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Let me say from the outset here that I have searched the archives here often throughout the 1.5 years we have had Dish. I've occasionally seen people briefly mention the same issues I've had; though often times they are within long threads that seem to actually be about different issues.

I got in contact with Dish about a month or two ago when our problems with HBO became annoying enough that I felt we really had to do something about it. Each time I contact tech support, I ask if the problem I'm describing is anything they have heard of. None of the 2nd level techs I've spoken with have ever confirmed this.

Up until a week ago I had a 722k that I received during the spring of 2010. We began experiencing an audio dropout problem, mainly on HBO. I'm not certain when it began. The sound drops out for about a second or less, and the display on our receiver shows a break in the signal. Occasionally these drops will occur in rapid succession. Nothing happens to the video. These distortions are reproducible by use of the DVR. If the 722 is instead connected directly to the television, it sounds like more of a static or popping noise than a drop. I'm fairly certain this has happened on other channels, but you only need to watch HBO for maybe 20 minutes before you'll hear one. It happens a lot on that particular channel.

The first time Dish came out, the tech replaced a bunch of connections, removed some splitter that he said the install tech improperly left, and said he was sure he had fixed the issue. Of course, that wasn't the case. The second tech was fairly certain that he would not be able to do anything about it, but he gave me a new 722k. That box immediately began giving random error messages and signal failures. So, Dish sent another one (At some point during all of this, our SD service for our second television stopped working. I still haven't figured that one out).

This box appears to be functioning. However, we are now getting a fair amount of a different type of distortion where the audio stutters for a second or so, sometimes with a video distortion. I've also been seeing a white horizontal line occasionally pop up with a popping noise. Of course, the HBO audio dropout issue isn't resolved. We are always told that we have a strong satellite signal.

Are these sorts of problems just a regular part of the dish service that people just deal with? Does DirectTV have the same sort of problems? Add in quite a few customer service issues (and the fact that customers are charged for tech visits or for 'insurance') and I'm really getting tempted to jump ship here.