dishnetwork wiring question..

[thatguy]

We are looking to get Dish network satellite tv and I have a question I cant figure out on wiring the second tv..

They are offering a single DVR/receiver that can be used with two tv's (it has two separate tuners).. If it had two receiver/tuners I could understand that..

The second remote control can be used thru walls to change channel on the receiver. They mention something about a "stereo Agile modulated output". What does that mean?

I am sorta guessing that the second tv gets its signal thru a wireless connection instead of the traditional wired connection..

Any help would be appreciated

Brian

 

[bones1]

You are getting a Dish Network Dishpro 322 dual receiver.The installation link is here.http://www.sadoun.com/Sat/Products/Dishnetwork/Receivers/Dual Tuner Quick Reference Guide (322).pdf

Uses 1 IR remote and 1 UHF remote to control tv's.

 

[knute_m]

The second TV gets connected to the dual-reciever/DVR through a coaxial cable.

The primary receiver in the dual-receiver is operated with an infra-red remote control. The satellite receiver must be able to "see" the remote control signal. The primary receiver/DVR can be connected to a TV via an antenna cable, S-video, or through audio/video RCA cables.

At least with our system, the secondary receiver is very limited. It's remote control is operated with a radio (RF) signal that has a range of a couple hundred feet. The signal from the secondary receiver in the satellite receiver must connect to the remote TV via a coxial cable. The secondary receiver is set to "transmit" a signal over this cable on a channel between 21 and 89.

I will say that I have been extremely unhappy with my Dish Network. Our one year contract is just about up, and I plan to try DirectTV in hopes that it is better.

Customer service is virtually non-existent, whether you are speaking to someone in North America or some far off place. It took us almost five months to get our billing straightened out. It was an absolute nightmare from the afternoon the installation tech showed up. If you don't have good telephone line, don't even try to use DishNetwork. The system must be connected to a good quality telephone line 24 hours a day, and if it isn't, you lose your service and you must call someone in India or the Phillipines to get it reconnected. Just one more nightmare. And, if you live in a rural place like we do, where we do not have a "physical address," that just adds one more nightmare.

Our system must "update" itself once a day. I must manually reset it each morning. If you wish to record something when you are away from home for more than 24 hours, all you get is a Dish Network screen saver telling your to press the Select button.

A real aggravation is the receiver tuning time, whether on the primary or secondary receiver. It takes about 3 to 4 seconds to change channels. There is no channel surfing, at least not with the system we have.

Talk to neighors before you sign up. Apparently not all systems are as bad as mine.

Good luck,

Knute

 

[swiftboot]

I have Dish and am pleased with the system. About to have one installed in my new home. I currently have the two signal receiver with the coax coming in to the receiver then two out to the two rooms that have the tv's. As stated one remote is line of site and the other is remote from out of the room. I was told on the new system to be installed, that the signal will come in on the coax installed during construction of the home to the receiver, then to the tv in that room, the second signal will then go back thru the same coax (on a different frequency) to be tied in to all the other rooms in the house. Of course this means that all the other rooms will have to watch the same channel selected on the No 2 receiver. I think this will work well as the receiver will be in my bedroom and i will use the line of site remote, but one may use the non-line of site remote for the other rooms. I also intend to tie in regular antenae to the system as the dish does become inoperative during heavy rains (and i suspect snow as well) but only for a short time. During hurricane season, being able to receive local wx broadcasts are critical. It also has the ability to record something like 50 hours of programming for later viewing. I amm only required to keep the phone line plugged in, if unplugged, they charge extra like $6.00/month. They do reprogram the system, but on mine, it is at 3 am, a warning is given and you can overide it if you like so as not to interupt your viewing. Another note is during the "rain/black" outs, you can still view your recorded programming. Channel surfing does take a couple seconds. I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, and i am sure systems differ in different parts of the country. If possible one should visit someone with a system installed and check it out before decison is made. thanks chuck

 

[jwstewar]

We have 2 of the 322 Dual Receivers. I had DirecTV service (back when we had to go through Pegasucks because we were Rural .... what the ) We switched to Dish just before Direct took all of the customers from them. As far as service, can't say that I can tell any difference in the 2. I think originally I thought Dish had better picture and Direct better sound, but I won't swear to that anymore (could've even been the other way around). I've had pretty good luck with customer service. One of our receivers went bad (I love entertainment centers ) about a month or so ago. Called tech support. After waiting maybe 10 minutes on the phone they worked with me on the phone for an hour or so doing troubleshooting. Couldn't get it to go. They told me they would send out a new receiver and we had to send the old one back in. It was here in a couple of days and we send the old one back. Nothing since.

As far as channel surfing. The on menu info shows up real quick. The picture takes a second or so. I used to think that was crappy until I saw how long it takes for my sister's digital cable to change. > 5 seconds - made me appreciate what I had. At this point, I don't see us changing back to Direct because we are pretty happy at this point prices are pretty much the same - except Direct doesn't have the Dual tuner option so in other words for us to have TV on 4 TVs like we do now, we would have the package price + $15 for extra TVs. Right now we only pay an extra $5.

 

[thatguy]

thanks for explaining this.. I may be still a little confused though..

Do I need to have a separate coaxle cable running from the receiver to the 2nd tv? OR will it feed back through the coaxle cable that is wired into each room of the house? Our house is under construction (and too late to be rewired) and is wired to be 'cable ready' - with all rooms feeding from a central 'manifold' in the attic..

thanks for helping the dense out.. LOL

Brian

 

[escavader]

I guess my system is outdated,because i got two receivers.wish i could help
ALAN

 

[cup149]

Yes, you can feed it through the existing coax cable.

 

[thatguy]

Thanks everyone.. I didnt know they had this 'new' receiver/turner system either, I was assuming I would have to get a receiver for each tv...

Any more feedback on Dish vs Direct TV? I was leaning toward Dish since it was a tad cheaper, but I know we dont have a telephone hookup at the tv..

More research will be needed it seems

thanks

Brian

 

[anojones]

Our house was built "cable ready" but not Dish/DirectTV ready. We were unable to use the dual tuner box and had to opt for a tuner box on each television (which was only two). In order to take advantage of the dual tuner model we would have had to run a cable from the dish into the reciever and another cable from the reciever to the other room with the television. What we should have done is have two coax cables run to our main televison viewing room from our central wiring control panel where all the cables enter the house. That way you could just connect that second coax from the reciever to whatever room you wanted to that had coax run to it during construction. I suppose with the way it works sending the signal back over the coax gets around this problem, but then all televisions have to watch the same channel- which was an issue for us. Our set up was further complicated by our two Tivos and wireless network. Dish does have wiring diagrams on their webiste, it may help to look at those carefully. For new construction, it would help to have more than one coax to the viewing room.