Retiring Older Receivers

I got one of the postcards yesterday. We have two 301s and one 508 dvr. I live near Knoxville, TN (zip=37748) and do not know what arc I'm on (I'm very untechnical, like your dad!). Would a tech have to come out to my house? Are the "newer generation receivers" HD?
Your HD channels are on 61.5 (Eastern arc) and your SD channels are on 110 (Western arc). Because your present day receivers are SD I'm going to say that you have a western arc setup today. I'm guessing that Knoxville is going to go Eastern arc only and that means a truck roll is necessary to change both the receivers and the dish. You will probably get HD capable receivers because all of Eastern arc is that way...
 
Your HD channels are on 61.5 (Eastern arc) and your SD channels are on 110 (Western arc). Because your present day receivers are SD I'm going to say that you have a western arc setup today. I'm guessing that Knoxville is going to go Eastern arc only and that means a truck roll is necessary to change both the receivers and the dish. You will probably get HD capable receivers because all of Eastern arc is that way...

Thanks for the explanation. We still have one non-HD TV in the house. So does that mean we have to get a new TV?
 
I got one of the postcards yesterday. We have two 301s and one 508 dvr. I live near Knoxville, TN (zip=37748) and do not know what arc I'm on (I'm very untechnical, like your dad!). Would a tech have to come out to my house? Are the "newer generation receivers" HD?
Go to menu 6-1-3 what satellites are listed 110-119-129 is Western Arc, 61.5-72.7-77 is Eastern Arc.
 
No, the new receivers will have SD outputs (red, white,yellow) as well as HD outputs...

OK, so does this mean I will have HD for my two HD TVs? And SD for the non-HD tv? Or SD for all three? I guess we could just buy another TV. Not that expensive.
 
You may be able to qualify for HD Free For Life depending on what package you have if you go on Auto Pay.
We're already on autopay. We have America's Top 200 plus HBO/Showtime. One DVR receiver and two non-DVR receivers. [We've just about decided to get rid of the third receiver (the one we use with the non-HD TV). My sister just told me she only uses it to listen to the Sirius XM stations!] Do you think we qualify?

We are also debating whether to get DISH for Internet. We're on dialup out in the middle of nowhere. Cable and DSL are unavailable. I'm about to search the forums for info on this. But I'd appreciate any opinions!
 
We are also debating whether to get DISH for Internet. We're on dialup out in the middle of nowhere. Cable and DSL are unavailable. I'm about to search the forums for info on this. But I'd appreciate any opinions!
Not the greatest, but would certainly beat dail-up and get you out of the 90's!
 
Agree with KAB satellite internet is better than dialup. I would ask about the HD free for life. Better than paying $10 a month and you're already on Auto pay and I would think Top 200 would qualify.
 
I just swapped out my 4900 for a 311k under this program. The 311k has an annoying known issue with the initial software download from satellite that causes it to either turn off or change the channel of the TV1 RF modulator. The phone tech (who was quite competent and knew what he was doing) said it usually changes TV1 modulator to channel 4, but in my case it seemed like it turned the modulator completely off. I got tired to trying to debug it and didn't want to move the receiver to another TV, so what I did was finally upgrade the TV near the receiver. I took out the 19" CRT that was really getting long in the tooth (and only had an F connector RF input, no other inputs) and set up a 20 inch analog 4:3 flat panel TV (yes they exist; Black Friday special several years ago). The new TV has S-Video and component, but I am just using regular "yellow cable" video at the moment, because I wanted to get it working. I am hunting down some S-Video cables. I am an existing Western Arc (Dish 500) + 61.5 customer in a Western Arc market out of contract. I did notice the 311k had a "G4" smart card in it, so perhaps that is another reason Dish is upgrading (the 4900 had a G3). With how little SD content of interest remains at 61.5, I am seriously considering taking down that Dish 300 and putting up an OTA antenna, as the subchannels would be more useful for me than what is on 61.5 these days.

So I now have 311k > Analog DVD recorder (no tuner) > TV. And it all works well so far. I'm setting timers on the 311k and recording them on DVD.

Something I noticed was that a lot of the interactive channels had disappeared from the 4900 but they are all back now on the 311k. I really like the current Weather Channel app, it's not bad. I wish there was a proper news app, but I guess the CNN one was retired?

Also - here is the biggest thing for me about the upgrade. The guide is so much better! It's like night and day.The 4900 used to load its guide quickly back in the day, but admittedly there were fewer channels. It got to where you couldn't even go beyond the 90 minutes of guide shown on screen (into the future) because there was never any data. With the nightly downloads of guide data, the 311k seems much easier.
 
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Original poster here....

510 was replaced by Dish with a Solo 512(duel tuner). Questions, you guys know everything! Can we hook up that second tuner and watch one while we record one WITHOUT paying another DVR fee?
 
Yes you can, but you cannot view two shows independently. It's basically a bastardized 522, with the second independent output disabled.
 
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Noticed that, TV 2 has plugs. Just wanted the duel recording. Thanks!
 
Original poster here....

510 was replaced by Dish with a Solo 512(duel tuner). Questions, you guys know everything! Can we hook up that second tuner and watch one while we record one WITHOUT paying another DVR fee?
Currently there is only 1 DVR Fee per account but additional receivers do have fees.
 
so Dish decides to send my 84 year old Grandma the receiver to swap out instead of sending someone out (yet my dad they send someone out)
So my uncle calls me and he is trying to hook up the new receiver and they send her a 311K....yeah a neutered 322

what a pain in the ass to set up since it tries to find both tuners in the setup (even though there is only one cable hoked up). guess it took him like an hour to get it set up and going.
 
so Dish decides to send my 84 year old Grandma the receiver to swap out instead of sending someone out (yet my dad they send someone out)
So my uncle calls me and he is trying to hook up the new receiver and they send her a 311K....yeah a neutered 322

what a pain in the ass to set up since it tries to find both tuners in the setup (even though there is only one cable hoked up). guess it took him like an hour to get it set up and going.
They have to use up their junk somehow.
 
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