Directv or Dish?

[Mothership]

I'm shopping for a satellite system for our rig and I have a few questions.
1. What system is best for RV use?
2. Can I hook the satellite cable into the port in my electrical compartment and bypass the antenna booster.

Thank you, I love this forum!
Mike

[Mothership]

I'm shopping for a satellite system for our rig and I have a few questions.
1. What system is best for RV use?
2. Can I hook the satellite cable into the port in my electrical compartment and bypass the antenna booster.

Thank you, I love this forum!
Mike

[CHIPPYSGT]

From my experience both are a PITA, but Directv is the smaller pain.

You do not use the antenna booster at all. One cable goes from dish to receiver box and second goes from the "out" sid eof receiver to the back of the TV.

Aiming the dish takes practice and time, especially at first. Make sure no trees, tall buildings, vehicles, yhor m/h, etc are in the way.

You need a good compass and know the zip code where you're parked or the map coordinates. Zip is easier to find out unless you have GPS.

[cyko]

We have had Dish for about eight years and have been very satisfied. I think that there is less hassle with Dish than with DirectTV in moving from home to coach and back. We just unplug from one and plug into the other; no turning off service or anything like that. Since we have only a single-satellite dish on top of our coach we miss the channels on the second satellite, which we don't find to be a big problem. If you have a portable dish to set up on the ground you can use the Dish 500 antennal and get them all. You can also buy a MotoSat three-satellite roof dish to get them all, but it costs about 1500 bucks.

You can route the cable from the dish antenna directly to your receiver(through a window, etc.) or install a cable (two cables for two receivers) through the coach in one of various ways. If you use the cable input external to the coach, you might run into problems because of the amplifier; it seems to me I have seen posts that indicate both that it does and doesn't work.

Finally, you can't get network feeds from Dish anymore, but you can subscribe to them from another company and get them through Dish. Atlanta and San Francisco ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox plus one PBS channel for about $10.00 per month. One of the Dish channels has info on this.

Good luck. Terry Smay

[Rick 2005 Dolphin 5376]

Direct TV here. We use a R15 DVR and a tripod dish. Takes about 5 minutes to setup. Once you've gotten used to aiming it, you'll have no issues. I have DNS service for our ABC, NBC and CBS networks. I have no issues to report.

[dieselclacker]

I would echo the above post by Rick and Julia.
Have had Directtv for over 10 years with Distant Networks also. I use tripod, and when possible have a roof dome also. No issues at all.

Dieselclacker

[RVJeeper]

Dish Network here. We've had it in the house for 4 years and just recently started using it in the RV. We hook it up the "Portable Satellite" jack in the utility bay and then just turn off the rooftop antenna booster. Works very well as long as you are on a site with a SW line of sight to the satellites at about 40 degrees of elevation. The direction and elevation will vary with where you are located. One thing about Dish though vs. DTV is that to get HD programming on Dish you need to have the antenna pointed in an entirely different direction. We wound up with 2 separate dishes at home. Not a problem for us in the RV anyway since we only have a standard TV there.

[Clay L]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Mothership:
I'm shopping for a satellite system for our rig and I have a few questions.
1. What system is best for RV use?
2. Can I hook the satellite cable into the port in my electrical compartment and bypass the antenna booster.

Thank you, I love this forum!
Mike </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

There are several ways to do it. Winegard recommends the diagram below.

Making the connections the way Winegard recommends does not require adding any coax connectors to the wallplate.

Note that this assumes your front TV is connected to the coax connector on the front of the wall plate. If yours isn't, there should be a splitter in the line labeled "To second TV" that will send the signal to both the front and rear TVs (if you have two TVS).

What Winegard calls a "power supply" below is the wall plate with the antenna booster switch and LED showing when the amplifier is on.

If you still want to be able to use the external cable in for both cable TV and the external dish just add an A/B switch to switch the incoming coax from the sat receiver sat input to the sat receiver TV input.

One thing not shown in the diagram is using the RCA type connections between the sat receiver and the TV. I connect them and get a better picture with no interference from any local channels. You have to select a "video in" with your TV menu instead of using channel 3 (for example).

[Bill Adams]

You may already see a pattern forming here. Dish folk just love Dish and the same is true for DirecTV. It's sort of the old "which is better Ford or Chevy" question and there is simply no answer available.
Take a look at the channels each offers and at what price to see if one offers something a bit different or at a different price. If you are planning on signing up for the Distant Network Services (DNS) which allows you to view ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX anywhere you travel there are 2 differences. You pay DirecTV on one bill for your standard service plus the DNS fee and with Dish Network you have to pay 2 separate companies (Dish and All American) for this same service. The other DNS difference is that the Network programming is broadcast from NY and LA (CA, not Louisiana) and Dish Network programming is broadcast from San Francisco and Atlanta. Both are Eastern and Pacific time zones, but if one or the other makes a difference to you, there you go!
Both allow you to move your receiver without making any changes and both have customer service that is terrific and terrible depending upon who answers the phone.
More Escapee members have Dish Network. More Easterners have DirecTV. If you have any plans on using either service in your home that would likely be the best place to start. Some parts of the Country have better local support for one or the other and you might be able to use that as your guide.
Good luck and welcome!

[Tom N]

I have an auto roof dish.

My TV out from the sat receiver goes to the SAT input on the back of my coax switch box.

If you do not have a SAT input on your coax switch box route the TV out from the sat receiver to the AUX input on the coax switch box.

You'll then be able to send the sat signal to the front, rear and/or outside TVs.

-Tom

[Ready2Travel]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">2. Can I hook the satellite cable into the port in my electrical compartment and bypass the antenna booster. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes. This is how I did it (used diplexers):

External Satellite Hook Up

That way you can leave the antenna booster connections alone.

[Mothership]

Thank you for all the info. We went with Directv and it's being hooked up next week. Going to hook it to a tripod antenna and our KVH dome on the roof. Looking forward to it!
Mike

[flashajt]

We have the winegard in-motion sat system and we are with DirecTV. It was an expensive investment - around 2k installed, but we really enjoy it and figured if we spent this much money on the RV, why not top it off with entertainment while on the road. My parents have a tri-pod setup with Dish and they are very happy with that - except for the setup part, which they are getting better at.

Regarding DirecTV itself, they are "ok". Service is great, prices are "ok", website is awesome. You can even schedule your DVR recordings on their website. Very advanced, easy to use. Love that part of DirecTV.

We went ahead and cancelled our Cable TV at home and put DirecTV in our house too. This way, the RV only costs us $5/mo for the extra "room" on our main account. Otherwise, we were paying a full cable bill (for home) and a full sat. bill (for the RV).

From what I hear, DISH or DirecTV are both great in service. I'm not stuck with DirecTV and my parents arent stuck with DISH. I guess, just go with whomever gives you the BEST DEAL and most free components for signing up! We got 4 bedrooms and a HD-DVR thrown in for free, but watch the contracts - they got us on a 2 year deal.