What new Sat system to install?. The old Datron 3000 has died (worked great before that), time to think about what to replace it with. Auto tracking is not a big deal, and $3-5k systems are out of the question as well. I am thinking about Winegard systems exposed dish(not dome) products. Direct TV is my provider.
The two questions you should ask you/your family are:
1. Is in motion desired (we liked to play music/news)?
2. Is HD desired?
You can't really have both, yet. Any of the systems out there these days are about $1500.00.
We have the Winegard Traveler 1000. It is the exposed unit on the roof and for stationary use only. It will get both HD and SD on Directv although we have switched to Dish for their RV program. You need to know which one you will use because the dish on the Traveler is dedicated to either Directv or Dish. To change providers requires another dish at a cost of about $400.
If you don't care about HD the Winegard Carryout is the least expensive way to go. It can be permanently mounted or used as a portable. Its cost is $699 on sale at Camping World and other RV supply places. It can be set up for either Directv or Dish at no additional cost.
We had a Wineguard Traveler on our '93. Loved it! Get parked. Push 1 button. Listen to it search for about 90 seconds, and Voila!! Getting ready to leave? Push 1 button. 45 seconds later there is a gentle "thump" as it stows. We used to watch the guys with their tripods and sand bags and little hand-held gizmos searching for the right azimuth and whatever. Put this thing up ONCE in the rain (while you stay dry) and it pays for itself ... almost. We now have a dome that is just fine ... but I have to reset the section of the country that I am in and there is just one feed for both TVs. I think it is fairly old. If it goes, I would go back to the Traveler. Our provider is also DirecTV, by the way, but if I were to change to Dish I can search for their satellite instead of the DirecTV ones. At least, that is what it tells me in the original manual!
We also have a Trav'ler (the 3005 Dish Network model) and it does work great. You do need to remember to stow it and it needs 120V to raise and to stow.
But we might point out that we do have one of those tripods and hand held gizmos (the heavy duty kit from TV4RV.com) along with a standard-definition dual LNB dish we bought from eBay for around $75. This is the 3rd year that the only way we could get satellite was to use the portable dish because of tree cover blocking the roof dish.
Michelle
Absolute cheapest - get yourself a dish and a tripod. Then buy the 'Dish Pointer App' - or the Dish Pointer maps for youe Iphone or android.
DishPointer Augmented Reality (iPhone Satellite Finder) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AFtcgYRcu4)
Easy Satellite Dish Pointing | DishPointer.com (http://www.dishpointer.com/blog/)
TV4RV: Satellite - Tripod - Slimline - Dish - DirectTV: satellite and Internet (http://www.tv4rv.com/sunshop/)
So if you are willing to do your own fussing for say under $300.00 you will have a system that you could set up and align properly in under 5 minutes.
I really like that heavy duty tripod... A quality unit!
We've had folks come up every year and ask us about it. Know of at least 3 that have bought it. I need to go look at that Android dish pointing app you posted about....
Michelle
Michelle, I also have the dish, 100' cable and tripod takes me about 10 min to set up and find the sat. I'm like you seems like every time we get to the camp ground the only tree in the whole area is between me and the sat. Trav'ler is what i'm looking at.
Everyone I know that has the new Traveler series (Dish OR Direct) one loves it. It's what we will get in another year or so...
I just made changes my Direct TV programming today (an exhausting exercise) - the rep said with respect to RVs, if you bought your receiver you could turn it off or on however you liked. But if you leased it you had to leave it on and pay the $6.00 monthly fee no matter what.
To quote Dave Head: "But if you leased it you had to leave it (DirecTV receiver) on and pay the $6.00 monthly fee no matter what."
To add insult to injury, if you do not use any of your receivers (say while on a couple months trip) for an extended time, those receivers will have been deactivated, even though you are paying the monthly receiver fee. So, when you go to use them again, you have to go through the process of getting them reactrivated. It seems to me that if we have to continue to pay the monthly use fee, the receivers should be left activated. It's a rip off.
We experienced a lot of customer service issues with DirecTV at the house and switched to Dish a couple of years ago. They have been a joy to work with. Even their "live chat" web cs reps are good. We have one purchased receiver (311) and one leased one, the purchased one comes with us in the coach when we're on the road and gets used in one of the bedrooms at home. No issues whatsoever bringing a "home" receiver on the road. Because of the leased DVR, we have the service plan on our receivers which has paid for itself. Last year, the purchased receiver started flaking out while we were on the road. A quick Live Chat and within minutes they had authorized shipping us a replacement receiver, free of charge, FedEx, to a campground that wasn't our service address, and that included the prepaid label to ship the old one back.
I see there is now a Dish service for RVs (DishForMyRV.com: Mobile Satellite Dish Systems, Guides, Antennas, Receivers, (http://www.dishformyrv.com)) that appears to be very RV friendly for turning service on and off. You purchase a smaller HD receiver (VIP211k) that has DVR capability ($40 one time fee, add your own external hard drive) and there's an option to add it to an existing residential Dish account to get the same programming you have at home. We're thinking of dumping the 311 and replacing it with the 211k this winter as it would be nice to have a DVR in the coach (I missed 2 1/2 episodes of Haven this season :-( )
Michelle
I have dish, and the 211VIP, paid the 40 bucks, works perfect. Will only show one channel, so if recording something you have to watch that, can't watch another channel while you record. Turn dish for rv on and off as needed, easy to do business with
Direct TV has an "RV" contact-line at 800-531-5000. Has worked very well for us.
I just got my new Dish Tailgater and Dish VP211k receiver to be permanently set up in the Foretravel. $499.00 and I own them. It will be added to the stick house account and turned on and off as required. Going to add the external hard drive down the road. Seeing that I own them and they are on my existing account, the charge for them will be prorated and added to my monthly bill as a additional receiver.
Buy the Direct TV version of the wineguard traveler - you will be very happy - I have it for my Dish and it ROCKS - sees through brick walls 9ok, I am in sales and exaggerate a bit....) :-)
I'll agree with everyone about Direct being a PITA. My $69.00 service which we have had for 3years now costs $102.00 per mo, went down the same road with Dish before. Anyone know an easy to get a cable from the drivers side top cabinet down to the front compartment where the generator radiator is?
Tim, you got my attention. Are you saying that the Directv dish antenna and LNB arm for the Traveler will pull in Dish Network signals? Will it get all three Dish satellites and HD? Winegard told me today that it would not work.
No, sorry for confusion -
I have dish service on my traveler - I have a VIP211 that I added the DVR functionality to - works great - except on the DVR211 it can only do one channel at a time - so if you are recording - you have to watch that station - you can not record one channel whil watching another like you can on the higher end dish DVR -
I also have good luck turning on and off the dish service.
Sorry for the confusion.
I have the same setup and had the same experience. As soon as I am back on the road I plan to purchase outright a Dish, DuoDVR VIP 725 twin tuner DVR and run a second coax into the coach from the Traveler.
I am told by Winegard that the Traveler will accommodate up to 4 tuners. We can then record two shows while watching one or record two satellite channels while watching a third show with the external antenna. I currently have a 2 Tb external hard drive on my VIP211 that can be used on the 725. This should give us over 500 hours of HD recording time. My biggest problem is running 50' of HDMI cable from the closet to the TV under the dash in the front of the coach.
No. You're biggest problem is finding time to watch 500 recorded hours :P
Kent..... We bought a 40 foot HDMI cable for our house from Monoprice.com for about $35. C-Net uses their cables so I thought I would give them a try.
Also, Monoprice warns that an HDMI cable over 25 feet can be problematic, especially with Direct TV receivers. They didn't say anything about Dish. Monoprice has some adaptors that used two CAT5 cables which can be used in place of an HDMI cable for long distances (i.e., Receiver-short HDMI - adaptor-2 x Cat5-adaptor-short HDMI-TV). See
For only $21.75 each when QTY 50+ purchased - HDMI Over CAT5E / CAT6 Extender (http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10425&cs_id=1042501&p_id=8201&seq=1&format=2)
When in Sam Houston Nat'l I took our Datron dish off the roof (previous owner trashed all controls and cables in order to install a Kingdome) just to play around. I hooked it up with 75' of cable (50' & 25', and a splice), DirecTV receiver to the 23" Insignia LED TV and got the best signal we ever had. I couldn't move the coach off the campsite so the really tall things with green needles would let the Kingdome find the satellite. The Datron dish sits on the ground in a clearing and I find the satellite with my meter and 18V power source. The signal gain couldn't be turned down far enough! So, now I have three alternatives for reception, and the Datron is not in a landfill. If it gets "feet" some night and leaves I won't be out much as it was useless up on the roof. I did leave the base up there as there were eight (8) bolts thru the fiberglass and they were well sealed.
Michelle, apparently you are not intimately familiar with recovering from spinal surgery, it feels like I watched 500 hours of TV yesterday alone. Not that I'm bored or anything!!!
You may want to use earplugs or turn down the sound to prevent your cranial cavity from being sucked dry. :D It's harder to suck out your mental power through your eyes. I expect 3D TVs are an attempt to drain more intelligence through higher sensory impact.
Televisions have lost some of their utility since they started using LEDs instead of cathode ray tubes. They used to be pretty good heaters, so they were useful in cold weather. (Yes, I am a TV curmudgeon.)
Kent Spears said: "If you don't care about HD the Winegard Carryout is the least expensive way to go."
The CarryOut works HD on the Dish Network very well.
Check ForeForums Classifieds. We will be selling our Carry Out next month.
Duane, you are correct. I should have qualified that if you have Driectv, it won't bring in HD. The Carryout works fine for HD on Dish Network.
While it is true you cannot watch any other channel while you record, you CAN watch other programs you have previously recorded.
That is correct, good catch!
Well so far replaced the front TV with a LED, pulled the old Datron out and off the roof, got a cable to the left front compartment (thanks Bill). Using a tripod and house dish takes about 10 min to set up. Still contemplating shelling out $1800.00 so I can watch sat TV that doesn't have anything on it anyway.
RE: We also have a Winegard Trav'ler... You do need to remember to stow it
The Traveler satellite antenna has an Accessory Cable that will automatically stow antenna when ignition is turned on.
I vaguely recall that the Trav'ler requires the 120Vac controller to be powered on to stow. That's where remembering could be an issue (if you've already pulled shore power - it happened to our coach when being pulled around for service. Fortunately it was seen by the shop crew in time and the driver alerted so he could fire up the genset and lower the dish before proceeding any further).
Michelle
I am pretty sure my Traveler is on the invertor, not just the shorepower/generator