2 Recording questions that confuse me!

[sktrus]

Good morning from a very rainy central Kentucky.
First what I have: Hopper with sling and 3 Joey 2's. My big tv is connected to one of the Joeys.

1- When I select shows to record I use this tv and the Guide. I know that Hopper records and all the Joeys get the signal from it no matter which rooms they are located at. Tv screen shows that particular Joey had been selected. But, why? What difference does it make which Joey I am using to record?
Does this help the technician (whom I may need ) to find out what device (Hopper or Joey I use) is causing the issue if recording fails?

2- When I am away for vacations I have a habit of unplugging surge protectors on 3 tvs with Joeys. In case the lightning damages my equipment. The surge protector with last tv and Hopper stays on. It has to stay on if I want Hopper to keep recording. What is the common solution to protect those during bad weather (while I am gone)? Currently, I am using decent Amazon purchased protectors. Do I just take my chances or invest on a fancy dancy surge protector that does a better job?

Thanks for the input. G'day.

 

[tjboston5676]

1. Its just letting you know which room initiated a recording. It's a nice feature for big families and want to know whuch child recorded something.

2. It's really just a risk. Even with a surge protector it can still get fried. It lowers the chances though. But overall there's not much out there you can do. Maybe a whole home surge protector at the main electrical panel that shuts off the entire panel. But still nothing is guaranteed.

 

[Almighty1]

Some surge protectors have a warranty that covers equipment in a $ amount. Not sure if anyone ever had a successful claim or not.

 

[sktrus]

Thanks to you both. Has anybody lost leased equipment due to lightning? Are we expected to pay to get it replaced if our monthly bill doesn't include the insurance?
Many years ago when I had directv I had two amplifiers fried. Miraculously, directv receiver was not affected!

 

[HipKat]

Thanks to you both. Has anybody lost leased equipment due to lightning? Are we expected to pay to get it replaced if our monthly bill doesn't include the insurance?
Many years ago when I had directv I had two amplifiers fried. Miraculously, directv receiver was not affected!

No, you don’t have to pay to have leased receivers replaced

 

[That American Girl]

Thanks to you both. Has anybody lost leased equipment due to lightning? Are we expected to pay to get it replaced if our monthly bill doesn't include the insurance?
Many years ago when I had directv I had two amplifiers fried. Miraculously, directv receiver was not affected!

Another advantage of leasing over buying. Dish owns it so Dish is responsible.

 

[sktrus]

Perfect. I am kind of paranoid these days. Glad to hear Dish won't say 'you are in big trouble!'

 

[jwhalerfan]

Another advantage of leasing over buying. Dish owns it so Dish is responsible.

Nah. Dish will replace your purchased receiver just the same and your new one will still be purchased. Where do you get your info from??

 

[sktrus]

Dish will replace your purchased receiver just the same and your new one will still be purchased.

Can you clarify your statement?
I assumed from That American Girl's statement that Dish will replace your damaged Hopper and won't ask you to pay. If you own it, you can buy another one and replace it.

 

[telstar_1]

As far as I've always known they haven't charged to replace a failed rx, either owned or leased, other than maybe in the really early days when they were doing things like charging $50 for a remote. They know that trying to determine whether a customer should pay for damage and having a pain point like that could only cost them customers. They figure even if you "own," if you're a paying subscriber they want to keep your system going. And if you do own, then you have invested some $$ upfront with them that they've had benefit of as well.

 

[strikes2k]

While you may get Dish to replace your receiver, if you do want to protect it you can get something like this:

Amazon product ASIN B009MQTC52
View: https://www.amazon.com/Panamax-MR4000-Management-Protection-Conditioning/dp/B009MQTC52/ref=asc_df_B009MQTC52?tag=bngsmtphsnus-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=80127027724184&hvnetw=s&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4583726553624519&th=1
Which can protect other electronics in the same room as well. Comes in handy if you have an entire home theater with multiple components.

 

[tjboston5676]

Can you clarify your statement?
I assumed from That American Girl's statement that Dish will replace your damaged Hopper and won't ask you to pay. If you own it, you can buy another one and replace it.

If a tech goes out and determines the receiver needs replaced we will replace it for free regardless if its leased or owned

 

[telstar_1]

If a tech goes out and determines the receiver needs replaced we will replace it for free regardless if its leased or owned

NOT the way it always was. Their original business plan was to monetize hardware, rather in the way it had been monetized in the C-band they were transitioning from. To get DiSH, you had to purchase a system- a 3000 went for $299 and a 4000 for $399. And this was in 1996 dollars. Content rates were great, and the big draw, but if the dog chewed up the remote, or it simply died as a lot of the early ones did, or you wanted an extra UHF remote- $50. If the box blew in a storm or went bad after a year, well, $$$. Oh, and installation wasn't included in those prices, that'd be a further charge the dealer was expected to levy.

They of course got pushback, especially as DTV kept lowering the bar to entry, so systems eventually went down to $149, but still seeing resistance to dealer charges for installation, they came up with the idea of giving everyone a free installation kit, consisting of the most bare-bones setup items possible. Nevermind they were only going to degrade the customer experience in encouraging self-installation that for most would be beyond their practical capability and/or provide poor/unreliable service.

In this way they shortchanged both their subscribers AND the local dealers who were still there from C-band to be able to give them a good experience. They revved up their own direct selling around local full servicers and solicited for every con artist and corner gas station to sell (and sell only). Then lots of these shysters, attracted by the biggest of them all, Charlie, started doing what shysters do, stuff like activating people without a working system in place, stacking multiple homes onto single account, etc. Paying for a month of service and telling buyers they get it free for life.

So then they go into this massive crackdown that tars all of us, responsible dealers included, as adversaries. From then on it was just fight, fight, fight with DiSH for the most basic customer propers. Rates went on the neverending upslope.

 

[Almighty1]

Interesting, if my memory is correct, wasn't DISH the one who also was sold at Radio Shack?

 

[MikeD-C05]

Interesting, if my memory is correct, wasn't DISH the one who also was sold at Radio Shack?

Yes they did sell DISH there but I remember it was the 522 dvr and the 311 they were showing at the time.

 

[n0qcu]

Yes they did sell DISH there but I remember it was the 522 dvr and the 311 they were showing at the time.

Originally though Radio Shack sold DirecTV

 

[tjboston5676]

Interesting, if my memory is correct, wasn't DISH the one who also was sold at Radio Shack?

The company I work for started as a radio shack lol. Now they only do dish and also car audio

 

[Jim5506]

We bought our first Dish receiver at Radio Shack, IIRC a 311 circa 2003.

 

[tanman]

As someone who managed a company Radio Shack store for many years can confirm we sold both Direct and then Dish.Direct (in our case) was some other company who charged a couple of bucks more per month for programming than Direct did.The customers didn't care-they just wanted TV!.Also seem to remember we sold a system for a short period called Primestar which was a leased "professionally" installed system.I hated selling Primestar because the installers were so bad." he had to borrow my tools" " he wanted to put it in the middle of my driveway" and of course tons of no shows,no calls.
That being said I was glad when companies got rid of the self install model-no more open boxes because the customer didn't check LOS before install or getting bad rain fade because they stopped as soon as they got a picture and didn't tweak for highest signal.Plus it was Dish corporate installing our equipment and I rarely had any issues with them.
My store was in rural Vermont so we did quite well with satellite over the years.A fellow manager on the other side of the state who was relatively close to the Canadian border did very well with Direct TV sales-so well he won many awards for a few years.What no one mentioned(but everyone knew) was that he was also selling tons of systems to Canadians who would get a US po box for billing purposes.

 

[Almighty1]

Originally though Radio Shack sold DirecTV

Just curious but what year was that as I don't ever remember seeing DirecTV at DISH from 1986 to when they closed.