hopper/Joey

llzel

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Nov 14, 2007
383
0
St Louis
Hey all, will move in new house in a month or so, and am looking at switching 722 and 612 with hopper/joey. OR I'm looking at Uverse for kick a#$ 12 month prices.
Question, in new house can I run CAT 6 for joey or do I need coax? Old home with plaster walls and WiFi
 
llzel said:
Hey all, will move in new house in a month or so, and am looking at switching 722 and 612 with hopper/joey. OR I'm looking at Uverse for kick a#$ 12 month prices.
Question, in new house can I run CAT 6 for joey or do I need coax? Old home with plaster walls and WiFi

Considering cat 6 isn't officially supported, I'd run coax. But since you are running cable might as well run both. Future planning.
 
That's what I thought install both. Old plaster walls not sure how I'll do it. Channeling and a good plasterer I guess
 
Although officially unsupported wired or wireless ethernet works well. You may well be happy with a wifi only Joey.

May be worth trying before tearing up plaster walls.

I have my Joeys wired coax, but have done extensive testing (multiple weeks each) running wired and wireless. With a decent wifi signal, the differences in performance are minimal.

For perspective, my wife was never aware Joey was running wirelessly, never complained and did not notice any difference.
 
How do you make it wireless? I'm curious.

I had good results with Linksys N single or dual band wireless game adapters. The Joey has a USB2 port so the Dish USB2 wireless adapter may work.

Dish may not advertise it much but if either the Hopper or Joey is within cabling distance of your router you should ask for a HIC to be included in your install. They were designed to provide internet connectivity in H/J systems and do it well. RG6 cable and a HIC will give you the best results.
 
oldengineer said:
I had good results with Linksys N single or dual band wireless game adapters. The Joey has a USB2 port so the Dish USB2 wireless adapter may work.

Dish may not advertise it much but if either the Hopper or Joey is within cabling distance of your router you should ask for a HIC to be included in your install. They were designed to provide internet connectivity in H/J systems and do it well. RG6 cable and a HIC will give you the best results.

So let me get this straight. Connect the hic to the moca system and obviously your router, and have your Joey connected to a wireless game adapter?

I'm more or less just trying to wrap my head around this. I'm a DNS tech, and this is way above what they train us about the system.
 
How do you make it wireless? I'm curious.

Just add the Dish USB wireless adapter to the Joey, no need to mess with a bridge or gaming adapter. The Hopper needs ethernet connectivity either directly, wirelessly or through a HIC. I use a HIC. It works with both Joey and Hopper wireless, but I'd keep as much wired as possible to save the wireless bandwidth where needed.
 
So let me get this straight. Connect the hic to the moca system and obviously your router, and have your Joey connected to a wireless game adapter?

I'm more or less just trying to wrap my head around this. I'm a DNS tech, and this is way above what they train us about the system.

You only need the HIC, which replaces all other adapters. It gives DHCP internet connectivity to all boxes in your system so you can do On Demand downloads or run DLNA apps. It runs best if it can be ethernet connected to your router. It should be free with your install but you may have to ask for it. I've done it with and without the HIC and I think the HIC is the best solution.
 
I'm more confused now than when I started. So I need to trade my 722 and 612 in for 1 hopper and 2 joey's. I connect my hopper to the internet via a cat 6 cable directly into my router. Do I need a HIC (what is a HIC). Would a HIC give me more options?
Then both Joey's require a dish USB wireless adapter? Do the USB wireless adapters need 120v power? Is a Apple Express the same as a wireless bridge?
Last off subject question...is St Louis both eastern and Western Arc? My view of the east/south/east is poor
 
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I'm more confused now than when I started. So I need to trade my 722 and 612 in for 1 hopper and 2 joey's. I connect my hopper to the internet via a cat 6 cable directly into my router. Do I need a HIC (what is a HIC). Would a HIC give me more options?
Then both Joey's require a dish USB wireless adapter? Do the USB wireless adapters need 120v power? Is a Apple Express the same as a wireless bridge?
Last off subject question...is St Louis both eastern and Western Arc? My view of the east/south/east is poor

You can connect the Hopper with cat6 to your router, enable bridging in the Hopper, and, if all of your boxes are RG6 connected thru the right node type, all boxes should get internet connected. However Dish developed the HIC to do the job and I can't see why they don't include it with every install. It serves as the MoCA client for your router and gives all the H/J in the network internet access without having to bridge the Hopper. My initial upgrade in March didn't include the HIC. I called E* in July they installed one for $0 and waived the $15 service call. I prefer the HIC. YMMV
 
I guess my last question is, can I have my Hopper hard wired (via cat6 to router and coax to satellite) and than have 2 Joey's else where in the house via WiFi only? The 2 Joey's will require a wireless USB adapter. Will the 2 Joey's have all the capabilities like internet access for VOD, access the Hopper's DVR?
 
That is not official supported at this time but wireless connected Joeys will work.
 
of course that's assuming that there's no local interference.

Plus, a competent tech won't allow these to be installed wirelessly since they're required to use coax. You would have to assume that the wireless has to be setup after the tech left.

The small group of people on this site that are playing around with wireless are doing so after they had a stable coax install. They always have something to fall back on in case there are problems with wireless down the road.
 
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one more question, will my old RF remotes from my Vip612 and 722 work with joey's? I have all the little covers that change them from TV2 or UHF, etc
 
You'll receive new RF remotes, one for each Hopper and Joey. Yes, the STBs will also work with IR, and the old remotes will work in IR mode but not RF mode, but you'll be happier with the new, and the color buttons. Plus, you can save timers and such to the remote in case you replace your STBs.

The new RF is Zigbee, a whole different and incompatible, and in some ways better, animal.
 
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