# VIP211k in detached garage



## matt314159 (Feb 11, 2009)

Hi all, I sure hope I am putting this in the right section. (if not, mods feel free to move). I have a few questions about a set-up I want put together, and I want to make sure it will be fine. 

I currently have a Dish 411 as my main receiver. It's great, got an EHD set up on it a few days ago, and it's amazing. 

We're finishing up converting part our detached garage out back into a sort of game room, and I'm going to be adding a Rear-Projection HDTV out there. Since running cables from our current 1000.2 dish on our house to the back of our lot is kind of impractical, I decided to just go ahead and install a second 1000.2 on the roof of the garage. I ordered a VIP211k on eBay from a seller who I hope is reputable, for $139 shipped, which seemed like a fair price. 

Once the VIP211k is on my account, will there be any problems with just moving it to the garage, even though the garage (currently) does not have a phone line or internet access for it to connect to? Will I get charged anything extra, other than the $7 for the 2nd receiver fee every month? I did ask a dish rep through a chat, and they said it would be fine, but I want to confirm. Otherwise I will need to get a phone line out there, or bring the receiver in the house to let it connect every now and then. 

Also, I will be adding an EHD to this box as well. Will the $39.99 I already paid cover the VIP211K as well, or do I need to enable it on that box as well and pay a second time? The dish rep said it covered my whole account, but from reading the forums, I get the impression I would only be covered if I were adding another 411, not necessarily a 211, so that had me a little confused. 

last question I have, is the 211K considered a newer/better model than the 411? Should I put the 211K in the living room and the 411 out back, or are they mostly the same? 

I do apologize for just jumping in with a bunch of newbie questions like this, I'm going to be reading the forums more throughout the day and tonight to see if I can find more definitive answers than I already have, but I thought it might be such an easy question someone could maybe just jump in and give quick and easy answers. 

Thanks in advance. If there are any threads discussing the same topic that I haven't come across yet, and you know them off-hand, feel free to just link me to them, I don't mind doing my due-diligence and reading on my own. I just haven't had a whole heck of a lot of luck with searches yet.


----------



## BobaBird (Mar 31, 2002)

:welcome_s to DBSTalk!

The receivers do not have to be connected to the same dish, but they do have to be at the same address.

You shouldn't have a problem with 2 single-tuner receivers not connected to a phone line, practically speaking. The Residential Customer Agreement says all receivers are to be connected. The more receivers you have not connected, the likelier you are to get a phone call from the audit team. If the 411 is connected, you should be able to use DishCOMM over the power lines for the 211k.

The EHD fee covers all 211/411 receivers on your account. The 211k will be ready after you do the initial new receiver activation. Did you have any trouble getting EHD enabled having just a 411?

Early reports on the 211k seem to indicate it is better than the 211 (the 411 is a 211 w/o ethernet). The 211k is a bit smaller, runs cooler, and is black instead of silver. It has its own software but I don't think there are any operational differences.


----------



## matt314159 (Feb 11, 2009)

Excellent advice, thanks! The 411 was no trouble to get going, I hooked up a WD Mybook Essentials 750GB I had and called the number on the screen. I got a regular CSR at first, but she transferred me to an outsourced-sounding tech who put me on hold to look up how to do it, and by the time we ended the call, the activation message was already on my screen. I gotta admit when the tech came on the line and I could barely understand him I began to worry but it worked out alright.

If the 211K works as well as my 411 for the DVR functionality, I will be more than pleased. I expected it to be somewhat buggy, but for the most part it works great. The only problem I had so far was trying to play back one show while recording another (both in HD). The data seemed to bottleneck, as I ended up with a couple of hiccups when trying to jump past commercials on the show I was watching, and resulted in a few sections of jumpy-glitchy playback on the show I was recording. I'm guessing maybe since they were both HD that might have been taxing it too much.

Might put the 211K in the living room since the TV cabinet doesn't have a whole lot of airflow.

Actually our 411 isn't hooked up to a phone line either right now, we never order PPV or anything like that, and there's no jack in the living room. I knew we got one freebie but I wasn't sure about a second receiver. My main thing is I don't want it to cost anything, otherwise I could figure out a way to connect it up every month to satisfy phone line requirements. I did a little reading, and I'm still not entirely sure what an audit involves but I can go out there if I have to read numbers off the screen or something like that, in the event it does happen.

I've gotta say I was a little miffed when I heard you still have to pay a $7 2nd receiver fee even if it's equipment you *own*. But not having a DVR fee for both boxes will more than compensate for that. In a year, that $40 activation fee will have paid for itself a couple times over. I've only been with Dish since November, but so far I'm really enjoying it! Was pleasantly surprised to get Fox News in HD, I was hoping it would come soon and it did!


----------



## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

I'd have to re-read the rules to be sure. A "detached garage" is sort of in a gray area.

A detached residence I think generally would be (by the letter of the contract) treated as a separate residence, and thus need its own account so as not to be stacking... but if no one actually lives in your garage, and you are using it as a rec-room, then my gut says this is in the spirit of compliance but a re-read of the terms & conditions might tell for sure.

Someone mentioned DishComm... but I doubt that will work. DishComm sometimes doesn't work across circuit breakers inside a house, though mine does, so I'm thinking DishComm over Powerlines from a detached garage might not work.

Will you have an internet connection in your garage? If so, then that can be used in lieu of a phone line to avoid any potential audits and will allow for ordering of PPV and might be easier to get in your garage scenario than a phone line would be.


----------



## matt314159 (Feb 11, 2009)

Definitely nobody living out there or anything like that, its just an old sofa, a pool table, and big-screen TV (I got a JVC I'Art 48" CRT Rear Projection HDTV on craigslist for $100, all I had to do was replace the STK392 convergence IC's and resistors, and clean the lenses and it looks like new! I think I paid $140 total, including parts)...just kind of a guys hangout for the weekends. I feel like it's within the spirit of the rules, if I could have a room added onto the house, I'd have it in there...

I think what I'll do is leave the 211 in the living room, I have a wireless network here at the house, I can just put a wireless bridge hooked to the 211 in the house and have the 411 out back. The garage has its own 100 amp breaker, so I'm not sure the powerline communication would work, but it's always worth a shot. But if only one of the boxes remains unconnected, as long as it doesn't raise a stink with them or cause them to charge me anything extra every month, I'm fine with that. 

Oh, does it matter which receiver is considered my "primary" receiver? Should the primary one be the one that connects to the internet on a regular basis, or does it matter?


----------



## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

matt314159 said:


> Oh, does it matter which receiver is considered my "primary" receiver? Should the primary one be the one that connects to the internet on a regular basis, or does it matter?


I don't know if it technically matters, but I'd probably make sure the primary one is the one connecting if you can't get both to connect. That's more of a personal thing than it is a "knowing something" thing.

Also a personal thing, I'd probably have the newer receiver be the primary one since it probably will be in your primary viewing location.


----------



## matt314159 (Feb 11, 2009)

That sounds like a plan. With the 211K running cooler than the 411, it will work better in my tv cabinet anyway. there's about six inches of clearance above the receiver, but there's a back on the cabinet and not a lot of airflow, so the cooler-running receiver would do better there anyway. It doesn't get all that warm in there right now, but I try to optimize that kind of stuff whenever possible. And considering the wireless signal will reach the 211 in the living room (for a wireless bridge) but probably not the garage, it works out better that way I think.

*edit*...oh MAN, I just found some of those "I've been audited" threads, and I've got to say, if any rep EVER tried to talk to me like some of them seem to do, I would go through the roof. I'm usually all about being exceptionally friendly with the rep, trying to develop a rapport with them as quickly as possible (you catch more flies with honey, after all), but the way they make it sound is like you've already committed a crime, starting off the conversations with really combative attitudes...I wonder if there are any 2.4ghz phone jack extenders that could reach out there...if I could make a jack reach out that far it would be handy on two fronts, one to be able to use my phone, and two, to let the receiver dial out and keep the dish gestapo off my back. From the sounds of the threads, if the rep were to hear me going out the sliding door out into the yard, I would immediately "fail" the audit.


----------



## matt314159 (Feb 11, 2009)

After even more reading, It looks like if you fail an audit for whatever reason, they shut off all receivers except 1) the primary receiver on the account, and 2) any receivers that are actually connected to the phone line. 

Along those lines, maybe I would be smarter to let the 411 stay on as the primary receiver, leave that in the man-room out in the garage, and then have the 211k as the secondary receiver that is connected to the phone line/broadband inside the house. So if it ever came down to it, none of them would get shut off... Might be making much ado about nothing though, because it seems like they tend to leave you alone if you've only got two receivers on the account, since that's a pretty 'normal' number to have. 

But from what I was reading, if I asked them to hold on while I go out to the garage, and they heard me going outdoors, that would fail the test. I can see why, too, just in case I was trying to high-tail it over to the neighbor's or something. But with the attitude I've heard the audit reps have, I'd probably end up telling them to go to hell.


----------



## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

With only 2 receivers, you'll never have an issue anyway. And you are NOT violating your agreement for having a receiver in a detached garage on your own property anyway. You can relax. As an installer, I've done a number of installs like that.

There are clear cases of fraud/account-stacking (just dealt with two this past week), but your setup definitely isn't that.


----------



## matt314159 (Feb 11, 2009)

thanks, I guess I just won't worry about it then. After reading some of the audit threads though, I was starting to get a little worried about what to do if they called.


----------



## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

I wouldn't be too worried about an audit with just two receivers. For a while I had 2 receivers (before I went HD) with neither connected to a phone line because it simply wasn't convenient. When I went HD with the ViP series, I had to connect those to the phone/internet to avoid the $5 fee.

The main place where you'd run into a problem might be if you connected the two receivers to different phone lines (if you had a phone in the garage that wasn't your main phone line in the house). That would be an immediate red flag for obvious reasons. I know people who have ran into that because of having 2 phone lines in the house where some rooms were wired for line 2 only.


----------



## matt314159 (Feb 11, 2009)

was that $5 phone-line fee just because it was a dual tuner receiver you had?


----------



## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

matt314159 said:


> was that $5 phone-line fee just because it was a dual tuner receiver you had?


Yeah... so that doesn't apply to your situation with the 211/411 receivers.


----------



## matt314159 (Feb 11, 2009)

Thanks, I just wanted to make sure


----------

