Trav'ler Installation - Montana Owners Club

Dam Worker · 01-31-2016, 07:08 AM

Well we are supposed to get the 3160 back from the dealer with new paint and decals on the front. This has been a long story and we hope it will finally be over. Hopefully we will be happy and the rest of the warrantee items will have all been fixed.

Once we get it back my intention is to have a dish Trav'ler installed as our main upgrade to the unit. Some others on this site seem to do an upgrade a year which we thought was a great idea. I am looking at CW in Troutdale Oregon to do the installation as it is only about four hours drive, no mountain passes and no sales tax. I searched on this site and saw some members have gone through CW for this upgrade. My question is if there is anything you or others who have done this upgrade would suggest that I add or do at thie same time. What to watch out for etc. This unit is going on sale along with a sale price on installation. The price is substantially less than my local price quote. I will see if local dealer will match price.
I want all three TV's to be able to work off the satellite.

Tom Marty[s][/s]

**DQDick** · 01-31-2016, 09:19 AM

That's the biggest thing. I had a satellite TV firm do ours when we were in Elkhart and, with Montana wiring as it is, be sure all three tv's work perfectly before you pay the folks. The folks I used were great, but then they do RV's everyday and a lot of Montana's.

Dam Worker · 02-26-2016, 03:17 PM

Thanks for the good information Dick. I decided to only light up the bedroom and living room TV's with Satellite for now. It is nice to have good HD TV now in the unit. I had not planned on buying new receivers but my old ones were not HD equipped. I do like getting the local news (Tri-Cities) while parked in Portland Oregon. Staying at Sandy RV pack located on the Sandy river about 1/2 mile from where it dumps into the Columbia. Winegard Traveler works as advertised. Installation took a bit longer than they thought it would but we did not have anywhere we needed to be so it was no big deal.

Tom Marty

hookman · 02-26-2016, 03:30 PM

We had ours done at CW in Wilsondville,OR and we were very happy with them. There staff has been there for along time.

hunts800 · 02-26-2016, 03:50 PM

My dealer installed my Traveler antenna on both of my fifth wheels. I had him run satellite connections to both the living room and bedroom TV's. I got an estimate from Camping World and he matched the price.I leave an HD receiver in the living room, and bring an HD receiver from the house for the bedroom. I had my dealer install an HDMI splitter in the bedroom so I can use the bedroom receiver to hook up to the outside TV in the basement. They had to run an HDMI cable from the bedroom to the basement. With my Direct TV controller set to RF mode, I can change channels from outside.
Lastly, you may know this already but when you get more than about 400 miles from your stick house, you lose your local channels, thus losing ABC, NBC, CBS, Etc. you will only be able to get "cable" channels. You need to call tech support and convince them to temporarily change your equipment address, which is not always easy, and sometimes requires getting a supervisor involved with Direct TV. Dish may be more accommodating.

Final point....you need to check when you make reservations if they have satellite friendly sites available. Trees will make your antenna useless .

My wife and I love our Traveler antenna and feel the investment is well worth it.

Dam Worker · 02-27-2016, 04:35 AM

Thanks for the additional info Hunts800. Lot of places we go do not get over the air or cable so the Travler will work nicely.

Tom Marty

**DQDick** · 02-27-2016, 01:17 PM

The only problem with the traveler is it's on the roof permanently. We just spent two months in Florida under a couple of live oak trees and didn't have TV and only enough of my solar worked to run my 12v stuff. Mostly we are in the west, however, so that's not usually an issue.

2Wanderers · 02-28-2016, 07:42 AM

Installed mine myself. 8 hour job. I used the roof plate to install it on. Felt this simplified the process and beefed up the base. Use the Genie with it and works fine.

richfaa · 02-29-2016, 08:49 AM

That is our next project. Hope to find a deal at the FCRV campvention in Oklahoma this summer.

rames14 · 02-29-2016, 01:27 PM

It doesn't cost any more to also wire it to the outside TV. They run it from the bedroom receiver. I then use an infrared repeater so I can change the channel from outside. We have the NFL network (our son works for TB Bucs) and we enjoy watching TV outside when camping. It's much easier if they wire it now the way you want. I also use an A/B switch between sat and ant on the outside TV.

rames14 · 02-29-2016, 01:30 PM

By the way, Tom, this is our second unit with a Travl'r and we also have a 3160. Our dealer did the install as part of the deal.

Dam Worker · 02-29-2016, 01:54 PM

Rich CW had them on sale though February for around $1167.00. Dish Network, Direct TV was more. It was around the best price that I had seen them online. $1297.00 plus our CW booklet had a 10% of one item to get the price down to where I was happy.

Ron they mounted mine on the off door side over the slide right past where the roof line drops. Not quite where I imagined it would go but it seemed pretty normal when we got to the RV parks and started looking at other RV's with satellites mounted on them. $7.00 a month per receiver additional charge per month was not to bad of a cost in my opinion.

Tom Marty

richfaa · 02-29-2016, 03:27 PM

1297 was a good price Tom. We hope we can get a good price at the rally in Oklahoma. We have been using the dish set up on a tripod for several years and the set up is easy. This year in Florida we had some high winds and the we lost signal on the 99 satellite several times. I am tired of re aligning it so this is a great excuse for the roof mounted dish besides I am running out of goodies to install on the Montana.

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