installing satellite receiver

[cpaulsen]

I use the 622 receiver. I ran a seperate cable to the bedroom from the splitter. I hook up one cable from my 1000.2 dish to the splitter....then one cable to the living room and the other to the bedroom......living room has the receiver. Pick up any channel you want from the receiver to the bedroom or living room. Just eliminated carrying 2 receivers.

[Iggy]

Originally Posted by kirkp

The Boss TEMPORARILY decided she didn't want to take the plunge on a satellite system. That is until our maiden trip in our new TT. Rainy one day and cold/damp the next and what can only be described as really, really bad TV didn't help matters any. Then when the neighboring trailer plopped their satellite down it sealed the deal.


The unit they had was the vucube manual dish and when I looked into it I found that this same company makes the tailgater. I was surprised that it cost almost twice as much as the tailgater which is automatic. wondering if anyone knows what justifies the price difference? I saw that the tailgater is a dish only product while the vucube can be used on different services. Both are set up for one receiver. Anything else?


thanks,
Kirk

The Tailgater is only good for Dish Network.
You just need a coax feed. Power comes from the RV reciever 211K over the coax

The Vue Cube is good for Dish as well a DirecTV
THe Vue Cube a seperate power source

[BarryD0706]

Originally Posted by kirkp

...
wondering if anyone knows what justifies the price difference? I saw that the tailgater is a dish only product while the vucube can be used on different services. Both are set up for one receiver. Anything else?

My suspicion is that the ability to support DirecTV as well as Dish is what bumps up the price, but I really don't know. Given that Dish is the only one (currently) with pay-as-you-go, I would have a hard time justifying the extra $$$ for the cube. Also you can't get HDTV with DirecTV on the VuCube so I'd think that is another important deciding factor.

[BarryD0706]

Originally Posted by cpaulsen

I use the 622 receiver. I ran a seperate cable to the bedroom from the splitter. I hook up one cable from my 1000.2 dish to the splitter....then one cable to the living room and the other to the bedroom......living room has the receiver. Pick up any channel you want from the receiver to the bedroom or living room. Just eliminated carrying 2 receivers.

What you're suggesting isn't supported with the Tailgater or VuCube. It also doesn't allow you to get HDTV on your second TV.

Also, a few technical details: You've got a separator (not splitter) between the 1000.2 and the receiver. You then have a splitter to the two TV's. (You should probably just connect the living room TV with HDMI.)

[Poppy94]

Originally Posted by BarryD0706

You can get a receiver that will support two TVs (eg, two different channels), or you can get a receiver for each TV. You're right: One receiver = One channel normally (except for the duals). (We can teach you later how to send one-channel of satellite to multiple TV's if you wanted to do that.)

ok barry, i got a winegard with my dish recvr from the house that does great in my TH. my uncle has a tailgater in his 5er. we both have satellite to the main television, but we have tried multiple ways to wire up the bedroom televisions to "look" at the same channel that the main television is looking at. not too worried about having it identical to the house where 1 receiver has 2 tvs watching separate channels, that'd be great, but for now if possible i'd like that, but i can also just deal with 2 tvs on same channel from 1 receiver. how is this done/accomplished? as stated, i've tried every kind of splitter and configuration i can think of. got a diagram or walk me through it? thanks.

[BarryD0706]

Let's start with multiple TVs on the same channel. You basically have two options.
1) If you have a way to pull new cable from place to place in your RV, the best option is to
pull new HDMI cable to each TV from the receiver and then use an HDMI splitter. You can find those on Amazon and other places. I'll give you some links if needed.

2) The second option makes use of the existing cable in your RV. There is an antenna amplifier (booster) control probably behind your living room TV. This already provides a splitter internally (and maybe externally) to send the over-the-air TV and "Park Cable" to all of your TV's. The Tailgater receiver, and probably yours, has a "modulator" output (labelled "TV Set Out"). Run a short coax cable from that receiver output to the "Park Cable" input on the antennae amplifier control. With this done, when the booster is off, the receiver modulated output will be available on channel 3 or 4 on all of the TVs. (You will probably have to have your TVs re-scan to find this "Cable" channel.) (What I really recommend you do is to use a coax "AB" switch so that you can select either the original "Park Cable" input or the "modulator output" into that "booster control". That way you don't lose function. Here's one such switch: Amazon AB Switch

This should get you started. Let me know if you need more details.

As for using your house "dual" receiver to get separate channels, the Tailgater doesn't support that. If you'll tell me the model of Winegard dish you use I can check to see if the dual receiver works with that.

[kirkp]

First off, thanks to everyone for your help.

Barry, in reading your option 2, you mention Tailgater receiver so I am assuming your are talking about the Vip211K receiver? I'll have to look at things to see if I can find the booster you mention. Also wondering what function you might lose by not using the AB switch. Is this the ability to use the Park Cable function?
Kirk

Kirk

[BarryD0706]

Originally Posted by kirkp

First off, thanks to everyone for your help.

Barry, in reading your option 2, you mention Tailgater receiver so I am assuming your are talking about the Vip211K receiver? I'll have to look at things to see if I can find the booster you mention. Also wondering what function you might lose by not using the AB switch. Is this the ability to use the Park Cable function?
Kirk

Kirk

Kirk,
Yes on 211k. Yes, if you disconnect the original "Park Cable" wire you wouldn't be able to use that unless you reconnect it again.

[kirkp]

Barry, that's what I suspected you might mean. Talking to the Boss about it this morning. Since my tastes in TV viewing differ from her's (particularly when she isn't around) she wasn't sure if she wanted to be subjected to what I was watching when she went to bed. It got me to thinking whether you could install A/B switch in the bedroom so that that TV could be switched back to standard TV if she didn't want to watch satellite? My guess though is that based on your earlier post she (or should I say I) would have to scan channels again?

Kirk

[BarryD0706]

Originally Posted by kirkp

Barry, that's what I suspected you might mean. Talking to the Boss about it this morning. Since my tastes in TV viewing differ from her's (particularly when she isn't around) she wasn't sure if she wanted to be subjected to what I was watching when she went to bed. It got me to thinking whether you could install A/B switch in the bedroom so that that TV could be switched back to standard TV if she didn't want to watch satellite? My guess though is that based on your earlier post she (or should I say I) would have to scan channels again?

Kirk

It depends. Assuming you have your living room TV next to the receiver, it will be connected with HDMI. If she wants to switch to antenna for the other TV, just turn the booster back on and the "other" TVs will get that signal instead of Sat/Cable.

Chan 3/4 are the same on OTA and cable, so if your TV has a way to manually add channel 3 to the scan-found list, you'd have to do nothing. On
my TV, I can't do a manual add (Legend TV) but it does remember the Cable scan and OTA scans separately so all I have to do is switch from "Cable" to "Air" on the TV to go from Sat to Antennae.

Confused enough now? ;-)

[BarryD0706]

One important thing I forgot to mention. The "modulator" output on the Dish receivers sends only a standard-def signal to the TVs it's connected to. No HDTV possible with that route.

(That's what's nice about the HDMI-splitter method; you get hi-def everywhere.)

[Poppy94]

well, here's some info. i have a winegard carryout satellite. i haven't attempted this #2 option yet, but it appears it will work in my TH. now my uncle's 5er is different. it doesn't have the booster for the park cable and #2 didn't work. BUT, with that said, i'm going to try to reverse the signal through the "behind the den tv" back to the main park cable tie in and run a cable through to the bedroom tv. that'll be easier than the new HDMI cable w/splitter through the walls. BTW, he's got the VIP211k and we did try the TV OUT as stated, to no avail. thanks for the info. it's been most helpful!

[BarryD0706]

Originally Posted by MurphyKyle

...
BTW, he's got the VIP211k and we did try the TV OUT as stated, to no avail!

I've got the 211k myself and do that all the time so I know it will work. I don't believe there are any settings for enabling it but I will double check. Did you scan for new channels on the TV when trying it? Did you try it directly wired to the TV?

[Poppy94]

i'm gonna try a couple of configurations real similar to yours. we've gotten the "park cable" down the same coax, so i know it works, yes we did do a scan, but i must be overlooking something and not seeing it...yet....but i ain't giving up and i'll report back. thank you again!

[BarryD0706]

Originally Posted by BarryD0706

I've got the 211k myself and do that all the time so I know it will work. I don't believe there are any settings for enabling it but I will double check. Did you scan for new channels on the TV when trying it? Did you try it directly wired to the TV?

I did look thru the menu settings and even read the 211k manual. The "TV Set Out" should always be functional. If you've tried it directly connected to your TV (no RV wire) and you still can't get it to work, I would call Dish Tech Support. (Don't confuse them by telling them you're trying to do this in an RV.) They will probably end up sending you a new receiver.

Edit: One more thought. The TV Set Out is not digital. I read that one manufacturer (LG) is now making a digital-only TV. If you were trying to use a digital-only TV it will not work. Since there are still low-power stations that are allowed to continue with analog broadcasts, and lots of older equipment still has analog outputs, I think these digital-only sets would be pretty rare.

[BarryD0706]

Originally Posted by MurphyKyle

well, here's some info. i have a winegard carryout satellite.

I've learned that the Winegard Carryout also doesn't support using a separator to put both LNB connections thru a single wire. Actually, even with two separate receivers (and two wires) you're still restricted to watching TV shows on both receivers that are on the same satellite (1 of 3 for Dish). I suspect that you might be able to use that dual receiver that you already have with those restrictions if you're willing to run the extra coax to the LNB. Easy to try anyway.

[kirkp]

Well, thought I'd post an update on what has taken place. As I indicated, on our maiden voyage we had BAD TV. We went out last weekend and before the trip I checked to see what kind of TV reception we would have and it was going to be zilch. Not wanting to hear it, we went out and bought the Tailgater combo package. It was a wise choice since it rained the entire weekend. We were able to get 2 of 3 satellites and they were even having a free HBO and Cinemax preview. She was happy so it was all good. Took a bit for me to figure out the setup for the wiring. On the downside I still need to figure out how to get something to the bedroom TV

For the setup I ran a coax from the satellite pin to the receiver and then took the coax that goes to my antennae and ran it to the TV out pin on the receiver. In hindsight I could have used a HDMI cable from the receiver to the TV? I noticed that there was a white coax that runs from behind the TV but neither end was hooked up. My guess is that this is intended to be a satellite cable? Here's a picture of the setup in the EC.




Barry, I think I'm following your earlier post. I don't see a way to run a HDMI cable to the bedroom. I plan to try using the option 2 you presented using the antennae connector. My guess is that I'll set up the TVs to receive over the air signals and then hook up the satellite dish as described. Keep your fingers crossed.

Kirk