I have never been as frustrated with a service as with Dish

[Doss]

In 2016, we were camping in the Keys a good bit.
We tried various things and ended up with a Dish Pathway X2 and 2 receivers.
It worked well initially and when we were camping frequently.
One selling point was that we could idle our service between trips.
We camped around early January 2017 and then came back home with no trips on the horizon.
I call Dish and they told me I could idle it for 90 days only. No big deal, I figured we would be taking trips frequently.
Life happens, we get busy, after the brief reduction, it goes back up to $59.xx per month. I just pay it as we plan to make trips.
We don't make another trip till Labor Day.
I hop out, set up the dish an hour before the Alabama FSU game. I get signal but not all the programming. Well over an hour on the phone with customer support, I missed the whole first half. They put the issue on me not connecting the system more often and it has to do updates. They don't understand why it takes so long and probably 8 restarts.
Fast forward till last week. We are planning a Thanksgiving trip, so several weeks in advance I break out the dish, hook it up so I am going to be up and running.
I spent over an hour on the phone with them on a Sunday afternoon trying to get my programming to activate...after I have been paying $60 per month for programming.
It still doesn't work. I start to fall in to the crack between Dish programming and Dish outdoors.
I plan to put it in craigslist shortly. Incredibly frustrating

[AstroRig57]

Our experience with DISH has been just the opposite. Easy peasy from day one and it still is.

Our motor home came with a Winegard Road Trip Mission, installed by the previous owner, but no receiver. We didn't use the satellite dish for the first year. When we decided to start using it we bought a DISH ViP 211z receiver. I changed the DIP switches on the satellite dish from the default Direct TV settings, we picked out a DISH Pay-As-You-Go plan and I called DISH while sitting in the RV. It was pretty much automatic after that as the dish found the satellites, the receiver was activated, and the channel guide was populated.

It has worked flawlessly ever since but, admittedly, the rig has never been idle long enough for us to let the subscription lapse under the pay-as-you-go plan. Still, after a period of inactivity, I turn on the receiver, then turn on the antenna, the antenna does its search thing, the receiver downloads the channel guide, and we're back in business again. That's all there is to it .

[lynndiwagon]

If you are on cable at your residence it might be a good idea to just change that to one of the satellite providers and take one of the receivers with you in the rig. I'm always getting offers to change from Directv to the local cable provider and I just tell them that when they fix it so I can take that cable in the rig I might consider.

[Doss]

Sandia Man wrote:
We often have to reactivate our receivers in our rig as well, we have Dish at home service and just added a couple of VIP receivers for our RV to our plan. We set up our own HD satellite antenna upon arrival and use Dish chat from our cell phone to have the receivers pinged/refreshed. We enjoy Netflix and OTA tv but neither option offers the sports programming we seek.

I made the mistake of calling Dish network directly one time and they didn't have a clue. Someone here on the forum mentioned they use Dish chat, which we now do and it only takes a few minutes to have all the programming we have at home. I have a message with receiver and card info written on document stored on my smartphone, I just paste it into the Dish chat box.

good knowledge, I may give that a try

[Sandia_Man]

We often have to reactivate our receivers in our rig as well, we have Dish at home service and just added a couple of VIP receivers for our RV to our plan. We set up our own HD satellite antenna upon arrival and use Dish chat from our cell phone to have the receivers pinged/refreshed. We enjoy Netflix and OTA tv but neither option offers the sports programming we seek.

I made the mistake of calling Dish network directly one time and they didn't have a clue. Someone here on the forum mentioned they use Dish chat, which we now do and it only takes a few minutes to have all the programming we have at home. I have a message with receiver and card info written on document stored on my smartphone, I just paste it into the Dish chat box.

[Doss]

I agree with what everyone has said, my whole issue is that no matter what I do to the system, turn it off, leave it hooked up or whatever short of setting it on fire should not require phone calls of more than an hour. I was getting strong signals both times.
At this point it doesn't work.
Either their system is flawed or their techs or inept or apparently both.

[rhagfo]

Wow, never had that big of issue, I always made sure to cancel my service after a weekend. Then I only owed for that weekend next time. We always laughed at the “Please Come Back” emails we would get.

[DutchmenSport]

I absolutely identify with your frustration. After 2 years of having our rates increase, increase, increase, and we cut programming to raw-bare-bones minimum and we were STILL over $100 a month, and the progrmming was just the same old, same old reruns of reruns, we finally canceled and went back to over-the-air at home and the camper. Been much happier since. We gave away all our old equipment from DishTV. No regrets. We are completely happy with normal over-the-air programming. With Netfix, we really don't miss Satellite TV at all.

[Big_Katuna]

I use a Pathway and couldn’t be more pleased with DISH.

Yes it can be painful if you don’t update routinely. There are small updates and recently a big one with a new look and feel.

Then they roll the security code randomly. That’s when you get channel unauthorized message. A quick phone call or chat online will update that.

If there is tree interference and you don’t get all three sats you can get a
Didn’t find all Sats message and that scenario can give you screwy results eg missing channels or no guide etc.

Maybe use Dishpointer AR on a Smartphone.

[Bumpyroad]

I stopped unplugging my receivers so they could automatically/periodically receive updates and stop the hassle. don't know if an "inactive" receiver can be updated however.
bumpy

[Bill_Satellite]

It sounds like you are on the wrong Dish plan. You should be on the pay-as-you-go plan. There is no limit to how long you can be idle. You simply call Dish, tell them to turn on the service for a month or 2 and at the end of that period it just ends. Do it again next month or in 6 months and it's all the same.
When the receivers have been off line for more than a month the receiver itself shuts itself down and getting them reactivated can be problematic (as you have discovered). I suggest using the 2 receiver option for the X2 so that it points to the 72.7 satellite. This will allow the receiver to get the programming it needs. If you use the WA satellites, the antenna may or may not be locked onto the 119 satellite where the activation signal usually comes from so it sometimes takes changing channels on the receiver to something like Food Network to get the signal the receiver is looking for. The signal may also be on 129 these days (not sure) but you absolutely want to make sure the receiver is not tuned to a local Network TV channel but rather something like Food, ESPN, CH 100 (always active when pointed correctly), Weather or some cable type channel.

[Doss]

2oldman wrote:
Don't they have a 'refresh receiver' or eq online? DTV does.

they do, and they guy I was on the phone with sent multiple refreshes. They really don't seem to know what the issue is, which isn't reassuring.

[2oldman]

Don't they have a 'refresh receiver' or eq online? DTV does.