The tech (very professional) came out at 0730 this morning. About 10 before he got here, he called asking, "What exactly is it you're needing done? All my work order says is 'service change, pole mount'." When I told him it was a 1000.4, he said, "Man, I sure wish they'd told me that. I don't have that dish with me." He came on out and had a look at the situation. I suspect he was hoping he could get by with a 1000.2 WA, but he soon realized it was impossible. After looking at the proposed site for the pole mount, he confirmed what the last tech said, except he thought the only trees I'd need to take out were two small ones where the last tech was thinking up to 5 large ones.
He said he had no problem laying the coax on top of the ground leaving it up to me to bury later.
He called his supervisor and was instructed to come back to the main office in Mesquite to pick up a 1000.4 dish. (The tech came from his home which is only about 18 miles away from my home, but his "main office" is a 3-hour round trip. He couldn't believe his boss was requiring this of him. I would have been fine with a reschedule, since I currently have TV, I just don't have the new HD channels.
I'm going to go ahead and cut down the two trees in question while I wait for him to get back. Sheesh...
Well, he came back at 1430 with a 1000.4. He'd apparently hit a good bump en route and all the equipment in his van had fallen over. It was a mess. It took quite a while to find the 1000.4 lnb.
A few things things he told me about that I had no idea needed to be done:
- On pole mounts, they're initially supposed to temporarily mount the dish on a temporary metal platform to ensure line of site.
- If there is no line of site, they are forbidden to instruct/advise the customer as to which trees are to be cut down.
- Once line of site is confirmed the dish is installed via tripod. And all lines are run and confirmation is made that receivers are in working order with good signal strengths.
- Then, "dig test" people are scheduled to come out and confirm that digging can be performed for the pole.
- Then an installer will come out again and mount the dish on the pole.
He told me the way to get around the whole dig test delay is to dig the hole myself.
He said, "I can't tell you which trees to cut down, but
that one is in the way" (wink, wink).
I had to cut down one more tree that was a pretty big one. My chain was getting dull in the middle of it so it was taking longer than I'd expected. He opted to leave and go to another job about 40 miles away while I was finishing the tree, digging the hole, mixing the sack crete, and leveling the pole.
I've had my shower and am ready to relax at this point. He just called, saying on his other job, he broke a water line while pulling a line. He'd just finished that up and it on the way.
This guy hasn't had a good day, but I certainly didn't sit back and watch. I still have a good sized tree to cut up, split, and stack.
I'm glad DISH isn't charging me for this, because I feel the tip is going to account for what I'd probably have paid DISH.
