Satellite systems

[Royall]

No cable at the new house and have to go with Satellite. DISH or DIRECT TV? What are you using and are you happy with it?

Royall

What goes around comes around!

[JerryCarr]

Aloha, Royall. We have Dish, as do most of our neighbors. Dish has some nicely priced packages with everything we like, and the service has been good, with quick, friendly responses the few times we had to call for any reason. They even came out to the house and replaced some cable for no charge. As with just about all satellite, though, the thing cuts out when heavy rain is just off to the South, and all the good packages have too much sports for my taste, which runs the cost up.

Cheers,
Jerry

[hookupu]

Hi Royal,
We had dish direct for about a year and the reception was very poor. Any time a cloud went past the satalite we would loose signal. Their satalite is low on the horizon so there is a lot of interference. We switched over to Dish Network from Pahoa Satilite and have had excellent reception. Their dish is much higher in the sky soany weather has to be much closer. We very seldom loose reception and if we do its only for a few seconds. Wayne he owner came out personally to install the system and explain everything to us. With dish direct we got a couple kids from the mainland that were sent over by the company to get systems installed and really knew nothing about the workings. Give wayne a call and just talk to him before you decide.
Larry

[David M]

Royall

We have Dish, just reinstalled after being without since moving last year. I set the Dash antenna up myself. We had Dish back in Atlanta since way back about 10+ years. The Hawaii service varies a bit from that described on the website. Basically, here you receive 1 satellite (119) unless you pay for a second, larger dish. But with just 119 we get the local (HNL) stations and more stations than we can watch. Reception has been great, even during some nightly rains (no worse than Atlanta)
When we move to the big house, we will get a Dish upgrade.

David

Ninole Resident

[Royall]

3 out of 3 for Dish. I guess I'll look further into Dish as we get a little closer. The cable is installed for satellite so installation should go quick. Infact Sanford installed 2 lead in cable from where the dish is installed. Thanks everybody!!

Royall

What goes around comes around!

[Les C]

We had DISH in California for about 8 years and it was a very good service. We seldom had service drops, even during thunderstorms. But the equipment may have been old and the downloading of the schedule took a while. If you checked the schedule more than 3 or 4 hours into the future, you'd wait for several minutes for the information to download.

We got DISH here, too. The service is generally great. The differences compared to service in California include the frequent service cut outs during heavy rain. The equipment must be better now, because the schedules download quickly. We almost never see the download progess bar, even when checking days into the future.

We had a dual dish system in CA in order to get all that we wanted. Here in Hawaii, we can't get all of the stations. You can find out what those are on their website. Our installer tried to find out if LinkTV and FSTV were available on the Island with a second, larger dish, but that was negative. So, I don't think a second dish will help here. It was going to cost an additional $500 one-time fee. Like finding a NAV system in a car that covers the Islands, you have to accept the fact that the Islands represent a relatively small market to warrant the placement of satellites that will provide us with all services available on the mainland.

I'm beginning to ponder going with Oceanic Cable. We can get the same channel line up, except for the doubling up of the eastern and western feeds on the movie premiums. I'm trying to find out if the costs are comparable; it might be since we use their cable modem service. And, if they ever get the digital phone service going in our area (is it even on the Big Island yet?), that might be another benefit. Our neighbors have cable and they don't have service drops during heavy rains.

The installation issues for Dish can be problematic on the Island. As I understand it, there is one company doing the Dish installs and service in the Islands, and there may be only a handful of guys doing it on the East side. My friend in HPP said to avoid using the guy set up across the highway and near the Kea'au Humane Society; he felt that his work was questionable. Tim, who did our installation, was okay, he did a good, clean job. You should be open to his personality and banter.

Les

Edited by - Les C on 10/27/2006 10:36:09

[Kapohocat]

If you are talking about Tim Sullivan, his crew does a good job, but I think those are his sales people across on road, and in keaau. We have no problem with Dish - had it two years now. The sat is 119 as mentioned went in air about 4 years ago or so... too much for me to watch anyway so we got basic + Showtime package, with HGTV (of course!).

Small interupt when raining but got CNN when local stations were all out on earthquake day. (cable feed loses when Oahu has power outages.......) - usually if power out somewhere in Hawaii we still get most of the non-local channels.

-Cat

[HADave]

Royall you might want to ask about service on the equipment, we rent ours and they still want to charge us for service calls and shipping on any replacement products. We had only one problem with a dual tuner and it turned out that the problem was a bad install, the cable end was poorly crimped at the switch, we have multiple satellites. Anyway after demanding their level2 tech person,@ Dish, troubleshoot the problem over the phone, was it discovered. Had I not demanded I would of had to pay a 99.00 service call plus shipping on any parts that needed replacement. Other than that we have enjoyed Dish Network for several years. We also had their HDTV receiver and the picture was good but the service people had no idea on connection tried to leave with only an s-video connection. It required a minimun of component cabling and we finally opted for a DVI (digital video interface) cable that we picked up at sears big difference in the picture quality. Still the HDTV recievers do not produce a digital hi-fi audio signal, standard rca jack out only, so if one has a theater system you'll be less than DVD quality, as far as sound goes. It didn't sound like you are into all the fancy stuff but please don't sign a commitment only to find out you have to pay to take care of their service issues..

Aloha HADave

[Howard]

We had DISH in Nanawale and were generally satisfied with reception and picture quality; only a really big storm would ever knock it out of service while we were there. We had basic service, provided by landlord, and didn't feel any need to upgrade for that short period.

One fact that surprised us was that most cable channels were broadcast at same actual time, rather than same clock time, as they were in EST. A program intended for airing at 8 PM would come in at 3 PM Hawaii time, unlike on cable. Over-the-air programs came in on Honolulu channels at regular time.

We'd be happy with DISH or cable, whatever is available, on our next visit to Hawaii. Here in Philadelphia, we have cable; Comcast's domination of local sports broadcasting keeps most local sports off all satellite systems in this area. We've never had DIRECT anywhere, so I can't compare it to DISH or cable.

Howard

[Royall]

Thanks again for all the good information. I did buy a sat. sys. once at Radio Shack for $39.00 bucks complete with a video to show how to install it. I got it all up, wires run, and the dish dialed in but never activated the unit. That is because the cable company drove by and saw the new dish and offered me $150.00 cash money for dish and box! All I had to do was sign up for a 1 year sub. with cable at a lower price than what sat. company was charging! That was one of those "no brainers" you luck out with once in a while! I do really hate to give up cable but they won't be to 13th any time soon. What I've been told to get away from the rain shadow problem is to get a 1 meter dish. They pull in enough signal that it takes a lot of rain to cause you any fade. Just trying to find where to get one. None on eBay at this time.

Can I install my own system here too?

Royall

What goes around comes around!

Edited by - Royall on 10/27/2006 16:51:34