Looking at satellite dish for use with my directv receiver....

[RedStick]

I believe I've narrowed my decision down to two products - the winegard portable manual and a standard 18" round dish with tripod.

The receiver ill take from home for camping use is an hd 21 model. That said I don't have a need for hd programming while camping.

The winegard is interesting to me as it breaks down into the nice protective case. I must say, I'm leaning that way.

Any words of wisdom?

[TURBS]

Originally Posted by RedStick

I believe I've narrowed my decision down to two products - the winegard portable manual and a standard 18" round dish with tripod.

The receiver ill take from home for camping use is an hd 21 model. That said I don't have a need for hd programming while camping.

The winegard is interesting to me as it breaks down into the nice protective case. I must say, I'm leaning that way.

Any words of wisdom?

Many opinions on this.....
Mine is.


Best of all it was free.
I also take my shop receiver from home.

Turbs

[rracer5]

Originally Posted by RedStick

I believe I've narrowed my decision down to two products - the winegard portable manual and a standard 18" round dish with tripod.

The receiver ill take from home for camping use is an hd 21 model. That said I don't have a need for hd programming while camping.

The winegard is interesting to me as it breaks down into the nice protective case. I must say, I'm leaning that way.

Any words of wisdom?

Mine looks like turbos but in Directv . Maybe I'm spoiled but if u have a HD TV in he camper (and watch a lot while camping), then you might want a HD dish too.

What service do you have?

[dkb74]

We have the Winegard Carryout Portable (with DirecTV) and I have to say we love it. Pricey, yes. But so so easy to use. Saves so much frustration.

We've used two different receivers from our house with it, both times with no problem. Just have to change the settings on the receiver and then let it do it's thing.

[RedStick]

Rracer5 - I currently have directv so basically all I need is the dish and other required hardware (short of the receiver).

Any issues setting your dish up? There are a few campgrounds where I'd probably not obtain a signal (too many trees) but other campgrounds would be fine.

Where did you get your equipment? There are some package deals via amazon from oasis - good and bad reviews, so I thought I'd ask for opinions from the forum instead!

Dkb74 - looks like you have the auto find version, I'm looking at the cheaper manual version. That said, no problems so far obtaining a signal?

[Heldapay]

Anyone know if an HD receiver will work with a standard round dish? We have 2 standard receivers for the bedroom and living area but it would be nice if we could take one of our HD receivers to use for the bunk room tv.

[RedStick]

An hd received should work with a round dish, but you'd be limited to sd picture and not be able to view hd programming.

The round dish doesn't tune in to the requires satellites for hd. I believe the round dish is to tune in to 101 only.

If you want hd programming you'd need the egg shaped dish and potentially other equipment. You might run in to other issues from what I read depending on the model receiver you have.

[dkb74]

Originally Posted by RedStick

Dkb74 - looks like you have the auto find version, I'm looking at the cheaper manual version. That said, no problems so far obtaining a signal?

No. It took a little longer under a tree canopy than open sky, but still found it and worked great from that point on.


We use our HD receivers with our Winegard with no problem.

[rracer5]

Originally Posted by RedStick

Rracer5 - I currently have directv so basically all I need is the dish and other required hardware (short of the receiver).

Any issues setting your dish up? There are a few campgrounds where I'd probably not obtain a signal (too many trees) but other campgrounds would be fine.

Where did you get your equipment? There are some package deals via amazon from oasis - good and bad reviews, so I thought I'd ask for opinions from the forum instead!

Dkb74 - looks like you have the auto find version, I'm looking at the cheaper manual version. That said, no problems so far obtaining a signal?

I got the 5 LNB dish from an online supplier a few years ago (can't member the name) then I got the heavy duty tripod from Camping World. With the HD dish, you must get the tripod as level as possible. Then I use the "Satfinder" app on my smart phone to locate the 101 degree satellite and start tuning with a satellite the tone meter. When I have the 101 on a strong signal, then I tweak the dish settings to get the rest. I've been doing it this way for 3 years and have never not gotten any signals. It has take me anywhere from 5 minutes to over an hour to set up. So, unless you have patience, $1500 will get you a fully automatic one from CW

[Heldapay]

Originally Posted by RedStick

An hd received should work with a round dish, but you'd be limited to sd picture and not be able to view hd programming.

The round dish doesn't tune in to the requires satellites for hd. I believe the round dish is to tune in to 101 only.

If you want hd programming you'd need the egg shaped dish and potentially other equipment. You might run in to other issues from what I read depending on the model receiver you have.

Glad to hear that! Now we can take one of the HD receivers from home for the bunk room, even if we don't get HD. I wanted to buy an HD dish but the DH said "Honey....we're camping!!" so we'll stick with the standard for now. Just glad that we'll have channels for the kiddies & guests in the bunk room. Thanks for the info!

[TURBS]

Originally Posted by Heldapay

Glad to hear that! Now we can take one of the HD receiver from home for the bunk room, even if we don't get HD. I wanted to buy an HD dish but the DH said "Honey....we're camping!!" so we'll stick with the standard for now. Just glad that we'll have channels for the kiddies & guests in the bunk room. Thanks for the info!

Just out of curiosity what do you have for connections in your bunkhouse?

[Heldapay]

Originally Posted by f1100turbo

Just out of curiosity what do you have for connections in your bunkhouse?

There are 2 cable looking connections, which appear to be the same type connections that we have in the living area and the bedroom. My DH would know for sure but they all look the same.

[TURBS]

The reason I ask is my bunk house albeit a different make "sabre" also has two connections.
One is a coax connection and the other is a rca connection and these are only for the "over the air antenna " and or the signal from the dvd player "when watching a movie.
Not any satellite type connection.
If you remove the wall plate the cable should be yellow if it's a "sat" connection.

[Heldapay]

Originally Posted by f1100turbo

The reason I ask is my bunk house albeit a different make "sabre" also has two connections.
One is a coax connection and the other is a rca connection and these are only for the "over the air antenna " and or the signal from the dvd player "when watching a movie.
Not any satellite type connection.
If you remove the wall plate the cable should be yellow if it's a "sat" connection.

I had a feeling you were about to rain on my parade! LOL! I promise I won't shoot the messenger!

We're going on a weekend trip this Friday so we'll take one along & see what happens. I'm keeping my fingers crossed though! Thanks for letting me know what to look for.

[TURBS]

Originally Posted by Heldapay

I had a feeling you were about to rain on my parade! LOL! I promise I won't shoot the messenger!

We're going on a weekend trip this Friday so we'll take one along & see what happens. I'm keeping my fingers crossed though! Thanks for letting me know what to look for.

You may have a SAT ready connection back there but I have yet to see one.
ITS on my list to remind a certain factory rep that all tv locations be SAT ready.
Normally the only sat ready locations are at the main living tv. "normally"

Have fun and good luck!
Report back on what you find.


TURBS

[Heldapay]

Originally Posted by f1100turbo

You may have a SAT ready connection back there but I have yet to see one.
ITS on my list to remind a certain factory rep that all tv locations be SAT ready.
Normally the only sat ready locations are at the main living tv. "normally"

Have fun and good luck!
Report back on what you find.


TURBS

OK...I couldn't wait until the weekend so I went out & took some pics. I discovered that there are no plates behind the living area TV, only a white cable & a gray cable that come from behind the wall. One of these is a satellite feed. I know for sure that we have satellite in the master bedroom as well as we had both rooms connected at the same time. Below are pictures of what we have in our bunk room. There are 3 plates directly behind the TV. (Pic 1) The plate on the far left doesn't appear to be factory installed and behind it there are a white cable and a gray cable just like we have in the living area (Pic 3) Below there under the cabinet, there are 2 more connections (Pic 2).

Sorry I don't know the technical terms for these things...these are the "DW" terms!

I guess I should add that we have two satellite and one cable connection on the outside of our camper.

[TURBS]

Looks to me like you may be ok!
Looks like someone went to the effort of adding a sat cable.
Sorry if I got you worried!
Lol just didn't want a 911 post this weekend about no satellite !


Turbs

[Heldapay]

We'll find out for sure this weekend. Of course, it may not matter anyway as we're camping in a heavily wooded campground!

I'll keep you posted. Hopefully you can add our 365saq to your list of firsts. Thanks so much for all your expertise, Turbs!

[RedStick]

I ended up going with the Winegard mp1 standard definition dish.

My question to those that know, I plan to bring along a directv receiver from home, a h21 model. Do I need to pick up a b band converter?

[dkb74]

We have left ours at home.