sean’s place

Update – Dish Network

I’m happy to report that my Dish Network service is functioning again! A few days after my prior post, one of the guys from the prior repair team came out. He pulled my ViP 622 receiver and replaced it with a ViP 722 (free upgrade). He also replaced the diplexers and separators. It’s been going strong for 3 weeks now.

I hope this is the end of the road with these problems. I’m not sure what I’d do without the 3 hours of House I record every day or Galactica Friday.

After the Dish Network guy left, I went out and picked up a new wire fish and some other pieces and parts to install my DTV Antenna in the attic. After all, the Dish tech had to get into the coax distribution wall (I would like to, some day, call it a “distribution panel”) in order to replace the diplexer. Might as well make use of it while it was open…

I strung a fresh line of RG-6 (which also what’s run through my house) from the wall-to-be-panel into the attic and attached my antenna to one of the beams. The Dish receiver can mux satellite input and DTV input (and record off the air). I’m hoping that some of the stations in Denver (I’m looking at you KUSA) are not broadcasting at full strength now, because signal acquisition is uncharacteristically spotty (some Denver channels come in fine, though).

That brings me to a final mini-rant, I disagree with the position taken by the Democratic congress to extend the DTV transition date. I like that they softened the date (in that they did not require continuous analog transmission to continue past 17 February), but I think that pushing out the mandatory cut-off will just delay the inevitable pain when the mandatory cut-off does come. I think that, with a big dose of confusion and additional cost in marketing, will outweigh any gains in transition uptake.

That’s all for now folks.