About a month ago I noticed my satellite TV (Shaw Direct) TV reception starting to fade out badly with any rain. I just assumed the weather was worse a little further south or back east where the signal originates. It is something I have always dealt with but it was worse this time. About three weeks ago the signal was off more than it was on. That's what I did for a living, radio, satellite and fibre optics communications so I should have been onto it earlier but I wasn't. I went out and sighted along the path to the bird and saw that a tree in my neighbour's property had grown quite a bit taller and wider and decided that was the problem, "tree fade" and there was little I could do about it.
The property is owned by a Vancouver real estate company and is rented out so I could probably have gotten permission to remove or at least top the tree but I would have to hire a tree removal company company to do it as well as to finance an engineering report to say it was safe to do so without destabilizing the steep slope behind both our properties. A very expensive proposition. The other option would be to move the dish, something I would have tackled myself long ago when I was 50 or 60 but not so much now at 80. So I called Shaw Customer service.
I explained the problem and he started going through the checklist. Are both the TV and receiver plugged in? I told him I had 40 years experience dealing with equipment far more complicated than theirs and he could be assured that I had done all the preliminary checks. He finally agreed to send out a repairman but it would take three weeks! I told him the dish needed to be relocated and he said they would do that.
So, no TV for three weeks! At least not regular programming. I have Netflix, Prime and YouTube so I was not without entertainment and I usually get my news from the computer anyway with CBC, Aljazeera, BBC, CNN and others so I wasn't really missing much. Except for sports, I could probably live without network TV. They will be here on Tuesday and I will see what they say. If they won't do it or if they want me to pay, I will just cancel the service and go to Telus TV. It can't be more expensive that the $150 per month I pay for Shaw Direct. More to come!
Wow! I have Shaw Satellite in Mexico but I only pay $30USD a month! Hope you get your service restored on Tuesday! (I am still not receiving emails from you!)
ReplyDeleteAt $30 you are not getting it from Shaw, they do not allow anyone outside of Canada to get an account, Every account holder is allowed 6 receivers so they are probably renting you 1/6 of their service for $41 Canadian. Is this Barbara?
DeleteShaw satellite service died in Mexico in February 2024 when the satellite that provided that service died.
DeleteAh! I thought it was just one satellite out of the three that was no longer available. My friends (comment above) is still getting Shaw Direct in San Miguel de Allende but maybe on restricted programming. The dish aiming might have to be slightly tweaked. I know Shaw has been trying for years to get snowbirds off their system.
DeleteLiving in the country we have no choice but satellite. Ours is Dish. What frustrates me is that even with the basic plan we get a gazillion worthless channels and only watch about 8 or so. We still have to pay for the many channels we don't watch, most of which we've blocked anyway. Of the 8 or so we watch we record them so we don't have to endure the copious and annoying commercials.
ReplyDeleteIt is so frustrating! I am recording almost everything as well so I can speed through the commercials. Canada is a bilingual country so there is a ton of French language programming that comes with the service that I have never watched (I speak a little Spanish but no French). I should block many of them as it would make the guide much easier to deal with.
DeleteHola Croft - when you ask above, "Is this Barbara?" - if you mean me, Barbara Lane, no, that comment wasn't from me. I've not watched TV in over 30 years. I have a Smart TV, but in my den, and for use if I have a houseguest and they want to watch. A few years ago I began watching a few things on my laptop from Prime and Netflix, but go months without thinking to see if there's anything I'd like to watch.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine paying $150.00 a month for that service - wow! Things sure have changed since we had 3 channels, ABC, NBC, and CBS, with a rabbit ear antenna on top, and often a piece of foil topping one if not both "ears".
I doubt I'd know how to navigate programming now.
I hope you get things sorted soon - I know from my experience with Comcast years ago this kind of thing can be beyond frustrating.
LOL! I remember those years with the tin foil and rabbit ears. In Canada we only got two channels at first, CBC and CTV and then a couple of US stations started broadcasting over the border. Then we got cable but remote controls were unheard of so our kids became our remotes! "Go change it to channel 3"! Our first remote was a big box with a wire going to the TV. I remember always tripping over it! Good to hear from you Barbara. It is actually the other Barbara from SMA that I thought had commented.
DeleteThat was it exactly - the kids were the remotes!
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