News flash! As it turns out, you can watch TV in an RV after all! Who knew?
You may remember that I reported in a blog last week titled You Can’t Watch TV In An RV that Dish Network was supposed to bring us a new high definition DVR receiver, but on the morning of the appointment, the Dish installer told me that “you can’t watch TV in an RV,” and no matter how much I argued with him, or with the folks at Dish Network’s customer service center, the company position was that it just couldn’t be done. Never mind that we have had Dish Network all along in our RV, just like tens of thousands of other RVers, it just can’t be done.
After that happened, the owner of a local independent Dish installation company, ADO Electronics (321) 231-0355, called Dish for us, and knew who to talk to and what to say. Dish agreed to send somebody back out yesterday. He told us that if the second Dish installer wouldn’t do the job, to let him know.
Sure enough, yesterday morning a second Dish installer arrived, and within an hour or two he had our new receiver installed and hooked up to both our front and rear TVs, and we were good to go. We’re watching TV in an RV! Who would have thought that was possible? 🙂
Since he had to pull the old original equipment TV out of the cabinet in our bedroom to hook it up, we took the opportunity to dispose of that TV and replaced it with a 20 inch LCD Vizio we’ve been carrying around for that purpose ever since we got our Winnebago, but never got around to doing. The installer was a very nice young man, and when we asked if he had any need of the older TV, he was happy to take it for his son’s bedroom.
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The new HD DVR is cool. It’s a single box with two receivers built into it, and we can watch and record two different stations at the same time. How cool is that?
The only problem was that, after the installation we didn’t have our east and west coast distant network feeds, so I called All American Direct, who provides distant network service for Dish. The nice tech there deleted our old receiver and entered the serial number of our new receiver into our account, and within about five minutes our east and west coast feeds were back.
Well, they were back, but the on-screen menu that shows the upcoming programming just said No Info in every time slot. I called Dish back, they had me reboot the new receiver, and the updated program information downloaded. Life is good!
I wasn’t sure if we would have to reprogram our Winegard Trav’ler automatic rooftop satellite dish for the new receiver, but we pushed the button to stow it, and then deployed it again, and it went right up and locked onto the signal with no problem. Hopefully it will do the same thing at our next location.
With that out of the way, we went to a late lunch/early dinner (linner) at a nice Chinese buffet in Orlando, called Billy Wong’s, with Dave and Jean Damon, 303 vendors we know from the RV rally circuit. We had a nice meal, and lots of interesting conversation.
Speaking of our next location, we’re due to leave the Orlando Thousand Trails preserve on Sunday, and the plan has been to go down to Fort Lauderdale and spend a day or three bothering Jim and Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour, and then to go on down to Key West. But with the cold front that is coming through the area, even Key West will be much cooler than it was on our visit two years ago. I’m not sure if we’ll want to do much kayaking unless it warms back up. We’re hoping for rising temperatures soon!
Thought For The Day – It’s no coincidence that there’s only a one letter difference between “garage sale” and “garbage sale.”
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Nick,
Glad someone finally talked some sense into Dish for you. Sounds like the installer was very similar to our guy, very nice and a hard worker and proficient.
If you just had All American switch over your east & west national feeds you do not have an HD feed for them. The HD feeds are now separate fees for east and west. We chose to have only the east HD feed which now comes from Chicago. The channels are in the 70 to 75 range and we dropped the non HD east/west feeds to save a little money.
Nick, We are in the Keys and weather is a lot better then where you are which is my old home stomping grounds! Currently at Long Key State Park but moving on Mon to NAS KW for the rest of the “winter”! Spent several hours kayaking yesterday and it was quite nice. Probably do some more today! Safe travels!
It just goes to show that you need to get to the right people and getting things done is a snap. But really what about the people you talked to first at Dish? If some else talks to them, they will get the same old run around. It’s amazing how the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing!!!!!!! Maybe a letter or e-mail to the President/CEO of Dish might be appropriate???? But then they would probably write you back that you can’t have TV in an RV!!!
Nick, at the very least I think you should publish the name of the private installer who straightened things out for you. Need to improve his business all we can.
TV IN A RV! GOOD GRIEF! NEXT THING YOU KNOW PEOPLE WILL BE LIVING IN THEM.
SERIOUSLY. THE PERSON WHO SUGGESTED HAVING A REP FROM DISH AND DIRECT AT ONE OF YOUR SEMINARS HAD A GOOD IDEA. IS IT WORTH CHECKING OUT? LOT OF MONEY IN “TVS in RVS”
We are going thru the same thing but with a Verizon Air Card. They will not give Bob a temporary password to set up his account other than via mail thru our SKP mail service. By the time we get the mail the password is defunct. They will not text him on his cell or email him. Won’t even do it verbally. He has spent hours on the phone with them and at the store where he bought it. As he says, I can set up a bank account with all my money in it easier than I can access a stupid phone bill.
When you’re dealing with DISH persistence pays. And having a local dealer help you never hurts either. The thing I don’t like about DISH is that they about give away the store to new customers to get them to sign up and they really don’t want to bother with old customers who have been with them for years but don’t want to keep adding services to their account that can be charged for.
I was on the phone with Dish this morning from 9 am to just past noon, trying to get a billing issue sorted out because they double charged my credit card for my automatic billing. And I had to explain to every person over and over again, that yes, I do have a television and Dish service in my RV, and each and every one told me that was impossible. They noted my DNS service from All American Direct and said I had to deal with them. I told them that it was Dish who double billed me, not All American Direct, and they said they (Dish) don’t provide service to RVs. The last one put me on hold and disconnected the call. I am waiting until I cool down to call them back. I’m not a drinking man, but I sure need one right now!
Mike,
You are a victim of corporate greed. New employees are trained extensively on how to sign up new business. Very little time is spent of teaching them how to take care fo existing customers. It will get worse before it gets better …if it ever does.
Two things make the world go ’round: Being in the right place at the right time, and knowing the right people. They pretty much have to happen together.
JC