This is technically not about the 950 , but I am redoing a basement for a home theater and it will be built around the 950, so forgive my taking this liberty

I would like to get all my wiring done during the construction phase. I know I'll need a new satellite dish to get HDTV from Directv. I understand that the 24" elliptical dish hits two satellites--the "regular" directv satellite and a different one for HDTV.

So here's my question--if I have the new satellite and related wiring done during construction how will I know if the installer has properly hit the HDTV satellite, since I wasn't planning on getting an HD receiver or TV until construction was over ?

I've gotten conflicting advice. A knowledgeable salesman at the local high end store said no way without the HD equipment. A tech at directv said tune into channel 376, the NASA channel , and if you get it instead of an error message you're golden.

Any video techs out there know anything about this one?