In a word, YES! I have been anticipating the upgrade to HDTV for a few years and now that I have it here in my home, I am not disappointed.

My first real good look at HDTV came only about a month or so ago when I stopped into a Best Buy store to check it out. At that time I had decided to start researching which model I wanted to buy and thought that a look at the real thing would be helpful.

Up until that point I had not gone out of my way to see HDTV in action because I knew it would increase my desire to get it for myself and I just wasn’t ready to do that for a number of reasons.

The HDTV sets in the store looked nice but I guess looking in a store just cannot compare to how it looks in your own home. The HD on my 51-inch Hitachi 51F59 looks gorgeous. I feel like I could sit there and stare at it for hours. In fact, I half-jokingly told my kids that I would sit there and watch anything as long as it was in HD!

Yes, it really does look that good. There is an HD channel on Dish Network called Equator and they seem to specialize in shows about wildlife and visiting various other countries and such. A lot of it is simply stunning in HD.

If you’ve ever seen one of those crystal-clear photos of some lush rain forest or jagged mountain terrain in National Geographic magazine, just picture that as video and you’ll know what I am talking about.

At this point in time, most of what I watch is not yet in HD, but I am sure that will change in the future. Although we all enjoy programs like American Idol in HD as well as the Late Show With David Letterman.

I don’t usually watch much of the Academy Awards every year but this year I told my wife that I will be there for the whole thing with her if it is broadcast in HD.

What really brought home the difference for me was looking at our old TV set after watching HD programming.

Sometime last year, the old 27-inch Zenith TV we had been watching for 15 years or so finally died. I did not want to spend a lot of money on a new set at the time since I was thinking that a serious upgrade might not be too far out so I decided to just get a cheap 20-inch Sanyo set at Wal-Mart to hold us over for a while.

When I got the new Hitachi set, we donated the Sanyo for use in my son’s room to replace an old generic set my wife bought at K-Mart over 20 years ago that was, amazingly, still working!

I went up to my son’s room a couple of days ago to see how the new Dish receiver was working out up there and I was amazed to see how bad the picture quality was on the Sanyo! And that was with a nice, clean satellite picture that used to look quite good to me on that set!

I guess I am officially an HDTV snob now. Even with standard definition (non-HDTV) signals the new Hitachi set looks wonderful compared to the Sanyo.

As amazed as I am with HDTV, I am almost as amazed at the capabilities of my new Dish Network VIP622 Receiver/DVR. To say this thing will revolutionize our TV viewing is not an understatement. It does even more than I thought it did even after reading a lot about it over the last few weeks in anticipation.

I plan to write a lot more about the VIP622 in the equipment section soon.

The weather was about as good as it gets here Wednesday for this time of year here in New Hampshire. A perfect day for a Dish Network satellite installer to get my new HD system up and running.

I was lucky to get an installer who was a pretty reasonable guy and was willing to work with the stuff I had set up in preparation for the installation. The only real hitch was that he somehow did not have the proper type of receiver with him that we needed for the second room, but since he did have the VIP622 (receiver/DVR) and all the other gear he needed with him, he could do the installation and then go back to the office to fetch the additional receiver when he was done and then activate them both when he returned.

The installation seemed to go smoothly and when the installer was finished we had two new Dish 500 antennas in place of the old Dish 300 antenna that I installed a little more than eight years ago.

He had originally planned to continue using the old Dish 300 antenna by re-orienting it to pick up the satellite at 61.5 for the HDTV programming and install a new Dish 500 to pick up the 110 and 119 satellites, but the adjustment bolts were quite rusted on the Dish 300 antenna and he decided to replace it with a new Dish 500 as well.

That leaves me with a spare Dish 500 antenna that I bought off of eBay before I knew that getting the HD system installed would require an installer to visit. I guess I will just hang onto it and use it as a spare if something goes wrong with one of the other ones.

Something else I learned was that only one single run of coax cable was required to connect both Dish 500 antennas to the VIP622. They’ve got nifty switches that allow them to combine the signals from both antennas into one cable and another switch that converts the signals from the single cable back to two cables for both inputs on the VIP622.

In addition to the Dish I bought on eBay, I have an extra run of brand-new RG-6 coax cable from the roof to the location of the VIP622. Once again, I guess it will just be a spare in case something happens to the one I am using or I use it for expansion in the future.

Despite what a Dish Network installer or Dish Network customer service representative tells you about how long it will take for your receivers to be activated, don’t ever believe them! I had been down this road before, so I knew what to expect this time.

When the installer left he said he would call Dish Network right away and request that they activate our new receivers. He said it would take no longer than 10 minutes. I’ve heard that one before and knew that it takes more like half an hour — at least!

I don’t know whether there is something special about our location or system here, so maybe other Dish Network customers actually do have their receivers activated within 10 minutes, but in each of the 3 or 4 times I have had to have receivers activated or re-activated over the years here, it has always taken at least 30 minutes.

This time it seemed to take an hour or so but the VIP622 was activated and started receiving all of our programming. The second receiver was still not working after more than an hour so I had to call Dish Network and request an activation which happened not long after I called.

It was my first experience with a Dish Network installer and I have to say it was a good experience and I really don’t have any complaints. I would say that the installation of the new dish antennas took about 90 minutes or so.

Overall, I am happy with how it all turned out. The installation locations of the Dish antennas may not be exactly the way I would have done it myself, but it is certainly acceptable to me and I am enjoying my new HD service very much.

The quest for true HDTV continues. After calling Dish Network last weekend and trying to talk them into sending me a new HD-capable receiver/DVR, I had to agree to an appointment with an installer. The representative at the other end of the line could not explain the reason to me other than telling me it is because of the HD.

I was not particularly happy about that, but it seems like it is the only way I will get what I want without shelling out big bucks to buy my own receiver/DVR.

I am quite well aware of what I need to set my own system up here, but I suspect they don’t encourage that since there are probably people out there who manage to blow up their receivers or make constant calls to the tech support line with their installation problems and questions.

My appointment was scheduled for Wednesday, February 14 — Valentine’s Day here in the U.S. It also happened to be the day we got our first major winter storm of the season here in the northeast!

As expected, I got a call from the installer on Wednesday morning to let me know that I needed to reschedule due to the weather. No big surprise there.  I got a call a little bit later from Dish Network and I rescheduled for Saturday (today).

When the installer arrived, he took a look around my house, and although he was quite nice about it, he informed me I had to reschedule it again when the snow was clear from my roof. That is where my current dish is mounted and apparently they are not allowed to venture up onto a roof that is covered with snow or ice for safety reasons.

I called Dish again after the installer left and informed them that it would be best for me to call them back when the roof has cleared and they agreed. Now I must simply wait until mother nature gets around to melting it away.

I did find a used Dish 500 antenna on eBay that is now sitting on a table nearby, although I actually don’t really need it at this point since the installer will be mounting any new dish that will be needed.

Since I currently have an old Dish 300 antenna up there now and suspect the installer will just re-align that to pick up the 61.5 satellite, I will probably replace that one with the Dish 500 I bought when the weather warms up. The original Dish 300 antenna is over 8 years old, so it probably would not be a bad idea to replace it with the Dish 500 which is much newer and looks like it is in nice condition for a used one.

I also picked up 250 feet of RG-6 coax cable for a couple of brand new runs from the location of the new satellite dish (when it is installed) down to where the new receiver/DVR will be.

When my house was originally constructed it was wired with RG-59 coax which is not optimal for satellite use, so a few new runs of fresh RG-6 was definitely a good idea. It was a bit of a pain to route through the walls and floors but it is something the installer may not be able to do, and quite frankly, something I would rather do and do it “my way.”

For now I just have to wait for a spell of warmer weather to clear the snow and ice from the roof of the house.

Now that I’ve got my new 51-inch HDTV it is time to get hooked up with a genuine HDTV signal and see how great this stuff is. Since my new TV does not have an HD-capable tuner built in, I need to feed it an HD signal from an external source to get true HDTV.

Although it might be nice to have the built-in HDTV tuner for times like this, it was not really a “must have” feature for me since I will be feeding it from my new Dish Network HD DVR, and since I will be including local channels in my programming package, we will rarely be watching anything that is not coming from Dish Network.

The new deal I talked about recently from Dish Network appears to be offering existing customers a half-price upgrade to a HD DVR, and although I had hoped they would offer it to us free, getting it for half of the usual price is a pretty good deal, so I’m signing up for it.

I also may be able to get credit by sending my old receivers back, and if that is so, it should bring the cost of the new HD DVR down significantly. I’m not sure about that however and will need to check with Dish Network.

I knew that I would have to access some additional satellites in order to receive all the HD programming and local channels I want, so I had to do some research to figure out exactly what I needed.

My situation is a bit different than most Dish Network customers since I am not interested in their professional installation service and I am much happy doing stuff like this myself. I’ve been messing around with radios and stuff like that for years and have very specific ideas about how I want things set up, and, truth be known, I actually enjoy doing stuff like that.

My research revealed that I should probably get a Dish 500 antenna and install it in addition to my old Dish 300 antenna that I have now. I need to pick up the 110 and 119 satellites (which the Dish 500 will do) as well as the 61.5 satellite which I will receive when I re-orient the Dish 300 antenna.

I did not think Dish Network would sell me a Dish 500 antenna to install myself but just to be sure, I called to ask. Sure enough, I could only get one from them if I agreed to professional installation. So much for that.

My next stop was eBay where I was able to pick up a used Dish 500 Pro antenna with all mounting hardware and quad output for about $50.

Next I ordered 250 feet of RG-6 coax cable with dual shield because I want to replace all the coax that I am currently using since I simply connected my Dish Network coax into the existing wiring in my house 8 years ago when I first installed my Dish Network system.

Not only is the existing wiring in my house inadequate due to the fact that it is RG-59 type coax, it is also probably about as old as the house at this point and that makes it about 22 years old. Even so, it has worked well for the last 8 years and delivered a very good signal, but since I will now be dealing with HDTV, I want to have the proper coax and be able to cut it to the length I need and avoid too much slack on the line.

Although it may be a bit of overkill on my part, it is always best to have the shortest run of coax you can get away with since the signal is gradually diminished as it travels the length of the coax.

At this point I believe everything except for the new HD DVR has been ordered and should be here in a few days or a week. Now if this brutal cold weather spell we are enduing will let up for a day or two after that, I can get busy up on the roof installing the new Dish and re-orienting the old one.

My last post was about the new A&E HD Channel coming to Dish Network. The timing for that is great for me because I have finally taken the plunge and got myself an HDTV-capable television.

For those that care, I did a lot of research and settled on the Hitachi 51F59 that I was able to get from Sears. It was on sale for about $800 delivered and I jumped at the chance.

The 51F59 is a 51-inch CRT-based rear projection set. After all the research I did, I decided to stick with the recommendations of the many hard-core video experts who agreed that the latest and greatest LCD and plasma sets do not equal the picture quality that a good CRT set provides.

Currently, only the 1080p sets are equal to or better than CRT sets but 1080p sets are still priced well into the stratosphere. Why shell out $1500 or more for an LCD or plasma set when I can get a CRT set for $800 and enjoy better picture quality?

Word is that manufacturers have stopped making or will soon stop making CRT sets, so if you want one, you should act fast. Not surprisingly, they would rather make sets that they make more profit on. CRT sets are now considered “old” technology, so the end was bound to come before too long.

I am glad I got the 51-inch set since I now believe that the 57-inch or 65-inch would have been a bit too big for the room we have it in. The layout of the room dictates that I sit about 9 feet from the TV and I find the 51-inch to be about the perfect size for my taste at that distance.

Since I still have my old “Dish 300″ system that I’ve had for more than 8 years, I have no component or HDMI outputs on my old 5000 receiver to feed to the TV and am stuck with a picture that is not the greatest for all the satellite channels. Even so, it really isn’t bad at all and is quite watchable.

Over-the-air signals from the local digital TV channels are very good. Not true HD, bit still very nice. Oddly, the digital channels come in much better than the old analog signals. We always had problems getting the CBS and ABC analog channels out of Boston even with a brand-new rooftop antenna, but the digital channels are crisp and clear. An amazing difference.

With no true HDTV tuner inside the 51F59, I have yet to see a real HDTV picture on my new TV. I am not working on getting a Dish 500 system installed soon and at that point I will be able to upgrade to an HD DVR and enjoy my new TV in all its HD glory.

Using my non-HD Panasonic DVD player/writer, I am very pleased with the picture quality using the component inputs. I do not yet have a home theater sound system yet, but outputting the TV to my vintage 100-watt Yamaha amplifier sounds fantastic — almost a theater-like experience.

On thing that has kind of ticked me off with regard to Dish Network is the fact that they will not sell me a Dish 500 system that I can install myself. They insist on their professional installation which I do not want.

As a long-time radio hobbyist, I actually enjoy projects like that and I am quite accustomed to running coax cables through the walls and all through my house. I guess I can be kind of picky about stuff like that and I want it done my way. I suspect most people are better off letting the pros do it.

More to come on this topic when I find the right Dish 500 set-up on eBay.

Virgin America Airlines is preparing to launch its new service and have settled on Dish Network as part of the entertainment package that will be offered to passengers.

Every seat on every Virgin America flight will reportedly be given access to Dish Network programming and will include pay-per-view offerings and music.

“We are delighted to be part of this innovative airborne entertainment offering,” said Charlie Ergen, Chairman and CEO of Dish Network. “Dish Network is focused on securing and delivering exciting, timely and appealing content to Virgin America guests as well as our 13 million-plus subscribers throughout the United States.”

In a recent milestone, Echostar Communications Corp. surpassed 13 millions customers for their Dish Network service. That’s up about a million from this same time last year.

Their largest competitor, DirecTV, currently has over 15 million customers.

It will be interesting to see if Dish Network is able to close the gap.

With new channels, new satellites and new deals coming along all the time, I intend to use this blog as a place to keep more current Dish Network happenings.

I’ve been a Dish Network customer for about 8 years and I am still very happy with it. Although cable TV has come a long way since I first got Dish Network, nothing that cable has to offer has convinced me to get rid of my dish and go back to cable.

Having no other choice for high-speed internet service, I am still a cable TV customer today, but not for the “TV” part. The amount I pay them for internet access every month has done nothing to convince me that cable TV is a better deal than it was 8 years ago when I got my dish. I suspect they are still raising their prices on the TV portion of the service regularly like they were doing back before I switched to Dish Network for all my TV needs.