If you got snow, return the old set, something is very long, as snow/static don't exist on satellite, but block like distortion can occur.
I have been with dish for 7 years now, not a single issue, but I also have a dish500 which is really old. They also can not split the signal, the split occurs at the dish, inside the receiver (the receiver on the end of the dish, not your box), rather different technology than cable. This is probably why they didn't run it to multiple rooms, as a spliter in the cable will cause signal degradation, and you just can't run two boxs on a single cable that is split due to how it works, at least, with the ancient junk I have.