Dish network on the road?

[rmayhew]

We have Dishnetwork at home. I was wondering if you can get a portable dish and use my subscription when camping in the summer. If so, what do I need and where do I get it?
Thanks

[FireTruckerWife]

Look on ebay for the dish and LNB, and then take your receiver with you in the RV. No need for another subscription. We do this, and it works great.

[jrgwdenner]

And that is exactly what we did with our Directway system. We bought our dish from eBay (comes with 75' of cable and everything you need), take a receiver from the house and then pull out your hair until you learn to find that satellite! Works great.

[Charlie]

Roy-
If you have one of the older 301 or 311 receivers it is easy. If your system is one of the newer Dish systems it is a little more difficult. I have a 311 with a Dish 500 (twin LNB) dish and have used it all over the US and only failed to pick up a satellite twice, once in the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon and the other time at Bullard's Beach State Park, also in Oregon.

Two things that are almost required are a good compass and a satellite finder which are available at Camping World or Radio Shack. It takes some advice to set it up the first time, but once you know how it is simple, just takes a little time.

If you want further info on "how to" send me a PM and we can discusss this off the forum. Where in Texas are you?

[thook]

We also have the Dish 500System at home. The 500 system requires a dual LNB but our 5er has a single LNB so you can only pick up one satellite at a time. We have a roof mounted crank up dish so it is easy to change from the 110 degree to 119 degree satellites. We just bring one of the receivers from the house when we leave. Takes maybe 5 minutes to set up. Definitely would recommend the satellite finder as others have mentioned......about $40 but well worth it.

[Sunshine]

Your DISH network dealer can help you with equipment, set up and finding satellites also.

[dsprik]

Can't do this if you're FTing though, right?

[Charlie]

As far as I know full timing would not restrict the use of a satellite dish as long as you pay your bill. I used my long-timing for six months with out any problems.

[dsprik]

Charlie, don't the dish companies want you to have a permanent base with the equipment (the receiver, not the dish)?

[ols1932]

If you are full-timing, you can get a waiver from the company that allows you to subscribe to the East-West broadcast channels. A friend of mine had a problem when he began taking his receiver from his stick house into his RV and wanted the East-West channels because his receiver was dedicated to his stick house (according to the company).

[Imp]

Yes they do want you to have a permanent base, but we don't. We are fulltiming and put in a Kingdome. When we had it hooked up they gave us a dish that we could put on the garaport in Texas when we moved here as the Kingdome wouldn't work under the shelter of the steel building. So we have the advantage of both. We have two receivers (one in the bedroom and one in the living room). When we are in an area for a longer period of time, we call and they change our local channels for that area, otherwise we don't get the regular abc, cbs and nbc channels. We don't bother en route as we can usually hook up to cable or use the antenna. They were supposed to send us a form to sign regarding our usage and changing local channels etc, but they have never sent it. They are also very good about helping if you have problems along the way. We have Dish network.
Myrna

[HamRad]

We have DirecTV and we did get the RV wavier. I know a lot of folks don't bother with that and they've never had any problems. So I guess they don't check too closely. We did opt for the east coast feeds. Nice thing about that is that we don't FT and when we are home we still get the east coast stuff. Nice to be able to watch some of the stuff 3 hours early out here on the west coast.

We usually just take one of our two receivers with us but we got a small TV for over our desk area in the 3295. So we took both receivers and each of us can watch whatever programs we want. So far the company has not objected. As long as we keep paying I suspect they won't. We also have DirecWay for our internet connection but they are separate companies with different issues.

Just get a portable dish or get one mounted on your rig and you should be all set. Once you've set up your system a couple of times you'll have no trouble hitting the satellite. Of course you can also get the automatic type and make it really easy!

Good luck.

HamRad

[patodonn]

Same basic info applies to Direct TV. We really like and use the East-West dual capability for the networks. Nice to be able to record one program 9 o'clock program at 6 PM (PST) and watch something else at 9 PM (PST) on a competing network. Cost is around $8/mo for that. We did have to do the "full timer" paperwork mentioned above. We also can change our "local" channels as we transit the US. Just a phone call. With that and the East-West setup, we often have a choice of three different times to watch, for example, the 9PM network programming.

One last item..we found that you can put your subscription on "vacation hold" as necessary. We have done a few trips away from the rig, a week or two at a time, and it helps to be able to do that.

[Charlie]

Dave-

As Dennis says... I think that the companies don't care where you are when you use a satellite system as long as you pay your bill and have a good mailing address and phone number. I have them draft my checking account so I don't have to mail in a payment. You can also use a credit card to make payments.

As far as the permanent part, they use this to determine which major city your local channels come from and this is based on your zip code. They do a thing called spot beaming of the locals. I use Houston for my locals and can pick them up as far north as the Texas/Oklahoma line and as far east as Central Louisiana. In some places the spot may be smaller than the one for Houston. Otherwise the FT'ers using the east or west coast feeds don't have to call in and have the locals switched each time they go to a different area of the country.

The only thing that might be a problem is they occasionally mail out new ID cards that you use in a receiver. If you are FT'ing and did not get mail regularly you would be disabled if you did not get the new card before the old one expired.

[Montana_3360]

We got Dish Network just before we left for Texas. We got a 625 dual receiver and a 322 dual receiver for home. When the dish was installed at home, the installer called and ordered a Dish 500 with a dual tuner.

We brought the dual 625 receiver and the Dish 500 with us. Since we have two cables coming from the dish, I ran them into a duplexer (Radio Shack) and connected the single line to the Montana Sat hookup. On the inside, I ran the single line into another duplexer and then to the two connections on the 625 receiver. One receiver feeds the living room TV and the second feeds the bedroom TV. I used the existing Montana wiring to run the feed to the bedroom TV.

When we got down here, we called and changed our local address to the campground address We had to give them a apartment number (site number) to make it work.

[Montana_3360]

We changed our address to Texas to get the Houston local channels while here.

[KSGirl]

HI: We have recently ordered our Montana 3400RL and we have Dish Network at home. I hope this isn't a stupid question, but I'll ask it anyway. Do the Montana's come wired with two jacks coming in from the outside, one for cable tv and one for satellite? I read info on a website stating that the cable coming in can't be connected with the antenna cable from the roof. Please someone set me straight, as this is all new to me and there are many things, that I need to learn. Thanks to all of you on this forum for all the information and experience that you are willing to share.

Ray

[RADHAZJOE]

One cable hookup on outside only. It can be used for either inside. Just connect inside to back of satt recvr. Someone on this forum has a wiring diagram for the satt/antenna system but I don't remember who.

[Lije Baley]

Older Montanas were wired only for cable with a connector on the outside wall. The newer models are also wired for one coaxial feed from a satellite dish, using the same connector to which a cable tv coaxial line is connected (you cannot have both cable and satellite signals without doing some rewiring). You can either add a second cable connector through the interior and exterior walls (requires some drilling), or use a flat cable (about an 8" piece) to bring a second satellite line through a window. Both the older and newer models are wired for the rooftop antenna for over-the-air reception of local stations. When using the antenna (which also provides a signal to the FM radio) a booster switch must be engaged. That booster switch interferes with both cable and satellite reception; you can have the antenna and satellite dish working together, but must engage and disengage the booster switch.

If you search for "satellite" and "dish" and "direct" there are several threads on the subject. Most are in other sub-forums.

[boat391]

I hook up my sat to the outside jack then the top cable jack of the three jacks to the reciver then the bottom cable to the tv out works fine in our new 3400 hope this helps