Dish Network Wally single tuner workaround

[dfshank]

This is a rather long post although I am hoping to be able to help someone else in my situation.

I recently bought a Wally receiver with a 1000.2 triple LNB antenna on a tripod. I bit the bullet for the harder to set up but much better signal quality option than a portable tailgater. Actually using a satellite signal finder and using the zip code settings that came with the manual is not all that difficult.

The reason for my post is to offer up my solution for the Wally only being a single tuner. I added a Seagate external drive for the DVR function and paid the 40 bucks to Dish to have it on the account.

I bought the Wally because it was the only receiver that was available for an RV on a pay as you account.

That being said when I bought the Wally I was unaware that you could not record one program while watching another on live TV. My bad I guess I didn't read the fine print. Just assumed although you know what that means.....

Kinda defeats the purpose of having a DVR if you have to watch the program that you are recording unless you want to save it to watch again or record a program while you are away from the RV or in bed.

I took a look at forums regarding using a Hopper receiver instead of the Wally (The original Hopper has two tuners and a DVR) and since I don't have a home account (sold the house and full-timing now) nor an authorized Dish Network dealer near me that will install in an RV I was stuck with what I had. Dish does not sell a Hopper through their site and no way would I trust one from eBay. Amazon had a listing for one but it was out of the box and I wasn't comfy with it.

Let me back up just a bit. I ordered the complete receiver/satellite dish/tripod package from Dish for My RV. I had it delivered to my current campground and did the install myself which overall was pretty simple.

However, after reading on a forum that the cable inlet on the side of the coach would not handle a satellite input due to some tech stuff I added a dedicated weatherproof outside connection with a flip-down cover by drilling through the wall of the RV and ran a piece of coax from that directly through a modified wall plate.

That solved the dedicated coax line issue. Now how to solve the one tuner problem.

I had the brainstorm to use a second Wally as another tuner but then had to figure out how to split the satellite signal into two lines for both Wally's to receive the signal.

Without doing the necessary research I bought a single input/dual output coax splitter. Epic failure since you have to use a splitter specifically designed for a satellite signal since the signal has to be able to go both ways through the splitter. Who knew? After researching I found one online for a couple of bucks and go figure it works like a charm.

I now use the original Wally with the DVR to record programs (only one per time slot or there will be a conflict but I can live with that) and use the second one to watch live TV.

I also added an HDMI splitter that allows me to switch from one Wally to the other with a push of a button and just use one HDMI input on the TV. I could just use HDMI1 for one receiver and HDMI2 for the other but I use the HDMI 2 for a Firestick, DVD player or at times play video from my iPhone with an HDMI adapter so I didn't want to tie up that input.

So far so good. I was able to activate the second Wally and get the same programming as the first one.

No problem recording my programs while my wife watches hers or vice versa. We just watch our recorded stuff later. Happy Wife Happy Life as the saying goes.

Regarding cost the second Wally was bought from Amazon for 80 bucks and Dish is charging me 7 bucks a month for the additional receiver which is the same if you have a home account and add a second receiver.

Cost of needed connections including the outside and inside wallplate, the splitter, three 12 inch sections of coax , two 6 inch HDMI cables and an under the cabinet mount was around 40 bucks.

I did find a Dish Installer an hour away that wanted over 200 bucks for the basic Hopper (me picking it up from them) and then Dish wanted a monthly DVR fee of 15 bucks.

Another reason for adding a second Wally versus a Hopper was the size and weight. I mounted both Wally's one over the other since that took up less space (Command strips are a beautiful thing!). One is mounted using the hardware that I bought and the other using the velcro.

A Hopper would have caused me to relocate an under cabinet light due to the width of the receiver plus given the weight I would have had to re-think how I would mount it under the cabinet since the hardware that I used would not support the added weight.

If you hung with with through this entire post hopefully if you have the same issue and have been frustrated with the DVR single tuner problem this may give you some insight into how to correct it.

It works for us so far. We have a Sunseeker 3010DS that although has a great amount of counter space having the receivers taking up some of that space was not an option thus the under cabinet mount.

Not sure how the whole install will travel down the road since we are parked for another month. I may have to remove the bottom Wally and stash it if the command strips don't hold.

Hopefully I can get some pics uploaded to this post when I have time.