622 Upgrade Install Nightmare

[soledade]

Today Dish showed up to upgrade my 942 to a 622 receiver.

I had 2 Dish500 dishes, one pointed at 61.5 and the other at the 110/119.

So these are the results:

(1) The 61.5 dish500 was left on the building. I am ok with this as the installer was not prepared to seal the holes, etc... I may use it for international programming in the future, but the installer did not have a 44 switch on the work order, so I guess I will cross that bridge if/when I ever order international programming.

(2) Dual mode does not work on the receiver after almost an hour on the phone with tech support they are shipping me another 622.

(3) None of the DVR functions work on the receiver. Pressing any of the DVR buttons (DVR, PAUSE, STOP, REC) yields a message "Unable to access this feature at this time". Tech support could not resolve this issue.

(4) Installer refused to ground anything. Said DISH does not do that. Let me say I was not pleased, but he did not seem to care. (This was a dish installer not a sub).

(5) Signal strengths are around:

SAT 110 75 - 85
SAT 129 55 - 60
SAT 114 75- 80

I saw the complaints about 129 in the pacific northwest. Are these signal levels normal for Southern California?

I am hoping the replacement receiver will solve the dual mode/DVR problems. Other posts seem to have mixed results getting DISH to ground everything and peak the dishes properly. I guess with the storm coming this weekend I will find out if the 129 drops out.

Do you guys have any recommendations on how to effectively get all of this corrected?

 

[chadzx11]

The DVR functions can be fixed with a download (you see, it didn't download the software properly). Last time that happened to me on a 625, I started getting bogus HD failure messages. This is remedied by unplugging the reciever for a minute or two, plugging it back in, re running check switch, and proceeding with the download as normal. If you do this twice to no avail, you might need a new box.

You dish employee is hourly, so they have to shhot and scoot. As a contractor, I get paid the same no matter how long I am there, so I generally take my time. I don't like being rushed.

 

[RandallA]

"I saw the complaints about 129 in the pacific northwest. Are these signal levels normal for Southern California?"

All the West Coast is getting very low signals on 129, the Pacific Northwest is worst. Looks like he installed a D1000 (you don't say in your post). The best solution for us is to have two dishes, one D500 for 119/110 and one for 129. I get mid 70s with a D500 and an I bracket. I was getting mid 60s with the Y bracket. You may want to swing that dish at 61.5 to 129 and see if you get better results.

 

[cebbigh]

With a seperate 500 dish 129 varies at peak strength of 85 low about 75. Although I haven't tracked it recently the signal strength on 129 was subject to approx 20 point drops every half hour or so. All my recordings in the past few weeks have been okay though. It might be possible to tweak a stonger signal out of the 1000 for 129 but it's much easier with a 500. Hope your 622 problem resolves with the replacement. It took me a couple of weeks to convince Dish my first one was defective (different issues than yours) and the only way I could do it was side by side comparisons between the 622 and my 942. Now my 622 is stable enough that I'm trading my 942 in for the rebate. Once it's up and working and stable I think the 622 is a better DVR than the 942.