satellite tv

[Gensca]

we are thinking of.buying a "Tailgito" package from DISH. i was wondering what kind of experience you have had 755

[jonandjolene]

We have the Tailgater from Dish. Works great for us. Setup is easy. We have Dish at home also so we just call when we want the receiver in the RV activated. We travel about 7 months a year and just call and have the local channels set for wherever we are. In fact, I think Camping World has them on sale now.

[NO3putt]

Have tailgater also. No problems at all!

[kz08h5]

I also have a tailgater. I like it. The biggest problem I have had is being parked with trees blocking the signal from the satellite. I can even use it with the generator when not hooked to shore power.

[jonandjolene]

There is an app for the iPhone called "Dish for my RV" that will show where the satellites are to help in placement of the antenna to avoid trees. Cost of the app is $4.99. Get it in the app store. Works great!!

[Joedh2]

I have the Dish Tailgater and I love it. I also bought the "Dish for My RV" app to find the clearest view to the satellites. It works great on my IPad and I would highly recommend it for anyone who is setting up their antennas at the camp site. I have the Dish VIP211K receiver which powers the Tailgater unit. In about 5 minutes the Tailgater finds the Sats and you are up and running. I think the Tailgater, although not the least expensive dish out there, is one of the best and easiest to use.

[TURBS]

Free app is satellite ar
Works fine!
Winegard carry outwith dish network service.


Turbs

[dcogs15]

The tailgater for RV use is a neat concept. However, our experience with the tailgater pkg has been very disappointing. Over 17 days of camping at 7 different state parks in Michigan we were able to use the tailgater only one time! At all of the other sites, the tree cover was sufficient to prevent it from finding the satellites. The park where it worked was at a casino park with only small sapling trees and cable! In northern locations the satellites are relatively low to the horizon, which makes tree interference more likely. When the dish is searching for sats it just displays a message about "installing switch "X" of 5". The whole process can take more than 30 min. before it tells you it could not find a sat and then you reposition the dish and try again. Trial and error can be very frustrating and time consuming (I usually give up after about 2 hrs!). I haven't tried any of the smart phone apps (have to get a smart phone first). Right now, I'm feeling like I wasted $350 on the sat dish.

[BarryD0706]

You've always wanted a smart-phone. This is you excuse. Get one of the apps and you'll be happy.

[Jimmerinwi]

Originally Posted by dcogs15

The tailgater for RV use is a neat concept. However, our experience with the tailgater pkg has been very disappointing. Over 17 days of camping at 7 different state parks in Michigan we were able to use the tailgater only one time! At all of the other sites, the tree cover was sufficient to prevent it from finding the satellites. The park where it worked was at a casino park with only small sapling trees and cable! In northern locations the satellites are relatively low to the horizon, which makes tree interference more likely. When the dish is searching for sats it just displays a message about "installing switch "X" of 5". The whole process can take more than 30 min. before it tells you it could not find a sat and then you reposition the dish and try again. Trial and error can be very frustrating and time consuming (I usually give up after about 2 hrs!). I haven't tried any of the smart phone apps (have to get a smart phone first). Right now, I'm feeling like I wasted $350 on the sat dish.

It is a great concept, but the fact is you can't get a signal through trees! It is nothing to do with the tailgater, it's Mother Nature. Sometimes keeping an extra 50ft of co-ax to maybe try to reposition the dish helps.

[whj77372]

We have the Tailgater and it works well and is easy to setup. If you don't have a clear view then nothing will work except park cable. We got it because it was the cheapest choice that we could find for HD TV. The receiver 211 will only do one TV
so I use the antenna for the bedroom TV. We got the Tailgater, receiver and 50 ft of cable for $199 from a dealer in Florida so no sales tax because we are in Texas.
For that price you must be a new customer and enter into a two year contract. If you don't use it a lot you may be better off with the pay by the month plan which the best Icould find was $349 for the Tailgater, $100 for the receiver and the cable at Camping World. You must do the math for what works best for you. Good Luck

[Dennis and Julie]

We also have a Tailgator, yes sometimes we have trouble getting signal but have never been anywhere where we couldn't get something and yes we do camp where there is lots of tree cover. Sometime we put the dish on top of our camper it helps to get signal.

[Joedh2]

Yes - As others have posted, if you do not have a clear line of sight to the satellites in the sky, you are not going to get a signal. So no matter what type of SAT dish you have, you must have clear line of sight. Also make sure you are using RG6 cable for your dish hookup. RG5 will work if you are hooking up for a cable tv connection - that is if your campsite provides cable tv - but will NOT work with most satellite systems. I still say the IPhone app "Dish for My RV Satellite Finder" by Michael Berg is the best way to know if you have direct line of sight in the sky. It also works great on the IPad. There are quite a few free satellite finder apps made for android phones too. I just used this IPad app again last weekend with my tailgater. I also helped my neighbor in the next stall who had a regular DISH Network antennae on a tripod who was blocked by a shade tree. Lucky for him that he had a 50 ft. RG6 Cable.

[glitelover]

Reading this thread as we just purchased the Dish Tailgater at Camping World and did a trial setup to make sure everything was in working order before heading out next weekend. We hooked up the receiver with an HDMI cable to the main TV in the living room entertainment center (Rockwood 8311 SS). The Tailgater was hooked up to the outside jack labeled "Satellite." The other end went to a jack marked Aux Sat, which was the only one we could get to work. It acquired satellites and all was well. We have activated everything through Dish Network and will pay as we go since we will probably not use it more than a handful of times a year. Still, we thought it would be nice to have. I think it's great that Dish Network offers this. BTW, good info about the IPad app, which may come in handy later on. For this trial run, we just sat the Tailgater down on the ground and pointed it in the general direction of the southern sky, and it worked great.

Then we noticed all of the other jacks in the entertainment system, so we unhooked the HDMI and tried the other components that are in the entertainment center (and there are plenty of them), but we could never get anything. There is a jack with 3 sets of the old-style red, white, and yellow connections which we hooked up to the back of the VIP 211K receiver, but got no signal. Then we tried with coax to a very prominent "satellite cable in" jack that is just below the TV--nothing with that set-up either. We did check continuity on the outside jack where you would hang the TV from the master to watch outside, and it was hot. There just seem to be lots of jacks with not much happening as far as getting a signal. I wonder if some of those are dedicated strictly to the park cable (?). Just thinking out loud. We definitely aren't doing something right.

HDMI is fine for the main TV, but outside we won't be able to use that, of course, and we are headed to the Bristol NASCAR race and definitely want to view TV outside--that was the main reason we got the Tailgater in the first place--to tailgate

Also, just out of curiosity's sake, where do you set your VIP 211K receiver? The shelf beneath our TV is not deep enough to hold it. I guess we could set it on its end on that shelf. I sure wish there was a pull-out shelf.

Eventually, we'd like to be able to watch satellite TV on the living room TV and the master bedroom TV at the same time--I know the VIP 211K is not a dual receiver, so I realize if it's doable that both TVs would have the same channel, but we're fine with that. I know there are HDMI separators or splitters or whatever they're called. I've seen them with HDMI jacks that say "out" and then "in 1" and "in 2." Could something like this conceivably be used to accomplish this? I was thinking of trying to hook an HDMI to the back of the receiver, run the other end to this "splitter," then run 2 separate HDMI cables, one out to each TV. I have no idea if this would work. I think these are actually made for the application of attaching Blu-Ray and XBox, etc. to a single TV, but just wondering if it might work to hook 2 TVs to the sat receiver.

Otherwise, I guess the bedroom TV could be on antenna while the living room is on satellite, though that would not be our preference because of the limited channel availability over the air.

Thanks for any help.

[BarryD0706]

I'm not familiar with your RV so can't answer many of your questions.

HDMI is the way to go for the living room TV. The HDMI splitter is a great way to go if you have a way to run the HDMI car to the other TVs. Someone on these forums used a wireless system to transmit the HDMI to a remote TV.

There is also a modulator output (coax) on the back of the 211. If you can wire that to the "Set 2" output of your antenna amplifier booster control then that will distribute the same-channel signal (in SD) to all the other TVs.

[glitelover]

Thank you for your reply. We will be looking at this again tonight when hubby gets home.

I don't know if a photo of our entertainment configuration might help you help me, LOL, but just in case, it looks a lot like the photo below (this is a Rockwood stock photo).

[Joedh2]

The picture you attached for your entertainment center is very similar to mine. I have the Surveyor SP-240 with a TV turntable that rotates between the bedroom and the living space. I did mount my satellite receiver unit in the cabinet but I had to put it on it's side. I used appliance mounts that I purchased at Camping World. These hold the unit in place so it is not bouncing all over the inside of the cabinet. I also purchased a IR repeater from EBay. Got one for about $30. The IR repeater lets me use the remote for the sat receiver while it is in the cabinet. I had to add a power strip inside the cabinet too since I only had two outlets in the media cabinet. I added one with a surge protector on it so it could power the TV, Sat receiver, IR repeater and a power adapter for my IPAD. I got the IPAD HDMI/charging cable from the apple store. This has come in handy at times where the RV parks have free wireles internet and I can stream Netflix movies from my ipad to the TV in the second HDMI port. My SP-240 has a few coax hookups. One for the input and another inside the entertaiment center to the TV and another next to the outdoor kitchen for a second TV connection. What I found out is that this only works for cable. I tried to connect my Sat Receiver coax output to the coax connector in the media center cabinet - hoping that it would send the signal to the outdoor coax connector next to my outdoor kitchen - but that did not work. Someone else did mention a wireless HDMI transmitter/receiver. My friend bought one of these off of EBay and suprisingly it worked pretty well but it was pricey at $250. I am sure you can find them cheaper online. Considering all the effort that you would have to either pay for or do it yourself to run another HDMI from where your Sat receivier is and buy an HDMI splitter, the $250 for a wireless HDMI transmitter and receiver unit isn't that bad. Just be careful about the range of these wireless units. If you are using around your travel trailer you shouldn't have a problem. However, depending on the amount of metal used in the construction of your RV can impact the signal from the transmitter to the receiver. If you are withing 30 feet of the transmitter is should not be a problem. Also - if you are going to buy one of these HDMI transmitter/receiver units, make sure that it transmitts Video and Audio. Some of the cheaper models do not transmit Audio. In this day and age of tecnology, you would think that the modern RV's would have HDMI inputs from a the media center to all outputs where they have place coax connectors. I don't know of any modern flat screens that do not have HDMI. Anyways, I hope this helps a bit. There have been a lot of good replies to these posts and I thank everyone for their input on this subject.

[BarryD0706]

Originally Posted by glitelover

...
Then we tried with coax to a very prominent "satellite cable in" jack that is just below the TV--nothing with that set-up either. We did check continuity on the outside jack where you would hang the TV from the master to watch outside, and it was hot.

I was thinking about that "satellite cable in" jack. It sure does sound like its made for that modulator output from the receiver to the other TVs. Do you have a "Cable" input on the outside your RV as well as the Sat input you connected the Tailgater to? If you do not, then my guess is that the "satellite cable in" is wired to the Cable Input port on your antenna booster control.


That would mean that it will distribute the modulator output to your other TV jacks only when the antenna booster control is OFF. You do know that you would have to re-scan for channels on the TV when you are trying to use the modulator output, right?

[BombDoc]

Just purchased the Tailgater from CW last weekend. I am a Dish customer so I called them and swapped out a receiver I had in the house for the Vip211k. I also purchased the "Dish for my RV" app for my iphone and it all seems to be working as described. I set up a small TV on my back deck, ran some extension cords to power the TV and Receiver and within 10 minutes I was watching ESPN in HD. Now to get it to work inside the RV. DW and I are big tailgaters and looking forward to college football (9 Days for us) and can't wait. My plan is to set a 46" TV on a table outside the RV to watch the game, eat, have some brews. I'm not too concerned about that set up because it will be no different setting it up at a game than it was setting it up on my deck. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get it to the main TV in the RV? I'll worry about trying to get it to the bedroom once I get the Main TV up and running. Thanks

[BarryD0706]

Originally Posted by BombDoc

Just purchased the Tailgater from CW last weekend. I am a Dish customer so I called them and swapped out a receiver I had in the house for the Vip211k. I also purchased the "Dish for my RV" app for my iphone and it all seems to be working as described. I set up a small TV on my back deck, ran some extension cords to power the TV and Receiver and within 10 minutes I was watching ESPN in HD. Now to get it to work inside the RV. DW and I are big tailgaters and looking forward to college football (9 Days for us) and can't wait. My plan is to set a 46" TV on a table outside the RV to watch the game, eat, have some brews. I'm not too concerned about that set up because it will be no different setting it up at a game than it was setting it up on my deck. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get it to the main TV in the RV? I'll worry about trying to get it to the bedroom once I get the Main TV up and running. Thanks

Does your RV have two coax "inputs" on the outside (Cable and Sat) or one input (shared)?

Does your RV have any coax outlets marked as "Sat" at secondary TV locations (bedroom)?