All my StarChoice stuff is in the trunk of the car, on its way back to the dealer. I didn't even see what it looked like hooked up. For those of you who are considering buying in, here's my story, sad but true (note that this is NOT an indictment against StarChoice or their dealers... rather it's another example of technology getting the better of at least one of us):

Last week only, there was a special deal at StarChoice:

- FREE installation ($189 value)
- $100 off the price on a GI 301 receiver and dish, in programming rebates; price, $99.
- 1/2 price on the elliptical, 2 LBN dish: price, $49.
- coupons for free programming for x months
Total price: $149. Not bad, eh? Installed, with three months of programming. Wow! Who could refuse?!

Here's what happened:

He forgot to add: $49 for the "installation kit".

I ponied up an extra $100 for the GI 401 receiver (the 301 doesn't have DD5.1)

Since I couldn't tape another program, or watch a signal on a second set in the basement, I forked out another $199 for a second 301 box (how is it that a second box actually costs more than a whole system?)

Since I now had two boxes, I needed their $25 2 GHz splitter; a standard 740 MHz splitter wouldn't do the job.

Oh, balls, I figured: lets's just go for the 201, HDTV converter box as well, and use the 401 as the second receiver. Another $600, but I've always wanted HDTV!

We set up the date for Tuesday morning, first thing (Monday being a holiday, you see, and he really wanted the long weekend off. O.K.).

I spend the evening with a less-than-perfect Motorola/General Instruments remote, programming the TV and CABL buttons to work everything with the least amount of pain (definitely rates low on the WAF scale). I could've spent an extra $69 and picked up the "upgraded" remote, with four device buttons on it and absolutely nothing else different from the basic remote, but I figure no, I have an MX-500, I'll just reprogram that... again.

He arrives Tuesday morning, late. I say: where's your pole for mounting the dish?" He says "I don't do poles!" I say "What the heck is in the $49 kit, then?" "Oh, cables and stuff".

I spent the entire day trying to put together the resources for a simple pole. In the end, I bought a 20 foot length of black steel pole, 1 1/2" across. 1 1/4" is too small for the StarChoice satellite dish clamp; 1 1/2" means you have to bung out the clamp a little to make it fit. "Is it only in Canada where providers sell products that don't meet international standards?" I wonder to myself.

I had the pole cut to 7 ft. and 8 ft. and 5 ft. lengths. 7 feet, so I could drive it 3 ft. into the ground with a sledge, and then attach the next 8 ft. to the top of that, after cementing, for the dish.

But do you think I could find anyone in town (remember, Ottawa is the capital of the country, for Pete's sake) who could find me a way to clamp these two pieces of pole back together? naaaaaaah...

By quitting time yesterday, when I should have been leaving work, I was frantically walking around pie-eyed at some giant lawn-sprinkler system, being promised that if I returned first thing in the morning, there would a guy there with a machine who could thread my two pieces of steel pipe, and then sell me a great piece of pipe connector! Yay!

Oh, yeah... did I mention that the only place to mount the dish on the pole, turns out to be in the middle of the yard along the fence, because the few leaves on one tree are enough to block out a proper signal reception?

How, I wonder, did the neighbours on both sides of me get their dishes where they wanted, on nice clean poles out of one piece? Of course, I did note that one of them left the cable dangling directly from the dish to the wall... a certain death trip-trap for anyone foolish enough to enter the area.

By the time I got home last night with my three pieces of yet-to-be-threaded pole, I had decided enough was enough. And everything is going back.

I'll get into satellite again... as soon as everything is in one box, as soon as I don't have to buy an extra piece of equipment to watch the same channels in a another room, as soon as I can record one show and watch another without spending an extra $200 or $300 for the pleaseure, as soon as the dish is tiny enough to be installed inconspicuously on the roof or somewhere without Condominium Corporation interference... in fact, as soon as it is as easy as cable is now. Screw the picture quality: I just want my TV. ... Mike

Part le deux:

So I bring in my Satellite Pile this morning for a refund. First of all, the guy who sold me the system is not there. I half expect the new trainee to say "We never do refunds", but thank goodness he doesn't.

The new trainee doesn't know how to do the refund, though, because I have most of it on a MasterCard that is now owned by Citibank Visa, and a smaller portion (the aforementioned forgotten installation kit... which I just found out, by the way, contains only two pieces of cable!) paid on Debit card.

So he calls up a Big Cheese somewhere. The Big Cheese makes him go through the whole story of why I'm returning it, and basically embarasses the heck out of the trainee as I'm standing there listening while he tries to defend my return.

Then he tells me I have "write a letter" to the chain, explaining that I am, in fact, myself, and that I did, in fact, purchase the satellite setup, and did not, in fact, steal it from somewhere else (along with the MasterCard, the two receipts, etc., etc.,) so StarChoice, in fact, will accept the return and allow them to re-sell it as "not stolen".

Boy, if I had to go through that every time I bought and returned a URC that didn't do what I wanted... .

So with that done (an no copy machine, so I trust him to get me a copy later), we proceed to the refund. To do this, he has to call Christine at the Office of the Big Cheese where all the other rats hang out. For instructions.

First of all, she grills him about why I am returning he unit. He defends me again. Then she says I to write a letter saying I Am Not a Thief. He explains I did that already.

Then he tells her about the two bills, one charge-card and one ATM. From the look on his face, I can see she is giving him crap about handling a sale in such a fashion. Then he starts into explaining that the regular guy isn't in today. "Why?" "Because he's doing installs." "Installs?" "Yes." "When's he coming back... yada yada...."

Meantime, I'm standing there, looking around to see if perhaps someone hasn't left a handgun around or something that I can use to bean these people with... .

We follow that up with her telling him that the bill went to Visa, not MasterCard, and there's no way she's doing a refund under those circumstances: if I can't produce a Visa card, I'm poop-outa-luck. Eventually she discovers that they are both now the same company.

Finally, she gets him to tell me that she can't refund the portion on the ATM card; instead, she will write a cheque for the amount, and mail it to me. I grab the phone: "You mean I can give you cash, but you cannot give me cash back?" "That's right, sir." "Any idea why not?" "We're not set up for it." "Not set up... wait a minute, isn't this a business... no, I guess not." I give the guy back the phone, after getting her to agree to bring the cheque, signed, into the store tomorrow.

By now he has received instructions on how to use the Charge machine, but it keeps giving him a "timeout" error message, so he hangs up to try on his own. I have much more faith in the person who is actually using the equipment than some other stranger on the far end of a phone line, so I let him at it.

First, he charges me again, by accident, for the complete satellite package, having forgotten to push the "Refund" button. So now we go through several iterations of cancellations, signatures, refunds of refunds, etc., etc.

Whew. Have you had enough? I have. ... Mike

Hi Mike,

Have you consider sharing your satellite purchase story with your local cable provider?

I am sure they'll love your story! They might even use it in their advertisement!

Cheer!

That's a good one, Bear! Trouble is, the whole reason for switching to satellite was to GET RID OF the darned cable company... ... Mike

From the dimension of the pole I gather that you needed
12' above ground on a 1 1/2" diameter pole.

Ya right; at the first gust of wind you would have lost reception because ku sat. signal is almost like a laser beam & 1 1/2" X 12' pole would have swayed like a pendulum.

The right way is a 3" diam. X 15' pole dug 3' to 4' in the ground & secured with concrete with a 6" X 1 1/2" pole adaptor clamped or soldered to it.

Yes only about 2% of clients have to go to this extreme
due to major tree problems & it's no a free or $ 100.00
install. In the olds days it was done daily when people where putting up their 10 footer "C" band dishes
on a 4 1/2" to 5" diameter pole up to 30' high.

If you've had called a professionnal "C" band installer
you wouldn't have gone throught thoose problems & you'd
be enjoying HDTV now.

Entity: Thanks for the news. I guess you didn't see the title: "what they didn't tell me".

Or the title of my previous thread: "What haven't they told me?", before I bought the darn thing, which no one answered... where were you when I needed you? ... Mike

I Mike, what you had to go throught is a nightmare for everthing, even the credit.

The problem with "small" dish installation is exactly that; it's small & suddenly everybody is suddenly a sat. expert. In the old days of the big 10 footer dish in a city of let's say 2 million people you had 4 or 5 store/installer & the had to know their stuff because it was 10 times more complicated to install,program &
understand the tracking of the "Clark belt", limit switches, magnets counter, H/V polarities,etc.etc.

It was then more simple, you had still a choice of a "crappy system for 3-4000 or the best from 6-8000"
& looking at the equipement offered you could tell right away the difference. AS far as quality of workmanship, well people we working mostly from referrals.

A store that doesn't give you an upfront picture of what's to be expected shouldn't be in that business especially towards a client like you that even bouht an
HDTV adaptor. In other words you weren't looking for a cheap install & that store should have noticed that fact.

Glad that they lost your business. Ask around & try to get friends & relatives input next time & better luck

Regards,

You're so right, Entity. It's definitely still a big thing in the Home Entertainment field: the average consumer doesn't know if he's punched or bored when he starts looking at satellite dishes. I mean, I know some serious stuff about receivers and speakers and remote controls, but that doesn't make me an expert on anything else... so I blindly expect to be taken care of, when in truth it's just like the used-car business (no offense to used-car salesmen who are honest!), where the reputation is based on a long history.... Mike

You don't have to get a 2nd receiver to watch the same program in another room, only if you want to watch different programs. There are elegant 900 Mhz and 2.4 Ghz wireless solutions for around US$100 that don't require a bunch of wiring; there's also a phone line networking solution for tv signal.

Assuming you have UHF remote capability, you can watch the same channel, or DVD, or whatever on a theoretically unlimited number of TV's. Microwave ovens between transmitter and receiver on the wireless units can be a problem while they're running, as can a wireless phone running at the same Mhz or Ghz.

I think I saw all the available options at suttertel.com.

Yeah, but how often does anyone want to watch the same progrm in a different room? In our place people go to a different set because they want to watch something else. And half my point here, is, I don't want RF and IR redirectors and extra cables and crap and poop and wussy-ass stuff like that. So you won't find me being an "early adopter" (heh... how many years does a product have to be on the market before it moves out of that realm?).

I was in the Big K in Watertown on the weekend; they had RCA systems going for $149, that included two receivers, two remotes, the dish, and everything else. At least that's a start.... ... Mike