I am no technology expert and I can barely spell the word satellite. But I am confident of one thing - the dish television service I recently purchased is far and away superior to Cox Cable's pathetic service.

I opted to sign up for Dish Network's 500 player and America's Favorite 150 channels plan. Originally I selected only an HBO 8 channel movie package, local programming, and PBS. Total cost for 164 channels was $68.95 / month or $12 more than my 38 channel cable package with only 2 HBO channels.

Within a week we upgraded to the America's Favorite Movie package plus America's Favorite 150 and our local channels and dropped the extra PBS station. Our monthly cost increased to $75.98 but we added another 25 or 30 channels in the deal. We are "jonesin" on movies now - absolute addicts to a habit we quickly obtained.

The Pros of Satellite Television
In addition to having way too many channels to ever watch, the picture clarity and crispness afforded by the satellite system are unprecedented by cable or local broadcast services. On all 3 of our sets, including the wee little 13" midgie, we have DVD quality picture. The sound is also excellent. No complaints at all.

Because the satellite is beamed all over the world simultaneously we can now watch sports on the east coast timetable or the west coast timetable, according to our preference. How cool is that? We are in the Mountain time zone and need to connect occasionally to the real world. (Did you know that Arizona never goes on Daylight Savings?)

Remember the TV Guide and how easy that made selecting a channel to watch because it told you all you needed to know to pique your interest? Well, the Dish Network remote has a button labeled "info" which provides a quick description of the program playing on the channel you are interested in. For instance, when scrolling through the menu say you come upon a movie title you've never heard of. Press "info" and the main actors names, a quick description of the screenplay, and the year it was filmed appear in a translucent box on screen.

Let me not fail to mention the "video option" on the menu guide screen. While scanning the guide for other things to watch or upcoming events to lock in you can maintain a small picture of the current program in the corner of the screen. I love this feature so much! I am a remote junkie and now I can channel hop without leaving the station.

There are some 30 channels of music available 24 hours a day for my listening pleasure. There are all sorts of musical genres to choose from including classical, country, jazz, blues, contemporary, 70's, 80's, 90's, etc... Each time a piece of music is playing a description of the recording appears on screen. Cooooollll.

The Cons
Price is definitely a consideration with satellite service. First of all, we can only have 2 receivers fed off a single dish, but we have 3 sets. We could purchase a second dish and 3rd receiver, but the cost was about $199. So we paid an additional $50 to have the main set split in order to backfeed my son's bedroom set. He cannot change channels from his room but can receive the same picture as the one in the family room. Not ideal but doable.

The time it takes to change channels is a huge annoyance. It takes a few seconds for the dish to locate the satellite transmission for the channel selected. Change channels often enough and a few seconds becomes minutes, hours, etc...

We had a bit of trouble with lost signals and once had one of the receivers lose touch altogether with the main satellite transmission. By calling the installer I was able to fix the problem quickly - but the customer service agent at Dish Network was hopelessly useless. Sweet, but ignorant of her job. Dish Network needs to hire some technically gifted people to man the help line.

It appears that the only way to operate the receivers is via the remote. Not a problem unless the remote dies, fails, or gets lost. I can't seem to get my all-in-one to be able to control the receiver.

Finally there is the addition of that ugly gray frisbee to the side of your house. Blech. At least it is only about 20" across and fairly concealed. But it is still butt ugly.

Other Things to Consider
For families with adolescents in the home, the first order of the day on installation is to activate the parental locks. There are so many adult channels and the description alone might be shocking to some.

For families with small children the many, many channels geared to the younger set are a real treat.

Anyone who loves shopping on television will love Dish Network. I think we've got 6 regular shopping channels with a few more that come on during specific hours of the day. For the true addict there are a handful of infomercials available, too.

Speaking of infomercials, Dish Network has a much lower percentage of these than Cox Cable did.

The Last Word
We love our new Dish Network service. We plan on never going back to Cox Cable and are too happy that an alternate service became available to us at a price we can afford.

I wish that Dish Network would hire better help technicians, but I have had no problem with their sales staff. I wasn't crazy about our installer but then again, he was sort of the "cable guy."

All in all, I'd be happy to recommend this product to you.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 49.99 plus