Self install hopper and joeys?

Labmom

Member
Original poster
Jun 21, 2020
5
5
NY
I switched to Dish a year or so ago and had a professional install of 3 Wally receivers, it is HD. At the time we had slow satellite internet with data cap, so never had the receivers plugged into the internet. Now we have fiber optic internet and I am interested in getting a Hopper and 2 Joeys.

Will Dish send me the equipment and can I just plug them in and return the Wallys? Or are they going to want to send a tech?

I am fairly tech savvy. The switch in the basement is model DPP33 and is currently wired with the two cables in from the dish and 3 cables out to the 3 wallys.

Thank you.
 
I believe you can get a H2K or HwS or Hopper Duo using your current dish setup, but I don't recommend those Hoppers. If you want the latest/greatest 16-tuner H3 you will have to swap out that DPP33 for a DPH42. Or you could swap out the LNB for the hybrid LNB, plus assorted other glue pieces. I don't think Dish will allow you to do this install yourself, unless you buy your own parts and then maybe.
 
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I switched to Dish a year or so ago and had a professional install of 3 Wally receivers, it is HD. At the time we had slow satellite internet with data cap, so never had the receivers plugged into the internet. Now we have fiber optic internet and I am interested in getting a Hopper and 2 Joeys.

Will Dish send me the equipment and can I just plug them in and return the Wallys? Or are they going to want to send a tech?

I am fairly tech savvy. The switch in the basement is model DPP33 and is currently wired with the two cables in from the dish and 3 cables out to the 3 wallys.

Thank you.
Why would you want to do it yourself?
 
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Why would you want to do it yourself?

Because I have a person in my household at high risk for Covid19 and don't want anyone in my house. If I can get the equipment delivered and send back the old equipment, then I would do it. If it means I need an installer, then no, not now. Doctor's orders.
 
Hipkat, can Labmom buy an H3 and 2 Joey's and DPH42 and do it herself?

Labmom, you didn't tell us which Hopper you want. I recommend an H3 w/16 tuners if you can possibly afford one.
I switched to Dish a year or so ago and had a professional install of 3 Wally receivers, it is HD. At the time we had slow satellite internet with data cap, so never had the receivers plugged into the internet. Now we have fiber optic internet and I am interested in getting a Hopper and 2 Joeys.

Just to clarify, why does the Internet connection mean you want to upgrade to a Hopper/Joey combination? I believe the Wally's can also stream VOD... They have two satellite tuners and can have 2 OTA tuners if OTA is important to you.
 
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Hipkat, can Labmom buy an H3 and 2 Joey's and DPH42 and do it herself?

Labmom, you didn't tell us which Hopper you want. I recommend an H3 w/16 tuners if you can possibly afford one.


Just to clarify, why does the Internet connection mean you want to upgrade to a Hopper/Joey combination? I believe the Wally's can also stream VOD... They have two satellite tuners and can have 2 OTA tuners if OTA is important to you.

Any of the Hoppers would be sufficient.

I can only stream on demand to one television because I don't have ethernet run to the other rooms.
 
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I am not myself an installer, so I await recommendations from those in this forum who are. There are a lot of combinatorial possibilities, but IMHO you are an excellent candidate for a self-install of something. I see SolidSignal is sellling the H3 for $129, if that is a possibility.
 
Any of the Hoppers would be sufficient.

I can only stream on demand to one television because I don't have ethernet run to the other rooms.
You only connect the Hopper to the Internet, and it shares the connection with the Joeys. Therefore, the Hopper is the only device that needs to connector your Internet and it has a built-in WiFi adapter. Of course, you can buy the hardware and do it yourself, my point is, it's not just plug and play. There are particular settings, etc that you'd want a trained installer to do. BTW, we DO have PPE to protect ourselves and our customers
 
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Any of the Hoppers would be sufficient.

I can only stream on demand to one television because I don't have ethernet run to the other rooms.
I have Hopper Duos for sale in the Classifieds section on this site, if you are interested. In the same Classifieds post, I also have listed WiFi adapters that would work with your other Wally receivers, if you can get a WiFi signal in those other rooms.

If you are still interested in upgrading to a Hopper/Joey system, then you would still need to buy a Hybrid Solo Hub such as the one TheKrell listed above, and buy the Joeys somewhere, since I do not have any of those available. Let me know if you are interested. I have plenty of experience self-installing my own Hopper Duos and Wally receivers, so I may be able to help you get this working to your satisfaction.
 
The Hopper Duo is the same price as the Hopper 3 on the Solid Signal website. Just saying...
 
Well, I must be seeing things. Sorry about that.

Can the Duo drive more than one Joey?
Technically, yes it can. You just would not be able to watch Live TV on all of them at the same time, due to lack of available tuners. In theory, you could add the dual-tuner OTA adapter, so you would at least have OTA tuners available to watch on the other Joey. I have never tried it myself, so I am not sure.

The real question is whether Dish would actually allow a customer to activate more than one Joey on an account with a Hopper Duo. Dish allowed some accounts like that for testing purposes, but I do not know if they ever made that option available to regular subscribers. Perhaps adding a second Hopper Duo would be a better option. I have had both Hopper Duos activated on my account at the same time, so I know that Dish will allow that, at least with purchased receivers.
 
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Labmom - What did you end up doing? I'm in this same situation. Thanks!

Cancelled Dish altogether and bought some Roku sticks and an antenna for local channels. We had no local channels at all for weeks, not just the Nexstar channel in contract dispute and every time we called, we got the runaround. The error message said "we are aware of the problem", but nobody knew anything. So it has been about a month now and there isn't much I miss about Dish.
 
Cancelled Dish altogether and bought some Roku sticks and an antenna for local channels. We had no local channels at all for weeks, not just the Nexstar channel in contract dispute and every time we called, we got the runaround. The error message said "we are aware of the problem", but nobody knew anything. So it has been about a month now and there isn't much I miss about Dish.
Been about 6 months for me and I don't miss it either, tbh.
 
I would do that, but I'm just slightly too far away from the local channels I need. I keep looking for work arounds but it looks like Dish is still my best option to get those locals.
 
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