Not going back to cable
Written: Jun 14 '00
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Pros: Variety, cost.
Cons: Difficult to self install.
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| sneddren's Full Review: EchoStar 3720 Dish Network System |
After living for 5 years without any form of cable television, I decided that it was time to find something to get back into the modern ages. I would have just gone with cable service had it not been for two things....First was that I wanted to find a way to get sports broadcasting from other regions and second was that the house I bought had previously been wired for satellite and still had a clamp on the roof.
So I called up the local cable company (AT&T) and was given a hard sell on their digital cable package. They wanted $70+ a month and the programming was ok but nothing special. While I was pondering this, I went to Costco and saw that they were offering the Dish system for no cost (after rebates). While I never had considered satellite a viable alternative before, it was economically feasible and I liked the idea of being able to pick up the wide variety of programming.
I bought the 3720 Dish system with an extra receiver and thought it would be a straightforward installation, since the house had already been host to a satellite system. I was wrong. I was up on the roof for three full days (coming down to go to sleep) and talked to Dish customer service at least a dozen times. The problem was that the previous owners of the house had a different satellite system, and thus the mounting points for the dish were all wrong. The thing I learned from this is that the dish positioning is critical. You have to have it set up exactly as the instructions state or you will get NO signal. Once I had this part figured out (and had drilled two sets of holes in the chimmney), the installation went smoothly and I was able to get the dish properly aligned in a few hours and the system was up and running that day.
Dish customer service was very pleasant, though not always right in their advice, and the system works great. It has fantastic reception and a wide variety of programming and best of all, its about half the price of cable.
I guess the easy solution is to have the system installed professionally (which was free with my system purchase, but I didn't want to wait the week for the appointment). If you do it yourself, pay close attention to the instructions.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
sneddren
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Reviews written: 36
Trusted by: 6 members
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