you have VIP Equipment, you have the ability to refuse the upgrade but if you have all SD MPEG2 equipment then I told my guys that they should be firm and let the customer know, there is no choice. They can take the upgrade or find a new provider because as more and more channels are moved around the sats, the more are going to call in complaining and causing more truck rolls

 

[ethanlerma]

If you have VIP Equipment, you have the ability to refuse the upgrade but if you have all SD MPEG2 equipment then I told my guys that they should be firm and let the customer know, there is no choice. They can take the upgrade or find a new provider because as more and more channels are moved around the sats, the more are going to call in complaining and causing more truck rolls

Let me run this by you because now I’m curious. Let’s say I’m someone that is affected by this, running whatever mix of 625/322/etc. I get someone at my door, wanting to instal a Hopper system. From what has been discussed here, I’m guessing that are what these automated work orders are being defaulted to. I don’t want an increase on my monthly payment (I would especially be worried if on 322/311’s because of them not being DVR’s) but do realize that the upgrade needs to be done. Do I have to swallow the new monthly rate, or are DVR disabled 722’s still being offered? Does your techs need to call it in to change the work order in that case, if they are allowed at all?

 

[HipKat]

Let me run this by you because now I’m curious. Let’s say I’m someone that is affected by this, running whatever mix of 625/322/etc. I get someone at my door, wanting to instal a Hopper system. From what has been discussed here, I’m guessing that are what these automated work orders are being defaulted to. I don’t want an increase on my monthly payment (I would especially be worried if on 322/311’s because of them not being DVR’s) but do realize that the upgrade needs to be done. Do I have to swallow the new monthly rate, or are DVR disabled 722’s still being offered? Does your techs need to call it in to change the work order in that case, if they are allowed at all?

Now that I'm out of the field, I'm not seeing customer's bills but Dish has said they're not raising people's bills, which I'd have to see to believe

 

[RTCDude]

When Dish shuts off MPEG2 transmission on WA (110/119/129) your 625 will be a doorstop. You should let them replace at least that one if not replace your entire entourage of receivers with a Hopper 3 /Joey 3 setup. You may actually end up paying less in receiver fees Hopper = $15 + 2 Joeys = $14 total $29, current estimate 2 722+ 1 625 = 3 X$10 = $30.

Looks like I started a bit of a reply storm with this post. But that’s OK because a lot of good clarifying comments were made.

As I’ve said previously, I fully aware the 625 will soon become a “doorstop”, so replacing it is going to have to happen. And as I have stated above, I have a second VIP722 not doing much. So in the short term I will be swapping it in for the (soon to be doorstop) 625. A swap only takes 10 minutes or such, so I won’t be without service in that room. I just haven’t done that swap yet because I’ve been using the 625 as a monitor to see what is disappearing.

In the longer term, I already have an owned Hopper 3 just waiting for the full system update later this year. I’m just taking my time getting all of the broken wiring replaced (rodents) and updated (Cat6 vs Cat5), and installing a new WA dish with struts since I live a very windy area.

This post was only meant to comment on what looked like a slightly aggressive tactic by Dish, not to deny the need for an upgrade.

 

[navychop]

I doubt that in this application, you will see any difference between CAT 5 and 6

 

[RTCDude]

I doubt that in this application, you will see any difference between CAT 5 and 6

To be more specific, in all of the wiring diagrams I’ve seen, a Hopper 3 is supposed to use Cat-6/RG-6 3000 MHertz coax. Also, this wiring upgrade in the house structural wiring is also meant to support GigaBit or greater Ethernet.

It’s too much trouble (and not future proofing) to try to only update some cables. This is part of a house upgrade, not just a Dish upgrade.

Sorry for not being originally clear.

 

[navychop]

There is nothing to be gained by upgrading existing wiring to CAT 6, for Dish and almost every current use.

 

[tjboston5676]

Lubbock (and most of TX to be honest) is in a grey area. There will likely be changes to these markets in the very distant future as we're trying to avoid split markets between WA/EA. Maybe you can relocate your 61.5 antenna in the meantime, but I don't have any other details that would help unfortunately.

That's going to potentially be a big pain. I'm in Amarillo market and we have a lot of customers still on wa, for los issues, that are fine with sd locals. But I guess we all kind of knew eventually those sd locals will probably be gone.
I've actually enjoyed having access to both ea and WA because it makes our cancelation for los almost zero percent.

 

[That American Girl]

If you have VIP Equipment, you have the ability to refuse the upgrade but if you have all SD MPEG2 equipment then I told my guys that they should be firm and let the customer know, there is no choice. They can take the upgrade or find a new provider because as more and more channels are moved around the sats, the more are going to call in complaining and causing more truck rolls

Had a lady call this weekend with a 311 that died and wanted us to replace it with another one. Took me a good 45 minutes to explain that I would have to go raid a museum to find one of those, and even then she'd just be calling back in a few weeks when all of her channels stopped working.

I genuinely have NO idea why so many people want to hang on to these old receivers. Even when we explain that they can't get a new remote, they'll lost the channels they have, we no longer support them, and we'll even do it for free. (not people who have a certain model for a very specific reason)

The old "Well I'll just go to DirecTV..." doesn't work. Like they'll be able to call up a competitor and still have ancient, outdated, and unsupported equipment installed!

Ugh!

 

[HipKat]

Had a lady call this weekend with a 311 that died and wanted us to replace it with another one. Took me a good 45 minutes to explain that I would have to go raid a museum to find one of those, and even then she'd just be calling back in a few weeks when all of her channels stopped working.

I genuinely have NO idea why so many people want to hang on to these old receivers. Even when we explain that they can't get a new remote, they'll lost the channels they have, we no longer support them, and we'll even do it for free. (not people who have a certain model for a very specific reason)

The old "Well I'll just go to DirecTV..." doesn't work. Like they'll be able to call up a competitor and still have ancient, outdated, and unsupported equipment installed!

Ugh!

I like when they say I never do upgrades - with a Tesla in the garage, the newest iPhone next to them, and an Alexa for their lights, etc....

 

[zippyfrog]

A lot more SD channels were removed so these channels are now only in HD:

Channel	Type	Network	Now	Was
74	SD	HSN	N/A	110, TP 16
105	SD	USA	N/A	129, TP 17
108	SD	Life	N/A	129, TP 17
109	SD	LMN	N/A	110, TP 2
110	SD	Food Network	N/A	129, TP 20
112	SD	HGTV	N/A	129, TP 20
114	SD	E!	N/A	129, TP 29
116	SD	Game Show Network	N/A	119, TP 16
118	SD	A&E	N/A	119, TP 15
119	SD	FYI	N/A	110, TP 5
120	SD	History	N/A	119, TP 16
121	SD	Vice	N/A	110, TP 1
122	SD	SYFY	N/A	110, TP 8
126	SD	Sundance	N/A	129, TP 17
128	SD	WE	N/A	129, TP 20
129	SD	Bravo	N/A	129, TP 29
131	SD	AMC	N/A	129, TP 23
132	SD	TCM	N/A	129, TP 17
133	SD	IFC	N/A	110, TP 1
138	SD	TNT	N/A	129, TP 29
139	SD	TBS	N/A	129, TP 20
152	SD	MLB Network	N/A	119, TP 16
153	SD	MLB Strikezone	N/A	119, TP16
176	SD	Cartoon Network	N/A	119, TP 16
182	SD	Discovery	N/A	119, TP 15
183	SD	TLC	N/A	129, TP 20
189	SD	OWN	N/A	129, TP 23
195	SD	AHC	N/A	119, TP 15
196	SD	Travel Channel	N/A	129, TP 20
200	SD	CNN	N/A	119, TP 16
202	SD	HLN	N/A	129, TP 17
208	SD	CNBC	N/A	129, TP 17
209	SD	MSNBC	N/A	129, TP 20
214	SD	Weather Channel	N/A	129, TP 20
239	SD	NewsNation	N/A	129, TP 29
242	SD	TruTV	N/A	129, TP 19
270	SD	Univision	N/A	129, TP 29
271	SD	UNIME	N/A	110, TP 1
273	SD	Galavision	N/A	129, TP 17
287	SD	HSN	N/A	110, TP 16
299	SD	Reelz	N/A	110, TP 1
397	SD	TUDN	N/A	110, TP 1
400	SD	Tennis Channel	N/A	110, TP 5
401	SD	Golf Channel	N/A	110, TP 15
478	SD	MLB Network Alternate	N/A	110, TP 9
827	SD	Univision	N/A	129, TP 29
830	SD	UNIME	N/A	110, TP 1
833	SD	Galavision	N/A	129, TP 17
838	SD	UNVSO	N/A	110, TP 21
856	SD	TUDN	N/A	110, TP 1