upgrade from 500 to 1000.2 in NC

[jackien]

this site is awesome - i've learned a lot the last 2 days. My searching began when an E* technician came out for my request to upgrade to HD programming and said i wouldn't be able to get a signal because of a particular tree.

Our current dish is mounted on the chimney of our 2 story house. the tech was HUGE, therefore did not attempt to get on the 40' ladder that we had told them would be needed.

After reading lots on your site, I went to dishpointer even 3 D...and it looks to me like 129w is in the same direction as 110 & 119... If any tree needs to be trimmed it wouldn't be the one he pointed to... but the elevations look fine.
I called E* today and basically no one cares. They said it is regular policy to have a supervisor come out to check when the service call result is "no signal". But they won't schedule that with me, so I won't know if/when he comes, so I won't be able to talk to him about which trees would need to be trimmed, etc.

SO - is all this pointless because 61.5 is where we really should be in our location? What can I do? Until this point I've really been satisfied with E*, but frustrated enough to consider switching to D*. What are our alternatives?

 

[boba]

The 129 satellite is an old DISH satellite that is temporarily located in a Canadian satellite slot. The Canadian satellite is due to be launched in 2009 I believe, until then the outer states(border and coastal) have problem with 129 reception. For the East coast 61.5 is the best solution.

 

[jackien]

So does that mean I should keep the dish i have now for 110 & 119 and get another one to point at 61.5?

 

[DISH_NC]

When I first got DISH 11 years ago, I had a dish 500 for 119 and 110. Then when HD came along, I added 61.5 to get CBS-HD from NY and some of the other channels.

When RAL locals came in HD and I needed the 118W Satellite, another upgrade to DISH1000+ along with the 61.5 (not using the 129 LNB on the 1000+). RAL HD channels will be moving to 61.5 later this year so I will be all set with the 61.5 already in place. Since I still have some legacy receivers, I probably won't deploy Eastern Arc dish for a while (when that becomes live later this summer.).

61.5 is the best choice out here for signal strength and tree clearing. I would probably suggest adding 61.5.

 

[jackien]

Thanks dish_nc -- I'm a non-tech...so do you have 2 dishes? And since we don't have hd now, & no hd receiver, would we be better to wait unti EA goes live and get dish, receiver, service all at once. We've waited this long, a few more months isn't terrible.