Two Dish TV India Problems Solved

I had a pet theory why Dish TV in India sucked so much. Every time Subash Chandra, the Zee owner, got a new mistress, he would acquire a company and register it in the woman's name. After the initial interest wore off, the mistress as well as the company would start to suffer from lack of attention.

Apparently, this was not the case. The Zee group companies are owned by some brothers. They have distributed the companies among themselves, using the principle of a "perforated paper." I am not sure if that is the cause of the total lack of coordination seen with Dish TV. Dish TV spends huge amounts on star endorsements and promotions but they seem to pay little attention to customer care.

Their call center personnel are probably very underpaid. They sound very disillussioned or demotivated. They sound as though they are going to commit suicide and the call would be the last one they would take before jumping off the top of the building. Each one you speak to will tell you a different SMS format to recharge your subscription. They will drive you nuts. Their website used to have lots of broken links. Online payment would take you to a no-name IP address-only website for processing the transaction. (Their website has seen a redesign, so this may not be true anymore.) Their ITZ cash cards are notoriously difficult to find. The shops that do stock these cards will sell them to you only if you purchase in very big denominations. If you try to get an Oxigen recharge card and recharge via SMS, you will get half-a-dozen replies that will confuse you even more. If you call them and ask for help, their customer care personnel will tell you to use your username and password. These guys have never seen an Oxigen PIN before. The Oxigen slip has a 16-digit PIN. It has no user name or password in it.

It is not all bad. Once, I made a mistake and recharged a wrong smart card number (VC number) but they resolved it without disturbing my channels.

How To Recharge Dish TV Via SMS Using An Oxigen PIN

An Oxigen recharge slip comes with a 16-digit pin. To recharge via SMS, I would send it in this format.

ITZ DISHTV VC_NUMBER AMOUNT FIRST_12-DIGITS_OF_PIN LAST_4_DIGITS_OF_PIN

For example, if my VC number was 7777777777, the amount was Rs. 400, and the Oxigen PIN was 1234567890ABCDEF, then I would send the following SMS.

ITZ DISHTV 7777777777 400 1234567890AB CDEF

A Universal Remote For Dish Set-Top Box, TV, And Two Other Devices

IndiaPlaza.in is selling a great universal remote for Rs. 500 at a discount of Rs. 100 over its original price of Rs. 600. It is called PROTOUCH Universal Remote (Model UR - 401). It is being marketed by:

Protel Communication India Pvt. Ltd.
1520, 15th Floor, Devika Tower,
6, Nehru Place, New Delhi - 110019.
Phone: +91 11 45567171, +91 11 4175 1717
E-mail: protelindia@gmail.com

Now, I am not promoting this product because I get paid by these guys. No, siree, no. I was going to buy one of the Logitech Harmony universal remotes, the cheapest of which sells at over Rs. 5000. I searched on the Internet but most of the remotes did not mention anything about DTH settop boxes. One day, I got a mail about the PROTOUCH remote from The Hindu website, whose online store is run by IndiaPlaza.in. The remote was a good-looking one and claimed to support DTH set-top boxes in addition to your TV, VCR, and DVD player.

I am happy to say that I am very satisfied with this remote. It comes with a user manual that has codes for hundreds of TVs, satellite receivers, VCRs, and DVD players. Zenega set-top box used by Dish TV is listed. Its TV code is 00128. Airtel, Reliance Big TV, Sun Direct, and Tata Sky are also supported. I did not see a remote code for Videocon D2H but you could mail Protel and get it supported too.

Moral Volcano is the work of an Indian, thinker, astrologer, software programmer, GNU/Linux user, web designer, technical writer, lexicographer, hacker, gamer, pioneer IE Blocker, amateur photographer, and somewhat podcast transcriptionist. named V. Subhash (Me). I have written a fake American Policy for Dummies book. My e-book How To Invest In Stocks PDF eBook is free but not fake. So, I my PDF eBook version of Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary, which was created using the all-text original provided by the Guttenberg project and a free software HTMLDoc.

I do not have any time for social notworking sites such as Facebook. They cause a huge loss of productivity in offices where employees have access to Internet. I had a Johnny Bravo fan site but that was gone when Yahoo closed Geocities. Sites such as Facebook, Linked-In, MySpace, Orkut, and Twitter thrive only because spies and marketers feel there is a great need for easy access to demographic and personal information. "Free" pretends to be free for a reason. Otherwise, everything comes with a price tag.

Finally, this website blocks Internet Explorer - all versions, not just IE6. This is the first website on the Internet to do so. If you have a website, I welcome you to do so.