DISHarmony

It's a good thing I had made Denny's favorite meal of Hooter's-style hot wings for dinner as the evening went downhill afterwards.

Our biggest source of acrimony in our full-timing life is the DISH TV system. This occurs mainly when we set up at a new campground and Denny is searching for the strongest signal and says "okay, what do you have?" (signal reading) and I say "nothing", and he says "that's impossible as the meter is pegging off the wall". This conversation has been repeated verbatim many times. Sometimes a tree is in the way, sometimes a cable connector has been bad or loose, sometimes it's the satellite gods laughing at us. Regardless, dealing with the DISH system is about the only time we yell at each other.

So guess how much fun it was to install a new DISH DVR 510 receiver? We got the cables hooked up, the remote set to control the TV, followed the instructions and no signal. Played around, changed the remote control configuration, and then Denny changed the outside cables. No signal. He checked the living room and now we had no signal there. He blamed me for changing the band on the remote, I calmly suggested it might be the cables. Nope, couldn't be. Called tech support, worked with a young lady for 20 minutes until she suggested switching receivers. Nope, tried that in the past and it's a big hassle pulling the receiver out of the entertainment center for naught. Thanked her and said we'd call back in the morning. Asked Denny to please check the cables outside again so he grudgingly did so. Guess what? Both receivers now have signals. It's always the simple correction, right?

So everything is copacetic until the next time the signal doesn't come through. But we do have the script down pat.