Direct TV Hook up

xman123 · 07-06-2015, 06:40 PM

i am not sure how to search old threads or is there a foroum just for direct TV hook ups? I bought a portable Direct TV setup and am looking to see what the best way to hook it up to the MH

xman123 · 07-06-2015, 06:51 PM

forgot to list my MH

donniedu · 07-06-2015, 08:34 PM

What receiver?
How many TVs?
Where are you located?
Ground or roof top antenna?
Not difficult if you have any wiring experience.

xman123 · 07-06-2015, 08:58 PM

i have a swm unit three tvs one in bedroom one in living room and one outside
i have only 1 cable inlet by the power hookup compartment area. BUT i have a switch above my passenger seat area that has cable/ant/satelite on it with three cables going into it. there is also a cable jack inside that compartment also. my dish is a portable one and comes with that flat cable to fit thru windows

donniedu · 07-06-2015, 09:56 PM

Personally I would try to upgrade to a wireless Genie and two slaves for starters.
Then if it were me I would hardwire from a convenient place outside to the Genie, actually to the power inserter, where I could feed the video bridge. Once wired then all you need to do is connect the slaves to power and the TV. With the Genie you can record up to 5 programs at once.
Correctly hardwiring is not difficult, just takes some preplanning some RG6 coax, a few fittings the crimping tools and once done means only one hookup coax from the dish.

redcloud1 · 07-07-2015, 11:54 AM

How many connections do you have on the outside of the motorhome? If you only have one connection on the outside of the motorhome chances are it will not feed a satellite signal to your receiver.

xman123 · 07-07-2015, 01:55 PM

Well my new Direct TV SWM portable dish came in today and setup of the actual dish was easy enough. Its rather larger then i was hoping but oh well. Now i have to wait till i get out to my MH and see how working with my installed wiring works with the system. I do have one question though. do i enter my elevation and Tilt from what my home system is or do i have to reset it to what ever my local zip code is each place i stop at?

donniedu · 07-07-2015, 01:57 PM

You need to reset to the antennas zio code. If you are 50 miles or less away from home, you might get away with your homes settings

xman123 · 07-07-2015, 02:03 PM

so during on screen TV setup ill still be able to get my settings? even though i dont get a signal yet? or is there another way to get the settings i need

CHICKDOE · 07-07-2015, 02:07 PM

dear donniedu, can you extrapolate just a bit. I have direct tv and am trying to complete the cabling. here is the setup. winegard traveler tv on roof. cable from it comes to power inserter, cable from it to video bridge, cable from it to receiver. all rg6u. I have been able to connect a mini genie to the video bridge and get it working. yesterday I had error code 775. reset power on all devices and still got error code 775 and 771. so called direct tv and worked with the guy to trace all cables. when it said I had the video bridge between the power inserter and the receiver he said that would not work. so pulled out the video bridge and cabled directly from power inserter to receiver and the main tv is working again. he said I need a splitter and to put the splitter on the cable from the antenna and then run 2 cables out of the splitter; one to the power inserter and one to the video bridge. does this make sense? I do not have a splitter. do you know what type it need? thanks

xman123 · 07-07-2015, 04:23 PM

tell me if im right here....the dish cable goes from LNB to 4 connection switch input then output to power source . from power source to box then box to TV?

CHICKDOE · 07-07-2015, 06:27 PM

no, single coax cable is as follows from antenna - out of antenna into power inserter, out of power inserter into video bridge, out of video bridge into receiver box. I do not have a splitter. the direct tv guy on the phone said to cable it like this from antenna - out of antenna into splitter, two cables out of splitter - cable 1 out of splitter to power inserter, out of power inserter to receiver box - cable 2 out of splitter to video bridge. if this is correct what type of splitter do I need?

xman123 · 07-07-2015, 06:58 PM

this is the package i bought. the splitter i speak of is the thing in the upper right hand side. It has cable input on one side and power out on the other side with three outputs next to it
RV HD SWM 5 Camping or Tail Gate Portable Satellite Dish Kit, SWM SL5s

pmsherman · 07-08-2015, 12:00 AM

I use a tripod based antenna with my DTV pulled from the house for use in my 2011 Georgetown 327DS. Hookup was fairly easy but does require some (short) cables and other inexpensive equipment.

The Park cable input uses coax that will pass the satellite signals which means that I could use it between the DTV box located in the passenger side overhead compartment and the rear of the RV. I carry two 100' cables and a 20' which get used as necessary depending on how far away form the RV I need to put the antenna.

In the overhead compartment, I added a shelf that added 50% to the space available for equipment. The input cable from the back of the RV goes to the output of an A/B switch. One side of the switch goes to the FR input selector box, the other side goes to the antenna side of the SWM power brick. The SWM power brick is then connectted to antenna 1 (or the only antenna connection) of the DTV box. The A/B switch allows the input from the back of the RV to go to the switchbox when I'm hooked up to a park's cable system or the SWM power box for the DTV system.

THe HDMI output of the DTV box goes to an Actiontec HDMI over wifi transmitter which feeds receivers on the main tv and the bedroom tv. Before I got the Actiontec devices, I ran the video output of the DTV box to an RF modulator which used the factory installed cabling to ship the signal to the televisions. I also added a Radio Shack RF booster to the output of the FR switchbox to make up for losses in the 4-way splitter behind the back wall of the overhead cabinet. An outlet strip in that cabinet makes it easy to shut everything off at once.

I never made any notifications to DTV about using the box in the RV. The only shortcoming is that the networks associated with local broadcast stations aren't received when more than ~50 miles from home. DTV has a "DNS" (Distant Network Service) available for an extra charge that will give you national coverage of the major networks using either the NY or LA (?SFO?) network feeds depending on your registered address for the account.

Phil

cousin eddie johnson · 07-10-2015, 05:43 AM

I'm having the travel'r for directv installed today in my 2015 364ts. They are running two lines from satellite. One direct into the compartment behind the TV above the galley and the second into the compartment above the passenger seat where the 3 way switch is located. We'll go line in from satellite to receiver to HDMI into TV for one above th galley and line in from satellite into the switch box. Because it's into the switch, I can then add a receiver from the coax outlet that feeds either the outside TV or one in the bedroom, correct?

sherman12 · 07-11-2015, 09:24 AM

pmsherman, My Allegro had a roof mounted sat dish. I too took my Direct TV receiver out of my home to use with it. In the second year Direct TV would "shut down" the receiver and I would have to call customer service for them to re-program the signal to my receiver. There CS sucks and it led to me dropping Direct and I would never go back to them. Should I get a dish for my GT I would go with Dish as they have packages for RV'ers that lets you pay monthly when you want to use or not.

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