Any Dish TV Users?

[tgotch]

I have been looking at Dish TV. Anyone here using their service? If so how is the reception, customer service, etc?

I am looking at their TurboHD Bronze, which starts at only $24.99. If I go with this and a few add-ons, I can save about $20 per month from my current cable bill.

 

[wrigley]

I have been looking at Dish TV. Anyone here using their service? If so how is the reception, customer service, etc?

I am looking at their TurboHD Bronze, which starts at only $24.99. If I go with this and a few add-ons, I can save about $20 per month from my current cable bill.

I've had both! Dish and DirecTv. I currently have DirecTv but I had Dish for 7 straight years prior to that. The reason I switched was soley because Dish stopped carrying the MLB package. DirecTv apparently won the contract from Major League Baseball so I switched. I would not have switched otherwise....I LOVED Dishnetwork. Never had one problem at all. I live in Florida and have gone through a few hurricanes in my day. Never once lost my Dish signal.

P.S. Make sure you purchase the insurance. It's an additional $5 a month but it covers the remote and the receiver should something happen to them!

Mike

 

[Leonidas]

I live in Florida and have gone through a few hurricanes in my day. Never once lost my Dish signal.

Cable at home, but my gym's TV wall is powered by Dish. Every time it rains harder than a light drizzle the signal is lost.

 

[wrigley]

Cable at home, but my gym's TV wall is powered by Dish. Every time it rains harder than a light drizzle the signal is lost.

That's strange........that's the exact reason why I got rid of cable in the first place. Everytime it rained, I lost my cable!

Mike

 

[Goonie]

....I LOVED Dishnetwork. Never had one problem at all. I live in Florida and have gone through a few hurricanes in my day. Never once lost my Dish signal.

Cable at home, but my gym's TV wall is powered by Dish. Every time it rains harder than a light drizzle the signal is lost.

That's strange........that's the exact reason why I got rid of cable in the first place. Everytime it rained, I lost my cable!

We've had Dish for about 10 years and have never had any problems at all. On very rare occasions during extremely heavy downpours, we might lose signal for a minute or 2.....but that hardly ever happens, and if it does we use those couple of minutes like a commercial break...hit the frij and/or go tinkle. Customer service has always been top-notch....the few times we needed to call them (which has been extremely seldom, 'cause everything works and we haven't had any problems).

The picture is crystal clear...always! Unlike the cable service that we used to tolerate....3 different companies....always had at least one snowy channel (normal more)....everytime there was a thunder-boomer in the area, the cable went out...sometime for hours. Their customer service has always been pathetic...then they moved their customer service out of town and it got even worse! And cable service costs a lot more than Dish for a semi-comparable channel line-up......cable here is roughly $70 for about 135-140 channels.....our total Dish bill is $63 for their "Top 250" (250 channels) plus a couple of extras we have.

I would NEVER go back to cable...NO way...NO how!

 

[calmloki]

Had Directv and Dish - was feeling really cunning and swapping them every year or two and scarfing up the *free!* movie channels and such for 6 months - all the freebie enticements. After getting Dish the gal won't let me change back. Do lose signal on both in heavy weather, but just for moments. Get spare remotes for your reciever or DVR from Ebray - way cheaper and the same exact thing. We do dueling remotes up here.

 

[bbbamI]

I've had Dish for several years, and am completely satisfied. The pic does "freeze" when a major storm is rolling through...this is an advantage as it tells me "Watch out!" Dish over cable for me.

 

[ziggy29]

The most important thing to note ahead of time is which add ons you need (how many receivers? How many in HD? How many DVRs? Do you need locals?) -- and then compare apples and apples -- not just to cable, but other satellite operators as well.

We've been with Directv since 1997; we have no experience with Dish. I actually looked at the Dish TurboHD packages based on the lower advertised prices, but when I added all the add-ons according to what we have now, the savings was less than $5 per month, which isn't enough for me to switch since we've been satisfied customers where we are. In particular, if you have more than one set and more than one HD DVR, the cost difference narrows quite a bit.

Having said all that, before long we're probably just going to rely on free over the air TV plus a Netflix subscription before too long. It's just getting harder to justify nearly $1000 a year to watch TV. But we have to have a DVR. That's non-negotiable.

 

[riskadverse]

Dish or DTV - Ford or Chevy. I went with DTV because of the integrated TiVo's, and less badmouthing by the customers. I've had them for 8 years or so, but am currently thinking of going to FTA.

 

[Ronstar]

My neighbor is very happy with dish. He is paying less than I am with Direct TV (same no of tv's). I called and visited the dish office, arranged for them to come out and check out what I need, but they didnt show up. I'll stick with direct until I find something better.

 

[harley]

All you satellite folks, what do you use for internet? When I was working in the video lab we had a tester who lived in the middle of nowhere. We used his house for wifi distance testing because of the lack of interference. Because of where he was he could only get dial-up or satellite internet access. His satellite access (direct tv?) was really slow, with serious down and upload limitations. Is it still like that?

 

[REWahoo]

Because of where he was he could only get dial-up or satellite internet access. His satellite access (direct tv?) was really slow, with serious down and upload limitations. Is it still like that?

I resemble that remark...

Living out in the sticks, dial-up and satellite were my only two options until a year or two ago when AT&T, Sprint and Verizon came out with broadband via 'aircards'. Works great for me, but at $60/month it's a little pricey.

 

[Ronstar]

All you satellite folks, what do you use for internet?

I have DirecTV for tv and cable for internet only. I used to have dialup, but switched to Comcast when cable internet came to my area. The Comcast internet is running $56 a month. The internet service includes 1 TV access that I dont use.

I also heard that satellite internet is shaky. Plus I believe the Directv dish for combined TV / internet is about 20% bigger than the standard dish.

 

[tgotch]

Thanks for all the feedback. I ordered Dish TurboHD Silver over the weekend. They are scheduled to install on Tues. Hopefully all goes well.

 

[Texarkandy]

We had DirectTv for 2 years in the late 90's - no issues - it was OK I guess. We've had cable (TV & Internet) on & off since 2000 with 6 to 8 month periods with no TV at all. I've re-evaluated local cable now & then against dish systems.

For one thing the dish companies generally want to lock us into a 24 month contract to get the latest "special offer" & "free installation" - our local cable company has let us keep the contract rate after our one-year expired. I just plain told them I would probably have to switch to dish if we had to pay full rates. Even so, we pay about 10 bucks more than the "special offer" dish contracts - and probably about the same as after the "special offer" expires - sometimes it's only for the first 6 months.

Right now we have quite a bit of cable package - some HD, a DVR, Hi-speed internet, etc. (no sports or movie packages though) - we also have six TV's in the house, problematic with dish.

Our local cable service is excellent - TV & internet - very rare for it to go out or even for signal to degrade.

I've learned over the years that many signal problems can be caused by the cable in your house rather than fault of the cable company. Too many splitters, too long of runs, old cable. Our cable company is good about sending someone out to diagnose these things for free - then I just do the work myself. We have a "booster" on the line that goes to the internet modem & the big-screen in the living room - both of which require a high-grade signal.

As to cost -about 10 bucks a month more than dish & no contract - & though we have quite a bit of TV & internet - it's also cheap entertainment.