You have to turn on the Sat Box to the channel you want.....and leave it on.
Program the VCR to record channel 3 for the time you want to record.

You should have the wiring routed like this...


DISH-Sat Box-VCR-TV.


I think you can program some Sat Boxes to turn on and change channels automatically....

I know you could do that with cable boxes.

Good luck.