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Anyone have dish network?

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Thinking of getting rid of my cable and going with dish-network. Does anyone out there have it? If so, how is it? Good picture? Reception? ETC.....
 
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Thinking of getting rid of my cable and going with dish-network. Does anyone out there have it? If so, how is it? Good picture? Reception? ETC.....

We do - very good picture. Cheaper then cable. Only negative is we sometimes lose the picture during storms but I can live with that - especially since I watch very little TV.
 
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Yep, very nice, lots of features and channels.

I can't say much for the price though.
 
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Satellite TV is a huge waste here in the PNW. We have it on the ship, and during the clearest of days it's fine, but we get a lot of weather up here, so we have constant snow overlay or scan lines... but if you live in a land of clear skies, it's not bad - as long as you can get a decent rate on local networks, too, because a lot of sports & stuff are broadcast on the major networks, as well as most good TV shows anymore are back on the major networks.
 
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I have Bell ExpressVu - A joint venture between Bell + EchoStar DISH.

Very good, but the price ain't great.
 
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I have Dish Network and it's very good. We got some great deals on the hardware and their PVRs are pretty good (software could use a bit of work, but my grandfather can figure it out, so that's telling ya something ;P)

As long as you don't live somewhere with monsoon season that would block your dish for 3 months straight, and if you are getting it cheaper than cable, then you should definitely go for it. They have a good selection of HD content if you're interested in that as well
 

dtravis7


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I have Dish Network here in Central, Ca. Very good picture, service. Reception. VERY few outages only during HEAVY Thunderstorms which are rare here anyway. I love it and would never go back to cable.
 
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We do - very good picture. Cheaper then cable. Only negative is we sometimes lose the picture during storms but I can live with that - especially since I watch very little TV.
Reminds me of my local cable company. That's the only real argument that they ever use in their ads. "Do you want rain fade? No! Buy cable!" They act like a drop of rain falls and your dish goes out.

Either way, we have DirecTV and barely have any problems during rain.
 
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I have DirecTV, my parents have Dish. Both are pretty much equivalent as far as picture quality, channel selection, and price. If it matters, DirecTV gives you music channels from XM satellite radio; Dish gives you music channels from Sirius satellite radio.

I self installed my own dish because I live in an apartment and the installer gave me the third degree about bolting a dish to the side of the building and wanted to charge me extra to do the 'pole in a bucket of concrete' thing, so I told him to bite me and made my own pole in a bucket. Later I extended the pole to accomodate tree growth by u-clamping the pole to my balcony railing and bolting the base to the deck.

Picture quality on both is excellent. Even with my new HDTV which doesn't get any HD signals it's crisp on ALL channels. My parents' 32" SDTV looks beautiful with their Dish.

Rain fade happens, but it requires one of those big honking thunderstorms that tends to destroy things on the ground. Also it is a thunderstorm that is a few miles away to the south that will interfere with the signal, and since they usually move pretty quickly/dissapate outages are not more than 5-15 minutes at any given time for either provider. Cable I've had out for days due to extreme weather. As soon as the weather goes away (and you get power back, assuming that happened too) you get your signal back. Normal "It's gonna rain all day" type rain doesn't do anything to the signal. If it does, your installer screwed the pooch and didn't align your dish properly (either provider.) Snow really doesn't do anything to the signal unless it's that wet clingy type with heavy accumulation. I've only had to brush snow off my dish once in the three years I've had it.

Not sure how it is with Dish, but with Direct if you get the urge to get a package or premium channel such as HBO or the sport package, it's a quick trip to the website, enter your account info (and password) flip a few switches and BAM you have your new channels. Used to be you could switch it off the next day and just be billed for the one day, but now you have to keep it for at least 30 days before you turn it off. But turn it off immediately via the internet you can.

All in all, I've been happy with my satellite service, and my parents have been happy with theirs. Actually, that's an understatement. Both my parents and I are pretty much 'cable? what?' as far as that's concerned.
 
OP
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Great thanks for the input everyone, I really appreciate it. I sat and ordered my dish network this morning, going to be installed next week. They had a $49 installation deal, with a refund for the 49 if you make an 18 month commintment. I think I am going to pass on the commitment though. Not worth being stuck with something i dont like for a year and a half just to save a few bucks. With 2 dvr boxes and one regular satelite box, and hbo it is $45 cheaper a month than Timewarner cable. Of course now my cable internet is going to go up $5 a month because I wont have tv service along with it, but I should gain some bandwith since cable tv and internet were running through the same cable wire to the house. Right now I am running 3140kbps, be interesting to see if it goes up when i stop having the tv running through the same wires. Anyway, thanks again everyone for your help in convincing me to get dish. I was really worried about having to go out and adjust the dish, and worried about losing signal in the rain and all, but I am now a little more relieved.
 

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