Bruce,
An excellent suggestion with the wireless extenders. Thank you so much. May turn out to be our best alternative. We got the 211z in a bundle for only $50 extra but knew the 211 k would have been better. Hard to find as they are no longer producing them! The 211z can also function as a DVR by paying a one time $40 charge from Dish and adding an external hard drive. Have a hopper at home but will probably end up adding the DVR feature to Axis, so we can at least pause a show when out with the dogs!!
I did take a picture of the empty microwave space. Don't know how to post it on here yet, but if you will pm us your email I will be happy to send it to you from my cell phone!!
As for your question about the wiring in the microwave space, the wiring hub for all of the coax cable routing to the 3 TV sets is there.