bman

Ok so I had to move the Dish, trees finally grew up in the way. After moving and re-aiming the dish I find a dilemma. My dish says its a Slimline-3 (3 LNB).. yup, right on the label. The receiver says no, you've connected a Slimline-5 (5 LNB). DirecTV technical forums say the Slimline-3 has only one LNB housing, but contains 3 LNB's within the single housing, while the Slimline-5 has 3 housings, whereby one housing has 3 LNB's in it and two separate housings, each with 1 LNB in it. Im missing one satellite, the 119 - thus no program guide. So I call them. Hey whats up there DirecTV folks.. how do I fix this.. the receiver says Slimline-3 or Slimline-5 - nothing about how many LNB's it has. If I set the receiver to Slimline-5 I suddenly see a signal meter for the 119 satellite! yay! But no matter how much I adjust it I cant get it... yet I have signals in the high 90's and even some 100's on satellites 99, 101, and 103cb. DirecTV says well the Slimline-3 is actually a single LNB housing dish and that there is no way mine should say slimline-3 with 3 separate housings, which is actually a slimline-5. I say um.. no, the label clearly says slimline-3, yet I have 3 separate LNB enclosures. DirecTV says that's impossible. I said no, the initial installer probably didn't have the proper LNB housing for this dish when he installed it and instead used a Slimline-5 LNB enclosure on a Slimline-3 dish - doh?. DirecTV says that's impossible, the single LNB dish is the wrong concave shape to use a slimline-5 LNB housing - which is why I can't see the 119 satellite.. I ask if they want a picture. They decide to send a tech to look at it to confirm my claim, at no charge of course. Who's on first? What's on second? Tap.. tap..tap..Hellllo.. is this thing on?! My hat is off to DirecTV for taking such a basic simple concept of longitude and latitude and managing to make it so damn difficult to perform the most basic, simplest of things - aiming a satellite dish. I'm so glad they don't have any government contracts for high-reliability military communications.

I'm quickly losing faith in American companies that deal in technology.