DISH Won't do install...

[Ajax]

Hey guys, I need a little advice on what to do at this point.
Here's the situation:

I live in an apartment complex and I don't have a southern exposure for my balcony, however my neighbor below me has a yard and she also has a satellite dish in it pointing south over the top of the building. Our neighbors to my left have 2 dishes in their yard doing exactly the same thing. I asked for her permission to install a dish in her yard and she doesn't care at all, however, when I call DISH to come out and get them to do the free install, they won't do it because they don't have permission to dig to bury the wire.

Every neighbor I have has the wire just running across the ground or along the fence, but DISH won't do that so they won't install a system.

I'm thinking of doing a self install where I'd do just that, but I'm wondering about the difficulty.

My only other option is Cable and it's analog and of course I have a beautiful HDTV.

Any advice?

Thanks,
Ajax

 

[boba]

What happens if your neighbor moves before your 18 month contract with DISH is up? I agree with DISH no permission from the complex no install.

 

[SatinKzo]

How the heck is the wire not getting hit by a mower? I say it's a bad idea, but not saying you can't do it.

 

[JKeats]

i disagree with boba. if the neighbor offers proof to dish of the okay (letter or something i guess) then what should dish care (unless, of course, it's not an issue with respect to los but instead something actually prohibited by the complex). if the neighbor moves before contract is up... ajax would still be responsible to pay the bill. it's not dish's fault. dish will still get their money regardless (either by him keeping service and figuring something out with the dish... or by him paying the early term fee).

jmho though.

 

[juangomez]

What happens if your neighbor moves before your 18 month contract with DISH is up? I agree with DISH no permission from the complex no install.

You don't need to have a 18 month contract, you can go month to month.


Several suggestions here:

- ask the complex to give you permission?

- talk to your local installer and ask for a quote to do the installation (your neighbor will probably still have to give you permission or just be there), later you call Dish and tell them you have everything ready, just need the receivers. It will cost you a few $$ but you can probably ask for some programming rebate since they didn't do the install and you're a new customer.

- If the prior two didn't work, just do the install yourself, if you cannot bury the poste, just use a bucket full of cement, stick a pvc poste there and I'm sure it won't move (unless you live in a huracan prone state). I've done that several times in apartments. You can buy everything in home depo for less than $10. You'll probably have to buy the dish as well, I'm not sure that they will send you a dish for a DIY installation.

I hope it helps.
= J =

 

[Ajax]

You don't need to have a 18 month contract, you can go month to month.


Several suggestions here:

- ask the complex to give you permission?

- talk to your local installer and ask for a quote to do the installation (your neighbor will probably still have to give you permission or just be there), later you call Dish and tell them you have everything ready, just need the receivers. It will cost you a few $$ but you can probably ask for some programming rebate since they didn't do the install and you're a new customer.

- If the prior two didn't work, just do the install yourself, if you cannot bury the poste, just use a bucket full of cement, stick a pvc poste there and I'm sure it won't move (unless you live in a huracan prone state). I've done that several times in apartments. You can buy everything in home depo for less than $10. You'll probably have to buy the dish as well, I'm not sure that they will send you a dish for a DIY installation.

I hope it helps.
= J =

We already have permission from the complex to install in yards, balconies and the like. It was DISH that brought up the need to dig.

My neighbor is using the cement bucket technique herself, lol.

The wires run across the top of the fence or under the fence. They mow their own lawns so that's how they avoid it. The fences are wooden with metal posts.

My neighbors to the left actually attached a wooden poll to the metal posts and attached their dishes to that to get a little more stability and better LoS. I had planned to do that.

No hurricanes in central TX so it should be no big deal. Some of my friends had suggested attaching a mast to a bracket that would go up over my roof but i'd be worried about adjusting that as well as the high winds that could throw it out of alignment, plus my balcony has a large overhang so i'd have to go out and up and not just straight up.

And yes, if it came to it, I'd end up paying for a service i couldn't use.

 

[papalittle]

Have you thought of putting the dish on a wooden pallet held down with a 1/2 dozen cement block on the roof? I have done a lot of them that way.

 

[Ajax]

Have you thought of putting the dish on a wooden pallet held down with a 1/2 dozen cement block on the roof? I have done a lot of them that way.

Yea. We cannot put anything on the roof at all.

 

[juangomez]

My neighbors to the left actually attached a wooden poll to the metal posts and attached their dishes to that to get a little more stability and better LoS. I had planned to do that.

If you think that's the best, and DISH didn't want to do that but digging, I would buy the wooden poll and neccessary brackets, then call a different local retailer/installer and thell them to go and install it there (or just ask them to take a look first). They will just probably do the rest of the installation (you may have to show them the permission from the complex as well), call DISH and have you hooked up.

= J =

 

[Liquidforce88]

I can tell you why DNSC won't do it. LIABILITY

 

[miguelaqui]

When I worked with cable, I encountered this all the time! A neighbor would say it was OK to run a wire across their yard to get to the customer's house, what they did not realize was that, should they have a falling out with the neighbor, the cable had to go!

This seems to be the same situation. What happens in this case... If your neighbor all of a sudden does not want it there, then you might be mad at Dish for making you honor the programming commitment.

I agree with the guy who mentioned the free-for-all where you can buy your own equipment, do your own install or have a retailer do it. If your neighbor does not mind, you could install it however you like and, should your neighbor decide that they no longer want the dish in the yard, you could remove it and sell the equipment.

 

[Jordan420]

How many receivers are you looking to install? If you only need 1 see if either of your neighbors has an open output on their dish or switch and see if they will let you run a line from it to your apartment, then go out & buy an 811, hook it up & call dish to activate it.

 

[Claude Greiner]

I can tell you why DNSC won't do it. LIABILITY

Its not liability, its a matter of having a lazy installer!!!!!

I hate to say it but installers are the weakest link in the entire satellite industry. On average 15-20% of all new installations are cancelled due to NLOS where actually less than 5% of them are actually treed out.

But you have 3 issues working agenst you on this...

#1 You live in an apartment, even before the installer knocks on your door and does a site survey you already got 1 strike agenst you. Installers and dealers hate installing in apartments!

A) Installers do not like apartments because of the regulations such as what you can and cannot do, in addition the fact its not a perminent install meaning if something moves they might possibly have to go back out and do a free service call in the future.

B) Dealers hate apartments because customers in apartments tend to move more often and therefore creating un-necessary chargebacks.

#2 The Dish needs to be mounted on a pole and the wire has to be trenched. Installers usually do not have a pole and cement on their truck, nor do they like doing the extra work because they aren't properly compansated for it. Its sometimes easier for an installer to say it won't work then to bust their butt all afternoon trenching cable.

#3 Your Dish will not be installed on your property, which is the excuse the installer is using to get out of your installation because of parts #1 & #2

My Suggestion at this point would be to go to Home Depot, cement the pole in yourself and purchase Rg6 Cable and trench it yourself from the back yard to your apartment. If all the installer has to do is mount the Dish on your pole and hook up the cable to the receiver they will do the install because it means they can complete your install in under an hour and have a few hours of Free time because they are alloted so many hours for each job

 

[webbydude]

May I add, RG6 with a ground-tracer. That is Dish's number one pet-peeve and failure for install is lack of grounding. This is another reason apartment installs are so difficult. It's a real bear to find a suitable ground.

 

[Liquidforce88]

Claude,

I find it insulting that you feel installers are the weakest link.

How about retailers that don't take the time to tell customers about things like phone lines on dual tuners. Tell customers they don't have to be there when the installer shows up for the install. Don't sell the customer the system they need, but what ever they are pushing that month. Tell customers everything is FREE FREE FREE.

Sure there are some installers that don't care about their work. Most work their butts off to get crapped on by people like you though.

 

[David_Levin]

How many receivers are you looking to install? If you only need 1 see if either of your neighbors has an open output on their dish or switch and see if they will let you run a line from it to your apartment, then go out & buy an 811, hook it up & call dish to activate it.

I was thinking this as well. Even is a switch upgrade is needed, why not just share the dish? Might even want to replace the dish with one that's permanently mounted.

If both neighbors are on DirectTV you could consider going to them instead.

 

[mudder1310]

Claude,

I find it insulting that you feel installers are the weakest link.

How about retailers that don't take the time to tell customers about things like phone lines on dual tuners. Tell customers they don't have to be there when the installer shows up for the install. Don't sell the customer the system they need, but what ever they are pushing that month. Tell customers everything is FREE FREE FREE.

Sure there are some installers that don't care about their work. Most work their butts off to get crapped on by people like you though.

The problem is that installers are really the ONLY link as to whether or not the work gets done. Therefore it always comes back to the tech when something goes wrong. In this case, there are several answers which could have been investigated and applied. Why didn't the tech do it? There are some rules that are unevenly moderated. Our office has a policy of only mounting in exclusive use areas regardless what the neighbor says, just to keep things simple. The issue of grounding is something else altogether.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Dave & Claude are both right. There's WAY too many el-crappo installers out there, and WAY too many el-crappo dealers.

Find a GOOD local retailer. Failing that, talk to dishstore.net - maybe Claude (a good guy) will answer the phone.

 

[Van]

If you have it in writting on company letterhead from the apartment property management that you can have the dish installed on a pole in the back yard on theyr property then that is your first hurdle crossed. Your next hurdle is to have the underground utilities found through your states burried utility location authority, you can do this by calling your local gas company and ask them for the # and the turn around time should be 2 - 5 days for them to get out there. Make sure to tell the service that you need the back yard marked and that it is an apartment complex.

With this done call back to dish and go over everything youve done and have, if the csr tells you no then demand to speak to a coach as the csr your talking to most likely was working at mcdonalds last week selling you an extra large diet coke with your happy meal. Dish network employee'd technicians carry poles and cement to do yard mounts and come equiped with shovels and post hole diggers, but in a place such as yours they do need to have the utilities that are burried marked out before digging the prescirbed 3ft deep hole for the pole.

Simples right, there are less than stellar techs both dish employe'd and contracted and there are scandalis dealers out there as well, but you will also find some exemplery techs and dealers out there that will go the extra mile to take care of a customer.

 

[cali_installer]

what u need to do to solve your problem

speaking from vans last post its really not as simple as that ever state i have traveled to which requires u to call dig alert/rite wants the tech or rep from the company doing the work to make the phone call once all that is said and dont and you then have the ok we can come back and put a pole in the ground all that take about 3 days once the installer makes the call and what ever time it takes your job to get resch.. for a new date for your install --that was the hard part but the simi good news is that most dns offices should give you a temp.. mount until they can come back out and do a proper install .. pole mounted in ground and lines trenched back