I know that the people around here with Dish need multiple dishes to get channels. I have DirecTV with 1 dish.

If you do go with satellite TV; you can have the dish mounted on a pole verses the roof

Thanks roselvr,

Are you saying they need multiple dishes to get channels for a home with multiple tvs? We only have 1 tv in the house w/Directv on it presently but we're ready for a change. Directv has just out priced themselves for what we need.

From what I understand it depends on what channels you get; some sort of premium channels need a 2nd dish. I don't think it has to do with number of TV's. If you call them; be sure to ask. I notice a lot of multiple dishes around here; one dish is bad enough; I would not want 2.

Sorry you got priced out of DTV. My son works there so we get a discount. We had comcast & it was outrageous

We have Dish at our weekend cabin, and have had it for several years. The service has been reliable, and I think the pricing is reasonable, but we don't get any movie channels.

We've not had any problems with customer service when we needed on-site help; however, I spent the worst 30 minutes of my life with their telephone customer service, during which the obviously out-of-country representative absolutely refused to transfer me to a supervisor. I ended up literally yelling at her and demanding; she still refused.

The dispute was over their demand that I wait to receive a functioning receiver BY UPS when ours stopped functioning. I told them that my regular cable company would always respond to a disruption of service by delivering a new box to my home. I knew, because we had recently had a service call, that the technician gets $50 to deliver a receiver. I, therefore, believe the customer service person was trying to save that $50, and keep her own supervisor-referral stats low by refusing my request for a transfer.

When I finally hung up on her and got another representative, it went more smoothly, though I still ended up waiting for the receiver.
Dee

Thanks Dee and Roselvr,

We had reliable service with Directv for years but we have had issues with their customer support as well and on more than one occasion. Actually, we used to be real die hard Directv fans and honestly, we could afford to have their service if we chose to but we've sort of hit our threshold on what we're willing to pay for it. What prompted the change is that we recently bought a new 3D HDTV that has all the bells and whistles. Well, to upgrade our service with Directv would require paying 199.00 for a new receiver, then another 7.00/mo in rental fees because "they" still consider it a rental. We think that's just plain ridiculous and would rather explore our other options before going that route.

We've never had more than the basics so maybe we'll only need 1 dish, I hope so, cause I agree 1 is bad enough but two is two too many.

Interesting, I always thought all those dishes were because of how many TVs people had. You know what scares me about Dish is there's no trial period. Their policy is once it's installed you're stuck whether you're happy with it or not. Two years is a long time to pay for something when you're less than happy with the service. It just had me wondering if that's the only way they can keep people from canceling so Dee's feedback about the quality of the service is really helpful. Thanks again.

I will tell you that we only have one dish, not two, and a dual DVR, without extra cost. I think our bill is $55 for all the channels we need.
Dee

I'll copy your post & send to my son to see what he says; he may notice something that isn't right. Hopefully he's not too lazy to read it.

We had Dish in our last house. One thing that was irritating was that we had 2 boxes (receivers) inside the house (living room and basement). We were told that we didn't need an additional box in the bedroom. But if the LR TV was on, then you went to turn on the BR TV, you couldn't change the channel unless the LR TV was turned off while you searched for your show. Very annoying and we never got an answer as to why this happened.

I also didn't like satellite just because of the interference whenever there was rain or a storm. Our picture would scramble.

When we cancelled DISH upon moving, we were charged an early cancellation fee. We were under contract so that was to be expected. For the cancellation I contacted them via the online chat. The rep was very helpful and she explained that I needed to mail the hardware back - including a piece that is attached to the dish. By this time, we had already moved out of state and had no way of getting the piece. She said she'd waive the charge.

But then.... I got a confirmation that the return boxes were shipped to our old address even though they had our new address, so I contacted them again. I wanted to confirm that the fee for the missing part was still waived. The reps this time said she couldn't do anything to help. I asked if she could pull a copy of the online chat transcript to verify, but she said she didn't have access and couldn't help me.

Sorry - that turned into a bit of a venting session for me...

Anyway, I guess with any company you'll get helpful service reps and not-so-helpful reps.

As for multiple dishes on the house, I always thought that was for international channels.

Thanks Dee, I signed up for it today, just over 30.00/mo for the first year w/HD & dual dvr. Then it will be 10.00 more the second year. We don't need a lot of channels, that's why paying so much for channels we never used was so aggravating. My fingers are crossed it works out.

Roselvr, thanks so much. When I called to cancel today they put me throoooogh the ringer trying to talk me out of it. That's when I was offered a free upgrade for the box. I declined their offer, but still really appreciate your feedback and help.

AMJ, vent on and I'll join you! These cable and satellite companies are terrible. I've been stung by them on more than one occassion now I print every conversation into a pdf file and save it. If you don't have a pdf printer on your computer, there are several offered free online. This is the free one I used before buying the program for business purposes. It's an easy download and works like a charm!

Here is a link that might be useful: PDF - Exchange

We have Dish and we have had no complaints at all. Their customer service has been very helpful and the DVR is very user friendly. We get the whole package with multiple channels and we have one dish attached to our house. Reception has always been very good also. Only on one occasion one VERY BAD ice storm, we had to de-ice the dish one day, we were only out of commission about 30 mins.

Good luck and hope you like it!