Newbie sat tv ? Please excuse my ignorance

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mobjack22

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Joined
Jun 15, 2018
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TT came with tracvision dish pre mounted. Now I have had sat tv at home since the days of the 8? mesh dish but can?t imagine how this works without some subscription and a box. I know dish and direct have their own roof mounts but I hope to avoid a swap.

Can I use this and if so how?
 
Thank you! Unfortunately that leads to the next newbie question, is there a way to tell which service I have?
 
mobjack22 said:
Thank you! Unfortunately that leads to the next newbie question, is there a way to tell which service I have?
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You don't have service, you only have a dish. You need to sign up for a service or use the one from home when you are on the road. That dish should be good for any provider.
 
Got it. I have dish so I can take it on the road. That?s great!  Thanks for indulging my noob questions
 
Other issues with sat:  You still need a clear view of the sat for the dish for it to work.  Shady parks are bad for satellite reception.

Subscription for the camper varies significantly between providers.  As I understand, my DTV will work in my camper with my current subscription as long as the receivers in the camper are part of the current service AND one receiver remains at home connected to a phone line to establish where they think I am.  Without the "anchor", my sports subscriptions are worthless, as everything gets blacked out, in case I am in that area.
 
Fortunately, Dish does not have any requirement that a receiver is either Internet or POTS connected. Even if you only have one Dish receiver, it can be taken with you on the road.
 
Great!  So I can grab one of my Joey?s and plug and play. I also have dish mobile  so I could mirror from phone or tablet to tv in TT.
 
It might not be plug and play. DirecTV has its SWM connections for the Genies and I suspect it's not a straight coax connection for the Joey. Someone with more knowledge about Dish can elaborate on that, I suspect.
 
We subscribed to Dish at home so we would have Sat TV on the road. The home system uses a Hopper 3 and wireless Joeys for the extra tv's.

We take the Hopper 3 and a Joey with us in the motorhome. Other than the hassle of calling Dish to get local channels when we move it has worked great. Dish users now have the option to update the service address online. I haven't tried this yet.

The wireless Joey has worked flawlessly and been very convenient. The wired Joeys require a single coax line between the Hopper and remote Joey.

I'm not familiar with your dish. I use the Winegard Trav'ler.

Tom
 
I used the Dish app last night to change our local channels.  It's the first time I've had to change our locals since they started doing it through the app.  I used my phone to look up the zip code first, as I have done in the past when using a phone call to change.  Not even necessary!  The app finds your location and automatically sets the locals for your.  I like it!
 
mobjack22 said:
Great!  So I can grab one of my Joey?s and plug and play. I also have dish mobile  so I could mirror from phone or tablet to tv in TT.
Click to expand...

No! A Joey is a "sub-receiver" that requires a connection to a Hopper for satellite programming access. You could take a Hopper with you, but unfortunately it will not work with your KVH dish, or any dome dish for that matter. A Hopper requires a full sized multi-LNB dish, either roof mounted or portable tripod mounted for RV use.


The DishAnywhere app on your phone or tablet will work fine with a Hopper left at home of course, as long as you have a good cell signal and a large data plan. Streaming video does burn a lot of data...
 
I will also add that TracVision is a brand name of KVH and there are many models of TrakVision dishes and domes.  The one you have will have been set up for some satellite service (Dish, Direct, Bell, etc) and may or may not be easily changed over to another one. Some require only the flip of a switch, while others may require hardware mods or software loads.  If its an older model, there may not be support for those changes either.

Most TrakVision satellite antennas are auto-seeking, meaning they find the satellite on their own. However, they have to know what satellite  carries the particular signal you subscribe to, and be able to identify it when found.  Sometimes older model antennas get so obsolete they can no longer do that reliably.

Plus, as Dutch is describing, the receiver-to-satellite connection may differ from what was previously installed on the RV.
 
grashley said:
Other issues with sat:  You still need a clear view of the sat for the dish for it to work.  Shady parks are bad for satellite reception.

Subscription for the camper varies significantly between providers.  As I understand, my DTV will work in my camper with my current subscription as long as the receivers in the camper are part of the current service AND one receiver remains at home connected to a phone line to establish where they think I am.  Without the "anchor", my sports subscriptions are worthless, as everything gets blacked out, in case I am in that area.
Click to expand...
There is no need to have a receiver at "Home" mine all travel with me I just setup and call and try to convince customer service that while i;m in a new zip I don't need the movers connection.
Of course you locals and sports regional will change too.
 
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