Looking for advice on Dish satellite for our RV. We just signed up for Dish Satellite and their seems to be a wide range of options for the Dish Tailgators.
The Tailgator is just one of the automatic portable antenna setups that work with the Dish VIP211 series receivers. What options are you being offered?
They just told us to go to a local distributor. Looking online there seems to be a wide variety receivers and a wide price range. Not sure what I should be looking for to get good reception.
If you don't already have the Tailgater, you might want to look at Winegard's satellite dome. It is the same company that makes the "Bat-wing" antennas you see everywhere. We bought the Winegard Dish package, where they box their dome with a Dish "Black-Box". The dealer also installed it. The satellite plugs into the side of the RV where we would normally plug in campground cable TV. We got great support from Winegard as well as Dish. As full-timers we operate in an RV mode with Dish. We call and turn it off when traveling, then call when we've arrived where we will stay for a while.
This is not to discourage you, but only to say be careful who you talk to. We wanted to get a satellite system about 2 years ago and no one at Dish or DirecTV really knew much about using their system with RV travel, and as a result we got a lot of conflicting and downright wrong information about what their system would do and the equipment we would need. BUT that was a while back and maybe their systems have improved and their sales people are more knowledgeable. We got so frustrated, we never did get one. Most places we stay have cable, and if they don't, we can almost always get a local station signal, and that is enough for us. By the way we checked out the Tailgater back then and found it to be quite lacking for what we wanted, but as I said that was a while ago, and they may be better now. And Jack B, you've made me think about looking into the Winegard/Dish package. Maybe antenna TV isn't enough after all.
FWIW, no dome system, on Dish or DirecTV can focus on more than one satellite at a time which makes it fairly useless with a DVR if you would like to record one channel while watching another. If both channels happen to be on the same satellite this will work, but that's not often the case. We have a DirecTV Genie which has 5 independent tuners. Quite often we have it recording multiple shows at the same time such as two of the network newscasts each evening. Losing the ability to DVR our shows would be unacceptable since we rarely watch any TV in real time. IMO the best way to accomplish this with an automatic system is to use the Winegard Trav'ler which has a full-size dish and locks onto all three satellites used by Dish or DirecTV. Of course, you can also tripod-mount a standard full-size dish. Furthermore, because the dishes used in all portable and fixed dome systems are smaller than the standard open-face dish, they capture less of the available signal which makes them more susceptible to rainfade and to signal loss at the edges of the coverage envelope. We are currently using a Trav'ler to get DirecTV on Prince Edward Island. True, we can't get all the channels in HD, but I'm willing to live with that since we're way outside DTV's coverage area!
As Joel said, the Trav'ler is pretty much the "gold standard" for automatic roof mounted dishes, but that does come at a premium cost of at least another $1,000 over the cost of a Tailgator or Winegard portable automatic. My personal choice for our Dish service is a triple satellite manually aimed tripod mounted dish that I can locate where needed to accommodate trees and structural viewing blockages. It also has the advantage of letting me choose which of the two Dish 3 satellite sets offers the best aiming opportunity as we move from location to location. We use a 4-tuner (including OTA) Dish Hopper receiver that can record multiple programs at once while watching another program, and that rules out using the small single satellite automatics. Setting up the tripod and dish typically takes me about 15 minutes. It may take me a few minutes longer to set up than some, but I also get signals where some other setups can't.
Dutch: Nothing wrong with your suggestion, but my personal skill in pointing a multi-satellite dish has not been good. If I had to rely on my skill and patience in pointing a dish, we'd rarely watch TV! Joel
I am capable of dealing with all of the electronic wizardry associate with Sat TV and have previous owned an MH with a roof top Sat system. But I now have become more so a simpleton. My set up is Direct TV with a portable dish. I only need a couple of azimuth and elevation numbers and an inline signal generator. 95% of the time I'm connected in short order. For the other 5%, I cuss a bit and then have a beer while grilling our dinner. TV can wait.
Maybe satellite TV should become a freestanding topic. At 72yrs I'm no tech expert and have no interest in learning. When we get to a destination we call Dish to turn us on and give them our zip code. In the meantime we set out the Winegard Pathway X-1 with a Southern view, and attach the cable to the side of the MH. By the time we get back inside the TV is working and our local channels are assigned. I don't know what the numbers are that "RLM" mentioned or that inline thing. There is a second coupling on the Pathway for a second/bedroom TV and you get a second remote to watch different programs, but we don't use it.
We don't watch much TV when we travel, only on those occasions where the weather turns bad and we are forced to stay inside our coach. That being said we do have a Winegard Dome up top tied to Direct TV that we do use mostly for background music in the evenings. We just turn on the dome, the Direct satellite receiver, and the TV of course , give it a minute or two to locate and lock onto the satellite, and we are in business. We have found we can get our own local channels from a distance of around 450 to 500 miles away from home so that's nice in that we are able to watch our local news when we want to. It's been a pretty trouble free system for us but like all satellite systems when a heavy rain or snow comes down, or fog rolls in, etc., the signal gets dropped and we have to wait till it lightens up. Also of course when we find ourselves camped out under a nice grove of trees, we are "TeeVeeLess" and we cry a lot into our wine glasses.............
Heh! I use the DishPointer.com app on my smartphone and a signal strength meter that identifies which satellites the dish is seeing to make up for my lack of skill and patience. They haven't let me down yet...
I fulltimed for 11 years with DIsh and used a portable satellite dish ( the tripod ) but there are other ways to mount the dish. I used a satellite locator that helped and on the dish I marked a line and on the tripod that had a compass I marked azimuths for easier satellite locating. I could get set up with a signal in about 20 minutes after I was used to the system. Thing about a portable dish is I could get away from trees and other signal obstructions. When I got to a new place if I wanted local stations on the dish I just called them and gave them the new address with site # and got the locals. If I could get locals off the antenna I didn't call. different mounting ways. https://www.google.com/search?q=Portable+Satellite+dish+mounting&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
The numbers are the up and down and left and right pointing of the dish based on lat and long and Zipcode. Sounds complicated, but it really isn't. The inline gadget is an audio generator that tells you when you have the strongest signal. But, I'm thinking that your "By the time we get inside" method is even better.
Thanks everyone for sharing your knowledge. I have to say I am a bit overwhelmed. The rep. on the phone really wasn't of much help at all. With your help I will now look into the Winegard as well as the Tailgator. Thanks again and happy camping!
Like I said we couldn't find anyone who was knowledgeable about using their system with RV travel. Guess times haven't changed after all.
Hey guys & gals, I don't mean to sound like a know it all, etc. because I am not but when we bought our coach we had the dealer install our Winegard dome up top and we had a choice between Dish and Direct. In that it was my "co pilot's" idea in the first place to get a dome system, she said she'd just add it to her house service which is Direct TV. I would have opted for Dish had I been the instrumental one. No matter, after we got it installed we called Direct and they sent a tech out to the house (no charge by the way) and hooked us into a basic receiver setup. It has served us well in almost all cases other than when the signal is blocked by trees or a storm, etc. as I mentioned in my prior post. We've had no problems so far other than a couple of times it's taken a few minutes longer than it usually does to get the signal locked in. The first time as we were dialing the number to Direct to find out what was going on, and as it was ringing, the TV finally came to life and all was fine. The next couple of times that happened we just remained a tad more patient and the same thing happened. It's a pretty trouble free system and we don't have to mess around with phone apps or anything else apps-wise. Plus we have one less cable to hook up and no portable dish to get out and set up, etc. I guess it could be called a K.I.S.S. system. To each their own when it comes to hooking up a TV in an RV but to us this really was the easiest and best way to go, for what it's worth. That was three years ago and there are no doubts there are even better ways now to go, but we'll just stick with what we've got for the time being. Another nice thing about a dome on top is that it's weather and wind proof and, and sits no higher than our AC so we aren't concerned about heights under certain overpasses either because we know we will clear. Hope this sheds a bit more light on this, just trying to be helpful here to the OP..................... Bankshot
There are lots of different points of view, and it is always good to hear about what works best (or perhaps didn't work) for you. Thanks for the input.
Thanks again for your helpful impute. I do think we are looking into Winegard. I see they have automatic receivers where u select the state you are in and the receiver automatically locates the satellite. I am just wondering in our case if it would be $$$ well spent. I have seen some campers become frustrated with trying to locate the signal and just giving up. I would much rather not deal with the frustration. We have always had cable tv at home. My son has convinced us to switch to Dish so can take it with us in the trailer. Do the automatic receivers work as advertised?
Just watched a great series of video on you tube showing set up etc. for the Winegard Carryout Automatic Portable Satellite Antenna. Thanks again for the info everyone.
