5er, Dish & Hopper

You no only need the antenna, you also need the Solo Node "splitter" to provide full use of the Hoppers 3 tuners. It must have the Pro Plus LNB so a single LNB antenna would not work (or any of the dome style antennas)

JimM68 wrote:

What antenna do you use?

1000.4

JimM68 wrote:

Is it accurate that hopper will only work with a 3 lnb antenna?

No, you can use a DISH 500 Pro Plus 2 LNB.

TechWriter wrote:

Bill.Winegard wrote:

By the way, in case someone mentions the DNS option, the PTAT option does not work with DNS.

You should add that PTAT (Prime Time Any Time) will not work at the same time as DNS (Distant Network Service).

I have a Hopper with DNS service. Note that the DNS channels use DISH's Western Arc (WA) sats. My current local network channels are on both DISH's Western Arc and Eastern Arc (EA) sats -- this situation doesn't happen often.

Anyway, I'm in a location where I can use both WA or EA sats, so I can use PTAT and DNS -- just not both at the same time.

It's a kludge, but at least it's a choice.

What antenna do you use?

Is it accurate that hopper will only work with a 3 lnb antenna?

Has anyone successfully used a hopper with an automatic (single lnb) dome antenna?

The HD DNS programming was available via Dish directly but when the stopped doing it and had the subscribers move to AAD the HD option went away. Don't know who's genius idea that was!

Bill.Winegard wrote:
OK, that's what I thought. That's why I mentioned above that PTAT does not work with DNS.

What's interesting is that HD DNS changed to just SD at about the same time the Hopper & PTAT appeared. Mmmmmmm . . .

OK, that's what I thought. That's why I mentioned above that PTAT does not work with DNS.

lotus_eater wrote:
I'm not really sure how PTAT or DNS works, could someone explain the benefits please?

PTAT (Prime Time Any Time) -- is a DISH Hopper "thing". It's a feature that when enable allows you to record all Prime Time programming every day. This means all CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX programs between 7 - 10 pm CST. Since PTAT just uses one of the Hopper's 3 tuners, so you can use the other 2 tuners to record still more stuff.

DNS (Distant Network Service) -- West Coast and/or East Coast CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX network SD (not HD) programming available for a fee through www.allamericandirect.com. When you sign up, these networks appear on DISH's 900 channels. DNS requires sat 119 which is one of the Western Arc (WA) sats, so if you're in a location where you can't get WA sats, then no DNS.

I have DNS, but am debating whether to keep it because with DISH you can set your "Service Address" to wherever you're camped and get the local stations for that area. If they're in HD, then you get them that way. DNS stations are just SD.

Bill.Winegard wrote:
If your PTAT is recording the DNS channels then this is something new. When the Hopper came out, if you only had DNS service activating PTAT would not simultaneous record the 4 DNS networks from that single tuner.
Are you able to do that now?

Nope - PTAT will only record HD local stations, not DNS.

I'm not really sure how PTAT or DNS works, could someone explain the benefits please?

Thanks for all the help folks BTW.

If your PTAT is recording the DNS channels then this is something new. When the Hopper came out, if you only had DNS service activating PTAT would not simultaneous record the 4 DNS networks from that single tuner.
Are you able to do that now?