Actually, SC signals are in the 950-2025 MHz range for a stacked feed. Most consumers today have an unstacked feed, so signals are only in the 950-1450 MHz range.

The problem with surge protectors with an RF in/out is possibly the dropoff of signals in the higher frequencies, and quite likely the blocking of power and/or signalling tones. Your DSR sends a different voltage (+13 vdc or +18 vdc) back to the LNBF on the dish to tell it which polarity of transponder it wants (13 vdc = vertical, 18 vdc = horizontal), and a different tone (0 kHz or 22 kHz) to the LNBF to tell it which bird (Anik F1R or F2, respectively) it wants to view. If the surge protector blocks the power/tones from getting up to the LNBF, then your DSR may not get the signal it expects, and thus the lockups.

This is my hypothesis, anyway. If you can give specifics (surge protector brand/model, all devices connected to the surge protector, actions that lead to freezing, model of DSR, etc.), I can better analyze this case and suggest causes.

I only have a $25 belkin, but I never knew the reason why the Sat Feed wont work through a surge protector. I just knew never to connect a Satellite cable through one. Since *C channels range from 950Mhz to 2440Mhz, Sat cables going through surge bars probably contribute to ALOT of lock ups, and unit failures. Well at least some.

I've always had good service from *C when I finally get through on the phone, but the Dialogue Zone is hopeless. It's painfully hard to use, and like most companies, *C tends to send cut & paste responses which are only superficially related to the enquiry (if they are related at all!). I've often wondered why companies don't put more effort into their email/online responses, since you would think that it would cost them less than dealing with simple enquiries on the phone. My guess is:

a) It's too easy to send email/on-line enquiries, so they they get a lot of poorly-thought-through spurious junk. It's better to have a barrier that makes customers think harder before they waste your time, or give up and go away if it's not really important.

b) Answering email/online enquiries all day is probably mind-numbing, so the most useless and lowly-paid rookes get stuck with the job.
Actually I used to do the emails online for a computer company. It takes a lot of work to get there and they dont just hire rookies. It is true that there are copy and paste answers to most questions. But dont you think that you would get sick of answering the same stupid questions all day long. Especially when the customers dont bother to look for the answers them self and they are staring them in the face. That is called laziness and once you work in that industry you really notice how many hours in the day are spent answering questions that can get an answer in a second if people just took a few extra minutes to look. I mean if you have a computer use it and look stuff up.

:)

Recently moved to the country and brought SC with me. Started experiencing signal fade/loss problems on a regular basis when it rained or threatened rain. At the old address, I might have lost the signal for a few minutes a couple of times a year.

Called tech support, explained that I had signal as high as 90 on 299 and as low as 65 on other channels on clear days.

Service call set up for 48 hours, professional polite 2 man crew shows up and determines that the dish itself is bad. Replaced with a smile.

Can't ask for any better.

So do you know what it was about the dish that went bad?

couldn't tell you. Got the info second hand from my wife. The service guys spent about 45 minutes checking the alignment, signal strength at the receivers and concluded the dish "wasn't good enough". Cryptic at best.

However, we had heavy rain this morning and didn't lose our picture. The weakest channels that were coming in at 60-65 on a clear day were coming in at 70-75 during a downpour this morning.

I'm thinking the shape of the dish was the culprit. Maybe warped, who knows. Whatever it was, it wasn't leaving enough margin for bad weather.

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=67390

I'm currently having my own installation nightmare. Patience I tell myself, patience.

As someone who believes in giving credit where credit is due I have to give a HUGE thumbs up to Starchoice so far.

I say so far because I am not even set up yet. I sent an email on Monday to the AskJim email address asking a few questions regarding getting Starchoice. I received a response from the Manager of Sales for Western Canada propbably not more than a few hours later. (I could check, it might have been quicker, but you get the idea). He asked what a good time to call was. My response was, you sure don't need to call me on such a minor question, I wouldn't want to waste your time. Sure enough on Monday night 10 minutes after I said would be a good time to call I got a call.

Not only was the person very nice who I spoke with (his assistant). But I got an amazing deal on a 530 and 317.

So, so far I have to say I am very impressed with the Service I have recieved from Starchoice. I hope it all goes as well with the install and the TV service.

The installer couldn't get the receiver powered up after installing the dish on a fairly low location on my home...and thus was only able to check the signal stength on F1 using a spare 205 box he had. Boy, you should have heard the language coming out of the installer's mouth when he couldn't get the 505 box powered on....

I was able to power on my receiver with help from technical support later on...only to find I could only get SD channels. My dish evidently needed to be placed on my roof in order to receive programming from both F1 and F2 satellites.

The response from customer service after many conversations that went along the lines of "we'll try to get an installer back to your house" ended up with "I don't know why, but we just can't".

How about that for an answer? Needless to say, all equipment being returned by courier tomorrow for full refund. I guess they didn't really want another customer.

*sheesh*

I am a current XpressVu customer (since 1998) and have told Bell retention dept. that I am leaving. So of course they offered me a package to stay.

I called *C to see if they would give me a better offer (or at least comparible) to sign up with *C.

I spoke to a cust service rep in Montreal who made me a pretty good offer and told me about a new programming package that isn't even on the website yet he said. I asked him to email me the offer and the details of the new package so I could compare the two and so I have a record of the offer to quote to *C when I actually start the subscription.

I never received the email, contacted *C again and spoke to another rep who said he would tell the 1st rep to call or email me. never happened.

I spoke to a 3rd rep and he again said he would have Jason (the 1st rep) contact me and I even faxed him my name phone number and email addresses so there would be no miscommunication of information. Still no reply.

I contacted cust service again and they said they would look into it. still no reply.

I have been trying, unsuccessfully to get *C customer service in Montreal to send me the discussed or a new offer to cancel Bell and sign up with *C for 5 days now and have spent approx. 4hrs of my own time trying to sign up.

I am not going to cancel Bell without something other than a verbal offer from *C on a comparible programming offer. That would just be stupid.

I can't beleive that I have had this much trouble and have had to spend this much of MY time trying to sign up with *C!! They should be the ones doing the work, not me.

If this is how they treat a new "potential" customer, how do they treat their existing customers??:mad:

Very well actually, just sign up.
Anything is better than Bev.

..gottta agree with ARR, I've never dealt with customer service any worse than BEV :eek:

I kinda think calling *C and asking if they can one up Bell's saves offer is just plain arrogant. Thats just me though.

Of course that original SC CSR in Montreal was not supposed to be letting out info before hand. He knew he was wrong and he certainly wasn't going to put into writing.

AFAIK, as one who converted to SC from BEV a couple of months ago; there is no deal other than that posted on the website - unless you know an outside SC door to door rep.

I have to disagree with you sabres12.
Why is shopping and getting the best deal possible arrogant?
If I have been with Bell since 1998 and *C would like me as a long time customer, why wouldn't they try to at least match the offer that Bell is offering for me to stay? I just think that is smart consumer shopping. Sat is just like any other type of product/service, see what you can get for the best price, and if it is the product/service you want and they give you a better than advertised deal. all the better. It takes a little effort on the consumer's end, that's why people don't like to do it.

If the rep made a mistake on offering me a deal, then he should still honour that mistake, not duck my phone calls and faxes and not respond. That is not good customer service, that is just rude.

Most, so-called "deals" are best done at the retail level. Just watching the big box flyers will tell you "the flavor of the month" offer from any provider. You may think that choosing a TV provider is like shopping for insurance. You usually ask a broker to better your present offer. The big box stores are set up for negotiating like that.

It's insulting to make a deal for you and not offer it to someone because they didn't ask.

This isn't a used car dealer, it's more like a Saturn dealer, fair and marked pricing.

You've become accustomed to Bev's slime ball sales tactics.
*C doesn't and won't operate that way.

They are still a family run business that is very high on ethics.

They'd love your business, but have no need to prostitute themselves to get it.

The deals they make all stand on their own merit and are the same for everybody.

There's one major point being missed here -- receivers are subsidized.

By giving you a deal on hardware and/or programming (beyond what everyone gets), that means they are taking a further loss. As there is no actual contract to sign that guarantees you will be with them for several years, to them the risk is just too great (even with their policy that receivers must be returned if you cancel within the first year).

I signed up online about two weeks ago for *C. The deal was standard: $200 for the receiver -$50 account credit + 10 free ppv movies. I received my 505 receiver about 6 days later. No one called me to set up an appointment (supposed to call within 48 hours of signing up) so I called them and made an appointment for dish set-up. The installer was supposed to be here between 8am and 12pm and showed up at 12:30.. no big deal. He mounted the dish to the south side of the house, we hooked it up to the 505 and couldn't get a signal so he took out a packaged dsr207, hooked it up and moved the dish around for a bit until he got signal. He realized he had made an orientation error (he actually pointed, and asked me "that's south right?", he was right). So he remounted to the west side (front) of my house and got an 85 signal on the 207. We then swapped the 207 for the 505 and had no signal on it. We went through all the interior wiring that I had already set up so that he didn't have to do it. After about an hour he concluded that I had a faulty 505. He left, I called tech support and they ran me through the usual drills (manual reset, factory reset, unplug coaxial, unplug power etc etc) until they decided to send me a new 505. I received the new 505 today and guess what? No signal. So I was on the phone with tech support and, again, they ran me through the same routine which proved unsuccessful. So they wanted to send me yet another 505 but I was pretty fed up so I declined and asked that they just cancel my account and give me my $200 back. They patched me to customer support. The rep was very understanding and offered my 2 months of free programming which I at first refused (mostly because I didn't want to wait another week for my third receiver) but at the last moment suggested to him that I could go get a receiver from FS or BB as a final try. He agreed. Picked up a 3rd 505 at FS and alleluia it got a signal. So I called customer support again to register the SN. The rep was looking over my file and couldn't believe the luck I'd had so she tacked on another 10 ppv movies to my account. Well we waited and waited after registration but I couldn't get a feed on any channels, so.... I was transferred to tech support again and spent the rest of my evening going through the various resets and whatnot. We couldn't get anything so the tech concluded that it was the dish now so he scheduled me another installer to come and replace the quad. So now I'm sitting at 2+ weeks since ordering with no service as of yet (plus about 6 hours wasted on the phone), 3 receivers but I have received $390 credit to my account plus 20 ppv movies from regular sign-up deals and "I'm gonna cancel my account" deals. All the reps I've dealt with have been great, very knowledgeable and can speak fluid english (unlike support for other companies). Hopefully I'll have a signal this weekend.

Sounds like a retarded installer came out to your place. Either that or it was just poor luck.

definately sounds like a bad installer, i would also take that company for unnecessary damage charges/ repair in reference to the first install attempt on the south side of your house. get those unsightly/ unnecessary holes repared on that companies dime.