So long, DirecTV. We’ll miss you.

This past week Kelly and I ended our service with our satellite provider.  Kelly had been a customer with them for some six or more years, and she loves them.  But we have been unable to get them to fix our problem for us, and so we ended our service.  No point in paying for something that isn’t working, especially when you are as poor as us.

Ever since the roofers moved the dish around, we have been unable to get it working again.  I tried multiple times to get the dish aligned again but failed.  I hate going on the roof, but the service guys will no longer do it themselves so that means if anyone goes up there, it is going to be one of us.  Always fun for someone with acrophobia like me.

So the process involves getting some specific information about the altitude, azimuth, etc. of the dish, and then using a compass to properly align the dish.  In theory it should be simple, but who are we kidding?  Just to get up there I had to climb the fire escape, and then haul up a 10 foot stepladder to use at the very top.  I also had to haul up a phone, the compass, and some wrenches.  The roof had several puddles of standing water, which is always a good thing for a new roof.  I can hardly wait to see how it stands up to the weather this winter, whether it is snow or just awfully heavy rain like we are expecting in a few days.  Anyway, the standing water on the roof made my life much more fun because not only was I getting my knees and hands all wet, but I also slipped a couple of times, which is so exciting in a “OH MY GOD I AM GOING TO DIE” sort of way.

So I kept trying to align the dish properly, and Kelly would let me know whether or not there was any change in signal strength on the satellite receiver.  I don’t know how many times we went through that process, but we did it twice, each time for over an hour.  I think we just couldn’t get a clear view because of all the trees, roofs, and chimneys.  It seems to me that the satellite is too close to the horizon where we are.

Anyway, there was no point to continue, and so we called them up to cancel the service and the boxes to put their equipment in arrived in the mail today.  I don’t know what we will do for TV.  It would be nice to have access to some things, so maybe we’ll get a new service at some point but right now it just isn’t much of a priority, especially when we are pretty broke.

It seems to me the solution for some of this problem would be to use different equipment, or come up with a new way of mounting the dishes.  A cherry picker, maybe?  I don’t know.  Anyway, the point is we got it set up the first time, and now no one wants to go near it.

-Geoff