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This is pretty lengthy, but I wanted to share details of my experience with everyone on this forum. I was able to find out a lot of things about Voom prior to my decision, based on what I read on this forum. So I figure if there is anyone else on the fence, like I was, that this information could be helpful

I finally decided to get Voom on December 2nd after seeing their $1 offer. I called the Toll Free number and went through the order process and then requested a December 9th installation date. The lady told me the earliest date available was Dec. 14th. I told her that I had to be out of town starting on the 14th. She told me she would book the 14th and would expedite the equipment and put a "Rush" on the Installation for the 9th and she would call me back to confirm. I agreed and just waited to hear back. :sleeo

On December 6th I decided it was time to call back since I had not heard from anyone . I was transferred to the "Installation Department" where a gentleman looked into seeing if they could accommodate me on the 9th as requested. (They had no information that I had requested the 9th). He looked and told me that he could fit me in on the afternoon of the 9th. So I said "Great!!" and he put me down for that date. He told me someone would call the evening before to confirm.

The evening of the 8th I did get a call to confirm the installation, and that they would be showing up between Noon and 5:00pm. The morning of the 9th, at about 11:00 am they called my house to let me know they could come early, but I was not home to take the call. At 12:20pm the installer showed up at my house for the installation. He went to have an early lunch and stop by Home Depot to buy a tool belt, since Voom did not provide them with one and he was used to have a handy belt to get his job done more efficiently. He did tell me that he did not work for Installs Inc,. and that he actually worked for Voom. He said that south Florida had literally exploded with Voom installs and that they are starting to take more and more installs In-House. He was a veteran in the Satellite install business since he also did installs for D* and E* for a few years already.

Apparently Cablevision has transferred a lot of their Cable TV installers to become Voom installers, and he was constantly on his NexTel phone answering questions and helping these other installers with problems at other sites. This guy really knew what he was talking about and what he was doing.

My installation would be simple since I had already mounted a 24" dish pointing to the 61.5 bird. I had a MicroRoyal 8-port multi-switch that I had from the D* days. I had OTA antennas in my attic and I had run a coax into the Terrestrial port into the MultiSwitch. And all lines were run to the three spots I would be putting the Voom boxes in. I had High Grade Diplexers in two of the locations (Centronics Model STV-1782B). I also had all the AV connections ready to go.

He went out back to make sure the antenna was aligned while I set up the boxes where they were supposed to go. While out back he re-terminated the connectors with new compression connectors and re-ran a new ground wire since the old one looked a little weak (It is 5 years old by the way).

The Voom receivers were refurbished units, and came in shrink wrap with the accessories also in shrink wrap. All the accessories looked very good and it included all the wires (DVI, Phones cords, remote, batteries, etc…) All the receivers powered up and went to the Installation Wizard screen. After I had gone through the first steps in the Wizard (Check Sat signal strength, OTA signal strength, and scanned the OTA channels), he disconnected the Sat antenna lines from the multi switch outside and then re-connected them. The receivers all locked up and would not come back after a few soft and hard reboots. He went out to his van and brought in 3 brand new receivers. We quickly changed them out and went through the wizard again.

On the screen where you have to put in the order number and account number and such, is a new method for them to activate the boxes using the phone line, this way they do not have to call it in (A very good idea for the phone line use). This did not work on any of the receivers . He called his local dispatch office who took the information to call in the activations. One of the receivers apparently did not show up on Voom's list of valid receivers. This took a while but apparently they were able to sort this out, since channel 100 finally came in on the receiver after al while. The other 2 receivers started getting channel 100 pretty quickly.

The installer told me that it would take a while before the information started showing up on the Program Guide. He went through the operation of the unit and verified everything was working. He took me out back to show me what he had done with the Sat antenna, the Multi switch, and the Grounding wire. He also left me with the dish he was supposed to install (a 24" dish by the way) and the Winegard antenna for OTA. This guy was a super tech, and he had to leave to go help another ex-Cablevision tech with an install the guy had been at since the morning.

What took the longest time for my installation was troubleshooting and then swapping out the boxes and then waiting for them to become activated. This definitely needs to be improved by Voom, since they could probably get more installs done in a day if this time was not wasted.

OK…. Now I was Vooming!!!:clap I was able to get 30 OTA stations and the program guide was coming in on the first TV. I was looking through the HD channels to admire them on my Toshiba 65" RPTV, but when I got to channel 124 it locked up . I had to reboot the receiver, and this lost all the Program Guide information. This happened with the other 2 receivers as well. I went through this several times to see if it was a fluke or if it would happen on other channels…. It did !!! I got fed-up and left Well Enough alone and went out to dinner with the family. When we came back we the same thing happened again with channel 124 .

After rebooting (again!)we looked through some of the SD channels. My biggest complaint here is CNN and Headline News (plus a few others). It looks like to me that wherever they are getting these channels from they are using C-band or Ku-band Dishes at the TelePort. The sparkles on the screen (especially where there are graphics) there is a lot of "Terrestrial Noise" on the signal. When I had an old C-Band Dish (before the DBS days) this was common on the analog signals where a poor LNB or a Dish with junk in it would cause this (as well as rain or other atmospheric issues). If Voom is using something like this to relay these channels, then they should all be shot!! Its 2005 almost, and they should definitely have the cleanest HD and SD channels of all the DBS providers. By the way… the HD News channel looks very good but I really need more the 7 minutes of news before they start repeating it over again. I will stick with CNN Headline News for now, thank you very much…!protest

OK, now on the morning of the 10th I checked out to see if the receivers did any downloads over-night as the technician told me they might. One of them would not turn on with the remote power button or the power button on the front of the receiver :yikes . I did a soft reboot and a screen came up that it was going to download an update. The progress bar then started showing it was downloading the update. I went to the other 2 receivers. They turned on normally, but to my surprise they both had "No Info" on all the channels in the Program Guide. I was a little miffed to say the least. I did a soft reboot on both of them to see if they would start any type of download, but they did not. (Maybe they did it over-night and I just did not see it, which would explain the blank Program Guide. I will give them the benefit of doubt on this one). I did not notice any change on the software versions from the previous day on any of the receivers :river .

After the first receiver downloaded its information it rebooted itself. The Program Guide showed "No Info" on all the channels. It also then only showed a handful of the OTA stations that the other receivers got fine. I rescanned the locals using the Wizard, but still no luck. I then remembered that this was the only receiver where I used the Voom diplexer . This diplexer is a "Snap on" device that looks pretty cool, but apparently is not very good. I went to the garage and dug up another one of my diplexers and installed it on the box. The OTA channels then came in right away and very strong.

I later stopped by the house during lunch time to see how things were going. Two of the receivers had the full Program Guide (did not check to see how far out they went) and they did not lock up on any of the channels I tested. I rebooted the last receiver and later when I got home that night I had the full program guide. So far, so good . I was already getting a little tired of this rebooting stuff, as it is annoying and makes you start from scratch every time. It's been almost 2 days since I did the last reboot… Keeping my fingers crossed…

The Motorola Voom receivers leave much to be desired . The software is obviously filled with bugs, and it takes too long to get them up to full functionality to be used in a reasonable amount of time. I guess I am used to the D* and E* receivers that update very quickly, and they just worked!!!

It would be a shame if Voom Corporate did not take advantage of the type of feedback posted in this forum to improve upon their products and service. They definitely have a huge opportunity to build their business quickly and take on their competition; if they listen to their customers and take corrective action right away. First thing to do is put Motorola on notice and start looking for another STB supplier (Hughes, LG, Phillips, etc…). Second is re-vamping their back-room operations and get some integrity and pride inside that part of the business. Taking installations in-house is a great start, but also start overseeing the sub-contractors representing them. These are the folks that are front-line with their customers, and this should work to leave customers with a good feeling about their purchase decisions (Business and Marketing 101). Voom Corp can't forget that they really are not the only game in town, and it will only be a matter of time before their competition starts getting more HD content with better receivers and support staff. The advantage Voom enjoys today could be gone tomorrow if they do not take care of their customers issues now.

Three things for Voom to consider:
People – Get the best people they can afford to interface with the customer and to keep the customer happy. Keep these employees content, motivated, and trained.

Quality – Make sure the STB's work like they are expected to by the customer. Make sure the programming content is contemporary, varied, and complete. Make sure picture quality and reliability are outstanding.

Profit – Voom will build their business based on the above two items, and then they will be very very successful @party.

Thought of the day for Voom Corp… Keep the customers happily watching HDTV and they will not think about leaving….

I am renting the equipment with a 6 month contract, which is very little risk to me if I decide to go another route later. This is obviously bad for Voom if more and more customers would leave due to dissatisfaction after 6 months.

I am fairly happy with Voom right now (2.5 days of Vooming):lick , and only hope I do not have to go through some of the horror stories I have read about elsewhere in this forum. I will update as things progress, just in case it could be useful to someone .