Should I go to Dish for a challenging Antenna installation and hookup?

[judyintexas]

You may remember me as the person who was completely unable to get an antenna cable to the Hopper. We were pretty much ready to give up on having local channels on the main tv despite all of the great information y'all provided. It still looked too challenging.

Well, we found a Cat 5 cable that is in the same stud space as the cable to the Hopper, and it is long enough to pull to the level of the main TV and still reach the hub in the attic with the other end. This would not be easy as it is hard to even get to the part of the attic where the cable goes in to the wall, where it makes a bend that probably shouldn't be pulled without being able to ease it. Installing the antenna would be a challenge too. Husband will want to build a stand-off from the upstairs outside wall, as he did for the Dish itself. This is to reduce the chance that a hurricane would take off part of the roof if it took the device.

Dish's offer for installing and hooking up an external antenna, as I understand it, is $175.00. But we need a lot of "say" in the process, including at least two trips out for them to accept a plan for the stand-off. (How close to the Dish should it be? How far to stand off to get a clear line of sight to the towers?) We appreciate Dish and understand that this is a lot harder than their usual installation.

Do you recommend calling Dish or having the antenna and cable run taken care of and then having them hook it up?

I know a lot of you would do all of this yourselves, and we would have in our younger days, but not any more.

Thank you again.

 

[KAB]

You may remember me as the person who was completely unable to get an antenna cable to the Hopper. We were pretty much ready to give up on having local channels on the main tv despite all of the great information y'all provided. It still looked too challenging.

Well, we found a Cat 5 cable that is in the same stud space as the cable to the Hopper, and it is long enough to pull to the level of the main TV and still reach the hub in the attic with the other end. This would not be easy as it is hard to even get to the part of the attic where the cable goes in to the wall, where it makes a bend that probably shouldn't be pulled without being able to ease it. Installing the antenna would be a challenge too. Husband will want to build a stand-off from the upstairs outside wall, as he did for the Dish itself. This is to reduce the chance that a hurricane would take off part of the roof if it took the device.

Dish's offer for installing and hooking up an external antenna, as I understand it, is $175.00. But we need a lot of "say" in the process, including at least two trips out for them to accept a plan for the stand-off. (How close to the Dish should it be? How far to stand off to get a clear line of sight to the towers?) We appreciate Dish and understand that this is a lot harder than their usual installation.

Do you recommend calling Dish or having the antenna and cable run taken care of and then having them hook it up?

I know a lot of you would do all of this yourselves, and we would have in our younger days, but not any more.

Thank you again.

Call ain independent cable/wiring Company. Google AV/ Home Theater in your area.

 

[HipKat]

Call ain indedant cable/wiring Company. Giocle AV/ Home Theater in your area.

I agree. First off the two-trips won't happen. Even if the CSR "sets" it up, the expectation for the installer's office/company is one truck roll to complete the job. Also, fishing an extra cable like that could qualify as an extra charge - IF you can get a tech who'll even attempt it and/or not damage anything

 

[judyintexas]

Thank you.

 

[budda]

If the cable in the wall was stabled in spots and most likely is. Using that as a chaser or feed wire won't work. Just an FYI

 

[judyintexas]

Solved by Dish Network renewing Tegna!

 

[strikes2k]

Solved by Dish Network renewing Tegna!

Maybe for now but there will ALWAYS be another Tegna.......

 

[budda]

Couple of things. Why are locals not available on the Hopper thru Dish? Why must it be Antenna? always nice for a backup but you should still get them?Having said that since the cat5 is in the wall perhaps using something like this will work. Basically you are using the cat5 to coax. Good luck

 

[Bobby]

Couple of things. Why are locals not available on the Hopper thru Dish? Why must it be Antenna? always nice for a backup but you should still get them?Having said that since the cat5 is in the wall perhaps using something like this will work. Basically you are using the cat5 to coax. Good luckView attachment 155782

Um, except during provider outages just about every local channel is available on the Hopper from DISH. That comes with a cost of course, DISH doesn't get the channels for free. If you want the channels for free you must use an antenna. The DISH local channels are satellite delivered and the OTA channels are antenna delivered. These are the only two ways to get your local channels except by cableTV or streaming services. I am unsure what your remedy is here. Not everyone has cat 5 in their walls so this is not the best remedy. If you need to place cat 5 in a wall you can just as easily place a coax along with it or instead of it. .

 

[bnewt]

do you have a crawl space?
that is the way that I ran my antenna cable to all of my rooms
my outside antenna cable comes in the house to an amplified distribution box that then feeds 6 tv's
with an antenna you get all of the sub channels as well.
you don't get these with Dish

 

[judyintexas]

do you have a crawl space?
that is the way that I ran my antenna cable to all of my rooms
my outside antenna cable comes in the house to an amplified distribution box that then feeds 6 tv's
with an antenna you get all of the sub channels as well.
you don't get these with Dish

do you have a crawl space?
that is the way that I ran my antenna cable to all of my rooms
my outside antenna cable comes in the house to an amplified distribution box that then feeds 6 tv's
with an antenna you get all of the sub channels as well.
you don't get these with Dish

No, our house is on a slab and part of it is 2-story. We used to have a house that was one-story and had a crawl space and that did make wiring and piping easier.

 

[joegr]

Couple of things. Why are locals not available on the Hopper thru Dish? Why must it be Antenna? always nice for a backup but you should still get them?Having said that since the cat5 is in the wall perhaps using something like this will work. Basically you are using the cat5 to coax. Good luckView attachment 155782

That's not RF, and it's not even a coax connector. I don't see how that could help at all here?

 

[judyintexas]

That's not RF, and it's not even a coax connector. I don't see how that could help at all here?
View attachment 155798

I started my quest because Dish had dropped one of our local channels. Dish has now restored the channel. My quest is over.

I appreciate your information. It is always good to learn things.

Is there a way to mark a question "solved" on this forum?

 

[budda]

Um, except during provider outages just about every local channel is available on the Hopper from DISH. That comes with a cost of course, DISH doesn't get the channels for free. If you want the channels for free you must use an antenna. The DISH local channels are satellite delivered and the OTA channels are antenna delivered. These are the only two ways to get your local channels except by cableTV or streaming services. I am unsure what your remedy is here. Not everyone has cat 5 in their walls so this is not the best remedy. If you need to place cat 5 in a wall you can just as easily place a coax along with it or instead of it. .

Bobby OP said he had cat5 in the wall? Also what they are doing will be expensive . Mostly because they are paying to have it done. I suggested a way but was pointed out it was not as I represented. But they do make a cat5 to coax adapters which would work. I was trying to point out what they could do or try to make it work. Almost anyone who has Dish, if they want locals can get them. Um was not talking about everyone just OP. Only two ways except the other two ways? This is television and low tech at that, it's not that hard. It would cost them $300 to have the wires run and that's a conservative estimate. At $12 dollars a month. That's about 24 months. Not the people on this site .But most don't keep a service that long. Cost is very marginal. IMO Thanks for letting me know that OTA comes from a antenna. That is like mind blowing. lol. Below is from the first post in case you missed it.

"Well, we found a Cat 5y cable that is in the same stud space as the cable to the Hopper, and it is long enough to pull to the level of the main TV and still reach the hub in the attic with the other end. This would not be easy as it is hard to even get to the part of the attic where the cable goes in to the wall, where it makes a bend that probably shouldn't be pulled without being able to ease it."