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Ok....this has got me really steamed. Dish started acting up after a storm on Tuesday. Called for service and the earliest they could get us in was Friday between noon and 5pm. I take a vacation day today to sit around and wait for the knob to show up.

Well, at 3:30 the local place calls and says he'll be here by 5pm. At 5:30 I call Dish customer service and ask where he is. The put me on hold and call the local guy. Come back and say he's running late, and say they can't give me a time when he'll be there because the local place's computers are down. I mention to the guy that I've been up since 5am (we have 3 kids age 3 and under), and that I took a vacation day to be here for this. He apologizes, etc. We hang up.

Well, at 7:30pm I call back and ask what the heck is going on. CS rep puts me on hold to check and disconnects me. While I'm calling back the local place calls to tell me it will be another 2.5 to 3 hours before they'll be able to get to my house, but they will still come if that's ok. I keep my cool - but NO, that is not ok. My wife just about falls out of her chair that they expect us to have some repair guy running around at 10:30pm at night. What kind of morons are these people? But here's the best part: I can reschedule for next Wednesday...that's the earliest they have available. I tell them that's unacceptable and I expect someone here at 8am on Saturday. No dice. 8am Wednesday or nothing. I say no thanks and tell them I'll call Dish and deal with them.

Call Dish and get a lot of "I'm sorries" and "thanks for your patience", but basically told the same thing. 10:00pm to 10:30pm tonight or Wednesday morning, that's the best they will do for me. I ask why he thinks this is reasonable resolution for me after I have taken a vacation day and have to do it all again. No answer. I tell him to schedule it for Wednesday, but told him if someone wasn't here by noon it would be in a box on the front porch for them, and that I was also going to call the "other" satellite company and if they could schedule a new install before Dish could be here for a repair, they other guys would be getting my business. I then ask to talk to his supervisor. He asks me why I want to talk to the super and I tell him because I'm not satisfied with how my situation has been handled. Ok...please hold.

Now, keep in mind that other than asking the local guys what kind of crack they're smoking expecting me to have a repair person running around at 10pm, I've kept my cool and generally not been too testy with them. I wait for the super for quite a while. Naturally when he picks up I get a dial tone (second time tonight they've done that to me).

I then call back the local (their # is in the caller ID) and tell them that they had better be absolutely positive that they tell this knob not to show up at my house tonight. If someone rings my doorbell tonight I will be calling the cops. I think I flustered this woman a bit because my anger was finally starting to show a bit.

So here I sit. Dish is throwing up switch errors (I have a 625 DVR and Dish 500 with a DPP Twin), and one line out of the dish only shows signals from even-numbered transponders and the other only shows signals from odd-numbered transponders (sounds like a bad switch?). I can't get a darn thing at all to show up on TV2. The transponders that do show signals come in fairly strong (70-75 on the new meter), but only a handful of channels can actually be watched on TV1 without dropping. Luckily we still have one or two things on the DVR we haven't watched yet, and a few of the kids favorite movies.

I'm so irritated. I can't believe they missed the appointment window by 5 hours and aren't going to do anything to try and get this fixed before Wednesday. I've never had anything like this happen before. Wife and I just went over the local cable and other sat co's channel line ups. I had the other sat service for 9+ years before switching to Dish - I bet I could get a pretty sweet deal for coming back...I might just give them a call to see what they'll do for me.

Is this standard operating procedure, or do we just have really bad local service in my area? I'm just floored they wanted to come out here at 10pm. I have a 3.5 year old son and 20-month old twin girls. There's no way I want someone screwing around in and out of the house that late at night, but then to expect me to wait 5 more days is nuts.

Anyone have any suggestions besides sit back, drink a beer and enjoy the 10 or so channels that ARE working?

Thanks, and sorry for the long rant,

Gary