Need to vent!

nicmartim

Active SatelliteGuys Member
Original poster
Oct 15, 2008
20
1
SE Nebraska
So, on 8/6 I chatted Dish for severe signal drop issues w/ just partly cloudy skies. It appears in Menu 6-1-3 I am only getting signal from satellite 72 and 61.5 drops all the time. I've rebooted the receiver, done a check switch, etc. per recommendations. Anyhow, on 8/6 Dish said today a.m. was the very first available appointment for a tech to see about re-aligning my dish. No issue really so I made plans to keep myself home this morning. 1100hrs came and not a single call from a tech telling me when they'd be here. I decided to chat customer service and see what's up. Apparently the first tech didn't even set up the appointment for me. Then today's Customer Service rep decided to try and chide me for not checking mydish.com and verifying the appointment was set. Now appointments are out for another 14 days and thankfully the skies are clear for now. Really lament the dying days of customer service. Thanks for letting me vent.
 
So, on 8/6 I chatted Dish for severe signal drop issues w/ just partly cloudy skies. It appears in Menu 6-1-3 I am only getting signal from satellite 72 and 61.5 drops all the time. I've rebooted the receiver, done a check switch, etc. per recommendations. Anyhow, on 8/6 Dish said today a.m. was the very first available appointment for a tech to see about re-aligning my dish. No issue really so I made plans to keep myself home this morning. 1100hrs came and not a single call from a tech telling me when they'd be here. I decided to chat customer service and see what's up. Apparently the first tech didn't even set up the appointment for me. Then today's Customer Service rep decided to try and chide me for not checking mydish.com and verifying the appointment was set. Now appointments are out for another 14 days and thankfully the skies are clear for now. Really lament the dying days of customer service. Thanks for letting me vent.

Terrible customer service.My advice is to pm a Dirt member.
 
For some reason it has been hard for Dish to provide consistent quality customer service, but there has been a marked uptick the past few years.

When I got my second installation done, the technician was way late, so I called and within the hour a technician was at my home. He asked if I signed up for a same day installation. When I said no, he was surprised since he was the only installer in the area and had my job added to his route after my call lol. It seems the weak link may be on dispatch in a lot of case.
 
Another reason to go with a local retailer if you've got a good one. You have a single point of contact you can call anytime for sales and service. You can actually call and talk to somebody who knows you and cares whether you're happy or not. :)
 
I find it hard to believe you didn't get a single notice of a tech's arrival time considering they are using a new system that basically drives a customer crazy with an update every other hour or so.

Best advice I can give at this time is to start from the Receiver and work your way back as in check each connection behind receiver make sure they are tight. Then head to where all the connections join together likely at the ground block - if this is outside take each connection apart and look to see if they are clean and not corroded. Far too many times if its been raining a bunch do I see corroded connectors that need to be replaced as water had gotten into them some way.
If all these are clean then follow the lines to make sure nothing got damaged or cut, all the way up to the LNB of the dish and check those connections too. IF all clean and look ok then look to see if you have any obstructions like tree branches growing into the way...you can download a nice dish app on your phone to see where the sats are based on GPS to give you some rough idea as this is the 2nd biggest issue after rain/corrosion of connections.

These are some simple checks you can do on you're own to see if you have an issue and temp resolve it till a tech can get to you.
 
The very best customer service is at the end of each of your arms.

Since you are already getting some signal, it would not be difficult to tweak your dish to improve the signal and it is an interesting learning experience.

Use your tuner as a signal meter and have someone on another cell phone watch the signal for you.

There are several posts in this area that give detailed instructions for tweaking the dish.

Basically, you do not touch skew, make very small adjustments to the azimuth left or right to get the best signal, then do the elevation, tiny bits up and/or down until signal is high as possible, then repeat until things are the best you can get.

Of course if the dish is in a dangerous location - wait for the tech.
 
Before you try tweaking, have you done a System Info test to see if you have lnb drift?. It's hard to beleive that you dish has suddenly moved on it's own. There's another thread about "Suddenly No Signal". OP just posted that it wasn't the receiver but a bad lnb. I had a similar problem with constant Partial Signal Loss. It was lnb drift. New lnb and no more signal problem.
 
Before you try tweaking, have you done a System Info test to see if you have lnb drift?. It's hard to beleive that you dish has suddenly moved on it's own. There's another thread about "Suddenly No Signal". OP just posted that it wasn't the receiver but a bad lnb. I had a similar problem with constant Partial Signal Loss. It was lnb drift. New lnb and no more signal problem.

LNB Drift may last for years and not cause an issue - I've tested this theory back in 2009 on a few people I ran across with it happening to say a DPPTwin and to this day they still have it and not a single issue. Still something good to check and yes its a highlighted item to note to get a replacement if you have the warranty to cover the visit and so on.
 
Another reason to go with a local retailer if you've got a good one. You have a single point of contact you can call anytime for sales and service. You can actually call and talk to somebody who knows you and cares whether you're happy or not. :)
You keep preaching local dealers, and if I assume correctly that you are or work for one, why don't you put your location in your sig, and perhaps someone here might give you some business??? Same for dvrexpander.
 
You keep preaching local dealers, and if I assume correctly that you are or work for one, why don't you put your location in your sig, and perhaps someone here might give you some business??? Same for dvrexpander.

Not putting my location cause I'm a technician that has a very anal office that I work for and I don't need them knowing who I am or anyone else for that matter..so deal with it.
 
here in south central Nebraska we have had tremendous wind storms and severe weather. some winds even bending the dish reflectors. I have been on many service calls for these. very possible dish bent slightly out of shape. I even have found perfectly good looking LNB'S filled with water.
 
Update and it's not good......

Update:

Dish tech arrived as scheduled (the 2nd time), but that didnt go off without a hitch. I got a call from Dish at 0735'ish about my scheduled appt for that day. The tech was knocking on my door not more than 10 minutes later. I thought that was awfully early, but better early than not at all as the last go-around. Tech checked the receiver and found that 61.5 was dropping but he thought it had sufficient signal to maintain. He checked all connections, grounds, and what-nots. This tech has been to my house a couple of times w/ my last upgrade/downgrade rodeo and he is a great guy. He decided to replace the LNB to try something. He also said he was going to get me a replacement 722k because he cannot narrow down the issue. This is where my frustration grows.

I told him I would be perfectly fine doing the swap out myself as he had no 722k receivers on his van. He told me it should take 2-3 days to get it here, so I was looking at Thursday with Labor Day being on Monday. Here it sits Saturday, no receiver and a continuation of the 11-22-11 errors and signal loss. Checked the "My Shipments" section of mydish.com and there is NOTHING in there. Again this large corporation has forgotten me. Getting sick of this. Now I will admit that I came here to check what other people have said in this thread before contacting Dish, so I cannot vouch for what they can/will say, but if they try the same garbage they did the last time they screwed up it may push me over the edge.

Who is a "DIRT" team member here? I am sure there is some place I can look them up, but I am steamed. Also, what can they do? Are they more capable than the wonderful roulette we play every time we call and/or chat? Thanks again everyone. :mad:
 
DIRT is a great resource for dish and they can help you out. They do a great job. The will be listed in red at the bottom of the main FORUMS page in the users online. Hope they get you fixed up.

Sent from my phone using SatelliteGuys
 
I find it hard to believe you didn't get a single notice of a tech's arrival time considering they are using a new system that basically drives a customer crazy with an update every other hour or so.

Best advice I can give at this time is to start from the Receiver and work your way back as in check each connection behind receiver make sure they are tight. Then head to where all the connections join together likely at the ground block - if this is outside take each connection apart and look to see if they are clean and not corroded. Far too many times if its been raining a bunch do I see corroded connectors that need to be replaced as water had gotten into them some way.
If all these are clean then follow the lines to make sure nothing got damaged or cut, all the way up to the LNB of the dish and check those connections too. IF all clean and look ok then look to see if you have any obstructions like tree branches growing into the way...you can download a nice dish app on your phone to see where the sats are based on GPS to give you some rough idea as this is the 2nd biggest issue after rain/corrosion of connections.

These are some simple checks you can do on you're own to see if you have an issue and temp resolve it till a tech can get to you.
system won't work if appointment was never scheduled by the CSR :bowl: ;)
 
That's weird about the 11-22-11 errors. We had this happen Friday on our hopper receiver around 11:00am and again around 7:00pm central time. Turned out there were problems with eastern arc and the uplink center and weather conditions. I wonder if you were on eastern arc as well?
 
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