On October 5, 2019 at 15:57, Brad Humphrey said...
1) You were contracted to install 2 TVs?
I was contracted to install two televisions. You're reaching way beyond what I was there to do.
Did that include installing the wireless DirecTV clients?
Insofar as the TV has not been properly installed if the DirecTV client that was sitting on the floor is still sitting on the floor. When I finished, that client was on the back of the TV... is that "installing wireless DirecTV clients"?
If so, then I would have had the conversation about how flaky those boxes are and may not work consistent & reliably. If coax was available at the TVs (or able to fish coax to the locations), then I would have given a quote on that and recommend replacing the wireless boxes with regular boxes.
The few of those boxes I have in installs I've done are working perfectly, though slower to react than older product. I am not aware that those boxes are flaky. I've seen many complaints here about DirecTV but I can't say I've seen "those boxes are flaky" or "they don't work right away" or much of any other complaint with much detail.
If they choose to go with the wireless clients anyway, then not my problem if they flaked out after a proper install - customer was warned. To quote that grand YouTube video "F^ you, pay me".
Do you consider "not my problem" a difficulty that the client will pay you to work through to correction? I'd say that's my problem in that I'm hired to solve problems as well as straight out install things.
Really... this is a DirecTV problem anyway. Customer needs to call them after they write me my check for installing the TVs. End of disscussion unless they want to pay a lot of money for me to help fix their 'DirecTV' problem.
So... you're installing two TVs. You unwire and rewire, and the first one you rewire says "server not found." Do you, at that point, say "I installed things properly and I'm going to ignore this message now because it's DirecTV's problem. That seems to be the steps you'd take to express that last paragraph.
2) You can NEVER give an accurate summary of what to expect from ANYTHING wireless. The world just doesn't work like that. Some things and brands are much better at wireless than others, but there is NEVER a guarantee of performance.
I have seen those DirecTV wireless boxes work 80+ feet thru walls from the wireless bridge before. I have also seen them flaking out at only 20ft away. They use WiFi channels, so interference is a real issue in crowded areas.
THIS IS AN INCREDIBLY VALUABLE COMMENT. I say all the time that wired is better than wireless but I will definitely extend this comment to wireless boxes! I was apparently misled by the first few that I put in, that worked perfectly!
A note about the DirecTV installation: The place is a two-story condo on top of a garage. The DirecTV wiring consists of
*a living room location where an RG-6 comes out of the wall and connected to the bridge;
*an RG-6 in the upstairs bedroom;
*two RG-6 that come out of the TV box in the garage and connect to two other cables in that box via F81s.
I was not there to work on the satellite!
When I saw those wires, and only those, and no indication which wires might have been from the dish, I just left the wires alone. I was not there to work on the satellite.
