Hello! Long time reader, first time poster! Great forum and I finally feel I need to participate more.
But first, I have a question and a bit of a rant. What happened to local dish installers!?
My issue is my 61.5 dish is in bad need of being relocated. Neighbors lovely Maple tree is giving it the virtual finger of signal blocking. So I have to move it. The past few days have really gotten bad, so it's definitely time to move it, I lose my signal way too much from the 61.5 sat.
So I decided to call my good old local Dish installer I used back in 2004 and 2007 when I needed help with my first install and HD upgrade. It was a small mom and pop company based in town. The guy was a bit crazy, he talked with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, told everything like it was, but did a nice clean install and made sure it was done in a way I liked. He even assisted with my OTA antenna and made sure it worked fine with my dish receiver. All for a very practical price. I had a problem with my sat a few weeks later, no problem showed up after work and took care of it. Well that company is no longer around now! I tried calling company's in my phone book that claimed they serviced the west Michigan area but actually it was some mega-corp running out of another state and once they heard I just needed a installer out, they simply transferred my call to Dish.
So what's the big deal right? Dish will fix it all up. Well yeah but after reading horror stories on here, I'm a little worried. After a bit of arguing I got them to come out and see what the problem is for free (had to call back, going to tech support direct was the winner). Problem is they can't come out till next Thursday. Gah! Well that's all right, I'm not totally addicted to TV and I can wait. Oh, but I have to be at home between 8am and Noon. Hmm. Time off work I guess. At least I hope he does a good job! I guess the upshot is that so far, I'm getting work done for free. I do question that once he's out here a price tag will go on things though. If I could call my old Dish installer I might have been out a little money, but at least I would know the experience would be good. On a side note, the tech person I chatted with at Dish today was very nice! He definitely made the call go easy. The CSR I was talking to before kept insisting I had to fork over some money or sign up for the monthly Dish repair service.
So anyway, my rant here is pretty simple. Dish is killing off the local companies and now I feel I'm getting a lower quality of service! I'm sure sat installs are sat installs to Dish, but when getting service done is similar to when the cable company comes out, well they just lost a bit of "Dish is better" in my book.
End of rant!
But first, I have a question and a bit of a rant. What happened to local dish installers!?
My issue is my 61.5 dish is in bad need of being relocated. Neighbors lovely Maple tree is giving it the virtual finger of signal blocking. So I have to move it. The past few days have really gotten bad, so it's definitely time to move it, I lose my signal way too much from the 61.5 sat.
So I decided to call my good old local Dish installer I used back in 2004 and 2007 when I needed help with my first install and HD upgrade. It was a small mom and pop company based in town. The guy was a bit crazy, he talked with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, told everything like it was, but did a nice clean install and made sure it was done in a way I liked. He even assisted with my OTA antenna and made sure it worked fine with my dish receiver. All for a very practical price. I had a problem with my sat a few weeks later, no problem showed up after work and took care of it. Well that company is no longer around now! I tried calling company's in my phone book that claimed they serviced the west Michigan area but actually it was some mega-corp running out of another state and once they heard I just needed a installer out, they simply transferred my call to Dish.
So what's the big deal right? Dish will fix it all up. Well yeah but after reading horror stories on here, I'm a little worried. After a bit of arguing I got them to come out and see what the problem is for free (had to call back, going to tech support direct was the winner). Problem is they can't come out till next Thursday. Gah! Well that's all right, I'm not totally addicted to TV and I can wait. Oh, but I have to be at home between 8am and Noon. Hmm. Time off work I guess. At least I hope he does a good job! I guess the upshot is that so far, I'm getting work done for free. I do question that once he's out here a price tag will go on things though. If I could call my old Dish installer I might have been out a little money, but at least I would know the experience would be good. On a side note, the tech person I chatted with at Dish today was very nice! He definitely made the call go easy. The CSR I was talking to before kept insisting I had to fork over some money or sign up for the monthly Dish repair service.
So anyway, my rant here is pretty simple. Dish is killing off the local companies and now I feel I'm getting a lower quality of service! I'm sure sat installs are sat installs to Dish, but when getting service done is similar to when the cable company comes out, well they just lost a bit of "Dish is better" in my book.
End of rant!
