Some Dish HD questions if you please,

[sdallnct]

I have had Dish Network for a year now and love it (will never go back to cable). Currently I have no HD. I wanted to get OTA HD in my HT room for the start of Football and see how much I like it and then see about getting HD TV's for the rest of the house.

I thought about getting a Voom box, but read some having problems with it. So over the weekend I call Dish Network and this is what they offered me;

-$5.00 per month equipment fee
-$10.00 per month programing fee
-$99.00 on time install fee where a tech comes out and hooks everything up.

OK, don't really have a problem with the $5.00 equipment fee. Guess this is pretty standard and I would get charged this even if I bought a Dish Network HD receiver off ebay or something.

I told him I only wanted OTA and did not want HD programing from Dish. However he said this was required??? Is this true? I really didn't want to pay $10.00 per month for what, five channels? He specifically said this does not include Voom channels

I also asked about them just mailing it to me and letting me do a self install. He also said this was not an option, that tech was required.

So questions;
-why is a tech required? They are not going to install a new dish are they?
-is it true that I cannot cancel the HD programing? Surely there are people out there only using a 811 for OTA? Regardless of what they say now, couldn't I just wait a mont or two and canel?
-I assume the $5.00 equipment charge is normal for any extra receivers for them? Looks like they are charging me a $5.00 equipment fee now for my non HD receiver I have in that room.

Thanks so much for the help and any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[mdonnelly]

1) If you go the lease way, like you want, then you need to sub to the High Def package at $10/month. If you buy one off e-bay, then you don't.

2) They mailed me my leased 811, and I replaced a 311 with it. All I had to do was call to authorize it.

3) If you replace an extra receiver with the 811, the $5 lease fee replaces the $5 extra receiver fee (at least, that's how it worked for me). If you buy the box, and keep the other receiver too, then you have two extra receivers ($10/month).

 

[Liquidforce88]

What they were setting you up with was a lease of the 811. If you were not replacing another receiver then you would pay another 5.00 a month for the extra box. As it is an HD receiver and you are leasing you have to have the HD package at 10.00. Dish will require a tech to come out and hook up a leased receiver, cause they don't want to go through later and have to fix things (not that some techs are gonna do any better than you may be able to do it).

If you just wnat to try OTA HD get a receiver off of EBAY and try it out. Remember that you are going to need an antenna to get OTA, so if you don't have one you will need that to.

 

[sdallnct]

Wow, thanks for the quick replies, I really appreciate.

Well I do want to keep my Dish SD receiver I currently have in my HT room. I just want to move it to another room. So, that means a additional lease/equipment charge of $5.00 per month. OK got it.

Well if I buy a 811 on ebay or 3rd party company, would I still have to pay the $5.00 equipment charge if I didn't sign up for the Dish HD programing? I assume so as I would still want SD Dish programing along with OTA HD.

So it looks like the only way to have NO additional charges is to get a non-dish HD receiver for OTA only. I have thought about that, but for ease of use and at least having the option of Dish HD, I thought I'd get an 811.

Well, it sounds like unless I can get them to waive the $100 install fee, I'm better off buying a 811 off ebay or somewhere else. Then I have the option for the $10.00 programing fee or not. Lets see in a year HD programing would be $120 + $100 for install, seems like I can do better going elsewhere for the 811.

Oh, and yes I knew I would need an antenna. Trying to decide which one right now.

 

[mdonnelly]

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but if you buy the 811 somewhere, and you only use the receiver for OTA, then you don't have to call to authorize it, and you don't pay the $5 extra receiver fee, right?

 

[sdallnct]

Well, I would "think" I would have to authorize it to get SD channels. I do want HD OTA for football, CSI, that type thing, but I'm happy with the Dish SD channels and would not want to loose them.

I just got off the phone with them again. They gave me the number to another dept. Evidently since I have EVERYTHING with SBC (wife/kids cell phone, local/long distance land lines and HSI) they may be able to make me a better deal. I don't mind the $100 install so much as I'd likely have to pay that to buy a box anyway. It is the $10 programing fee that is hanging me up. I just don't see me watching ANY of those (except ESPN HD as they start showing more NFL).

Oh, and I looked on ebay, what is the deal with all the New In Box Vooms HD receivers? I thought if it was not previously activated you could NOT use it as a HD receiver for OTA?

 

[glenn z]

I thought existing subs could get the HD Pack for 1/2 price for 12 months. This would at least lower your HD programming cost to $5/month and you would have the Monday Night ESPN games in HD.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

If all you want is OTA, then there are several HD OTA receivers to select from.

I picked up a discontinued NIB Sylvania HD OTA receiver from Sears last year for $109. I've read of people selling their old VOOM units for $40-$50 for OTA use.

 

[hdaddikt]

Dish will require a tech to come out and hook up a leased receiver, cause they don't want to go through later and have to fix things (not that some techs are gonna do any better than you may be able to do it).

That's simply not true. I have made 2 leased receiver upgrades the last 3 years and always did my own installs. The first a 510 for which I traded a 2700 and recently an 811 for which I traded a 4700.

The last install was for the Voom channels which I had them do. It was 99 bucks, but including upgrading all my dish LNBs and switches to DishPro. Well worth the money and the 1 hour it took not to have to spend time rounding up bargain parts and doing the work myself.