“UPGRADING” THE DISH RECEIVER

We just can’t quite give up our summer garb. I heard this morning that this week’s high temps will continue ten degrees above normal (in the 80s) with no precipitation in sight. The house stays fairly warm, so we had to go back to summer pajamas, though Mike’s knees are cold by morning. We pull up a blanket, and then I’m too warm. I will welcome more seasonable temps.

Nevertheless, we can turn on the oven now and do some serious autumn baking. I started with blueberry apple crostata and zucchini bread.

We spent much of September working with our new Dish receiver, the Hopper Duo, which was installed on Labor Day. Touted as so easy to use, we haven’t found this to be the case. I hear you thinking, “Poor Kathy and Mike. Senior citizens struggle to learn new things; they just can’t keep up,” but I submit to you that this receiver is not user friendly. With the previous unit, we could easily navigate to the guide, the list of our DVR recordings, or a concise listing of sports programs or movies. Not so now. We have to find the correct tab, which takes us to pictures rather than listings. And the listings are convoluted because they want us to watch programs through “Dish on Demand.” We prefer to record so that we bypass commercials. These are our issues in a nutshell.

“No-no, that’s the wrong screen,” I say to Mike. “Go back!”

“What do you mean, ‘go back,’” demands Mike. “Go back to what?” And I don’t mean to imply that I understand something that Mike doesn’t. He has been highly motivated to learn to use the new equipment.

We would love to have stayed with the old receiver. In fact, some months back, the installer allowed us to keep it, though he did say the time would come when we’d have to accept the new model. The change was forced when Mike ordered the sports package, as he does every September. Dish refused to allow the programming until the new receiver was in place.

Well, this is only part of the story because Mike was gone when the new receiver was installed, and I allowed the installer to sell me a new sound bar on a 30-day trial. It was not better or easier to use than our sound bar, and Mike wanted it gone. It IS gone now, but it was not easily arranged.

So – yeah – that’s what we did in September. It was tedious and time-consuming, and we’re stuck with a system we don’t like. KW