Switching To DISH

[JEBar]

we are currently camped just east of KC in Grain Valley, MO on a site where trees block satellite .... without any real hope of being able to lock onto a signal I decided to give our new Pathway a try .... DISH has 3 satellites in each of what they call their eastern and western arcs .... I was able to get a weak lock on one out of its 3 western satellites which is not sufficient to watch TV .... I encountered a problem with switching it being located in Missouri and not South Dakota; as well as, to scan from one arc to the other .... called Winegard for help and after holding for over an hour I was forced to leave a message so they could call me back .... almost 24 hours later, they just called back and were totally unapologetic for the delay .... after hanging up with them I decided to take a chance and call DISH RV .... once again about an hour on hold but I did get to speak with a service person .... he was most helpful and the call proved to be well worth while .... we still don't have satellite service but the system's DVR has bunches of videos we have recorded .... as a result of speaking with DISH, in a little while I will be making up an assortment of shorter coax cables and changing some that are in use inside our camper

[BigAl52]

All these cable a satellite companys wonder why they are losing customers. On hold for an hour is a joke. If I wasnt traveling in the RV Id drop Dish so fast and stream along with an HD outdoor antenna.

[Team Roper]

I dropped Direct TV because I speak English. Nuff said.

[JEBar]

today we are parked in the West St Louis KOA .... after getting setup we turned on our roof mounted Carryout G2 .... it can only lock onto Dish's Western Arc satellites and trees blocked the signal ..... as cab be seen below, we then connected our new Pathway and set it to search for Dish's Eastern Arc satellites .... it quickly locked onto strong signals from all 3 of them .... sites like our current one are the reason we purchased the Pathway and we are happy with the way it is working

[JEBar]

on Tuesday we got back home from 11 weeks on the road and in South Dakota .... turned on our home DISH satellite service and everything worked .... the next morning (Wednesday) while watching the morning news the signal was lost .... we switched to watching a movie .... later in the day turned the system back on and all was good .... a few hours later, the signal was lost again .... this morning (Thursday) I called DISH customer service .... during our time working with our RV satellite antennas and receiver, I've learned a good bit .... consequently, I was able to provide her with the info for her to schedule one of their folks to come out and work on our system .... much to my surprise, she scheduled the appointment for just after lunch .. .. I met the fellow in our driveway and provided him with the details .... he turned around, went back to his truck, and grabbed an LNB (low-noise block converter) and a junction block (for lack of a better term) .... he told me that under such circumstances they are usually the cause of the problem .... bottom line, he was right on the money .... system now working, all's good

[JEBar]

my project for this morning is to install a DISH Wally receiver in our daughter's camper .... we believe it will really come in handy for her when camping with her 4 year old .... as we all know, bad weather happens and campers with active kids can get pretty small .... with the program we will sign her up for, she will only be charged for the time she chooses to use DISH's service .... we tried to set her up with Direct years ago and couldn't make it work .... sure hope today's effort goes more smoothly ..

[Team Roper]

my project for this morning is to install a DISH Wally receiver in our daughter's camper .... we believe it will really come in handy for her when camping with her 4 year old .... as we all know, bad weather happens and campers with active kids can get pretty small .... with the program we will sign her up for, she will only be charged for the time she chooses to use DISH's service .... we tried to set her up with Direct years ago and couldn't make it work .... sure hope today's effort goes more smoothly ..

Good luck in your setting up but it does sound like a really good deal.

[JEBar]

good luck needed .... I'm at a stand still until our daughter gets home .... some drilling is going to be involved and I want to show it to her before I drill the holes ....

[JEBar]

as usual, when I'm installing something there will be at least one component that simply won't work .... in this case, the Wally receiver comes with a 6' HDMI cable and its going to take one about twice that long .... Amazon is scheduled to deliver one on Tuesday .... our hope is to get it going on Tuesday and record some videos .... on Friday we will be camping with our club and plan to put it to use over the weekend

[cooperhawk]

I spent a lot of money to convert the MH so the Hopper would work on our last trip. I didn't so I rewired and
went back to our old receivers. Next time I'll hire a professional to do it.

[JEBar]

I spent a lot of money to convert the MH so the Hopper would work on our last trip.

early on I looked into using a Hopper in our camper instead of a Wally .... the biggest issue I found is a Hopper isn't designed to work with most portable antennas .... my biggest motivation to do so was to be able to record movies .... adding a DISH DVR ===> https://www.amazon.com/Pace-Internation ... 261&sr=8-5 <=== took care of that issue at a reasonable cost and took almost no effort to install

[cooperhawk]

early on I looked into using a Hopper in our camper instead of a Wally .... the biggest issue I found is a Hopper isn't designed to work with most portable antennas.

We already have the Wineguard Traveler which works with the Hopper if you install the right switch. I did, it didn't work.

[JEBar]

the Winegard TRAV'LER is supposed to be about as good as one can get .... I've never used one so I have no experience to speak from .... I do know that whenever possible I try to stay away from Winegard "Help" and only do so as a last resort .... so long as I'm speaking with a Tech for whom American English is their first language, DISH's "Help" has been good .... do you believe that the switch you installed is faulty ..

[cooperhawk]

the Winegard TRAV'LER is supposed to be about as good as one can get .... I've never used one so I have no experience to speak from .... I do know that whenever possible I try to stay away from Winegard "Help" and only do so as a last resort .... so long as I'm speaking with a Tech for whom American English is their first language, DISH's "Help" has been good .... do you believe that the switch you installed is faulty ..

The Traveler so far has been bullet proof.................
No, I think we just didn't get it installed correctly. It is a little complicated.
I'm going to get a Dish Installer to do it for me.

[JEBar]

No, I think we just didn't get it installed correctly. It is a little complicated.
I'm going to get a Dish Installer to do it for me.

I have no clue how hard it is to find a DISH installer who is really familiar with RV installs .... I only know one and he is just norty of Houston, TX .... looking forward following your progress

[cooperhawk]

A lot of them are contractors to Dish and I know of a couple if I can catch them.

[JEBar]

finished the install and activation of DISH service in our daughter's camper .... with them calling for a 60% chance of thunderstorms while she will be camping this coming weekend, she will tape several cartoons for use should she and her 4 year old have to spend much time inside her camper

[markiver54]

finished the install and activation of DISH service in our daughter's camper .... with them calling for a 60% chance of thunderstorms while she will be camping this coming weekend, she will tape several cartoons for use should she and her 4 year old have to spend much time inside her camper

Cartoons...good idea!

[JEBar]

just got in from showing our daughter the DISH setup in her camper .... she's pleased and that's what counts .... she has it recording cartoons that just might come in handy while camping this weekend

[JEBar]

UPDATE :

we are once again setup on the same site in Estelline and our Pathway X2 has been in use for a month .... sadly, it hasn't gone smoothly .... lets just say that getting through to a Dish Rep who knows enough to not have to read from a script ain't easy .... for the first three weeks, all was good .... for the last week its been 180 degrees the other way .... as noted earlier in this thread, we were told to keep the coax to 25' or less .... we use the yellow levelers to keep down folks tripping over the Coax .... kids visiting our site like to hop on them and we've learned the hard way the raised lip damage the Coax .... bottom line, calling Dish resulted in making adjustments that didn't need to be made and actually made things worse .... yesterday I had reached the point of searching for different satellite dish .... if I hadn't of spoken with a lady from Minnesota during my last call to Dish, I'd probably had a replacement on order .... that lady helped me to understand the cause of the problem ... I've also learned that they Winegard offers power booster which fits the Pathway and makes it much easier/faster to get locked on .... one of those boosters is on order .... the last three pictures show that all three Dish Western Arc satellites are locked in and we have strong signals