wineguard dish antenna

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mrd341

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 3, 2018
Posts
52
Location
buffalo
hello all, we have a "new to us" 2003 winnebago adventurer 35 that has what appears to be a hand cranked wineguard satelite dish antenna installed on the front roof area. can anyone tell me if it would be useable or not? or is it too old technology? thank's
 
It's probably a Winegard RM-DM46 manually aimed single legacy LNB dish. It's capable of receiving programming from one satellite at a time with some of the older receivers such as the Dish Network VIP211k. I'm not familiar with which DirecTV receivers work with legacy LNB's, but it would be for standard definition signals only since they use a different standard for high definition TV. It will receive both standard and high definition signals on Dish. We have one on our motorhome that I modified to work with newer Dish receivers, but I would only use it if we had a problem with our portable tripod mounted dish that's capable of receiving three satellites at once.
 
I had to replace my dish with a 3 LNB Dish for DISH Network.  Found one on Amazon. The original dish would not support a new receiver so I could not get the receiver activated.  The only problem I have now is that there is some vertical "slop" in the dish when it is windy.  I have not figured how to tighten this up so the dish will remain in a fixed position rather than moving a few degrees causing me to loose the signal.  (2003 Adventurer 35U Ford chassis).  Secondly, I have not been able to activate the receiver (Hopper)  in the rear bedroom. It is wired for this but I do not seem to be getting a signal from the dish.

I have learned to set this manual dish in a relatively short period of time (5-10 minutes) but It took me a while in learning how to do it.  Automatic dishes eliminate this problem but I am not willing to pay the money to retrofit my camper.

All in all, I have learned the expense of using a satellite system is not worth it unless you already have a Dish or Direct TV system in your home or are planning to use the camper for extended periods without good over the air TV.  Most good RV campsites have decent cable TV.  Pay-as-you-go Dish Network does not give you a good channel lineup or local stations unless you are willing to pay the extra fees.  It is also supposed to automatically shut off after 30 days, which mine did, and then I got a notice from Dish Network saying I owe late fees for not paying for the nest month.  Took me a little while to clear that up. Trees also tend to be a problem in getting a good signal.  If you dry camping close to a city, you will probably have decent over-the-air TV between destinations. Any future campers I plan to own will not have satellite TV.

Since I have AT&T Uverse at home, I can watch cable TV in my camper providing I have a good internet signal.

Sorry to wander off the original subject.
Tim
 
A few counterpoints to the previous post:

You don't say which dish version you have, or what mount you're using it with, but there should not be any noticeable "slop" in either the 1000.2 or 1000.4 dishes. Our tripod mounted 1000.4 has withstood 60 MPH wind gusts without losing the signal. You might have some hardware that needs tightening up though.

How are you feeding the signal to the rear Hopper? It should be an uninterrupted RG6 coax run with no splitters or switches between the receiver and the Duo Node or Duo Hub (depends on which Hopper and/or LNB version) that then connects to the dish.

There is no difference in the program packages available for the "Flex" PAYGO service and the standard contract service. A Flex account is not eligible for the various discounts and price locks that contract accounts can get though as an inducement to accept the contract. If you got an overdue notice with a late charge, that just means someone didn't set the correct flag when your "Outdoor" account was set up, and that should be easily fixed with a call to customer service the first time it happens.

I've yet to find a campground cable service that carried all the channels we prefer, and the analog signals that many still have provide a poor quality signal compared to our Dish service and OTA HD signals. Then again the state and national parks we prefer generally don't provide any cable service at all, so for us as fulltime RV'ers, our Dish satellite service is well worth the cost and the minor inconvenience of setting up the dish each time we relocate. In the almost 10 years we've used Dish in well over a hundred campgrounds and sites, we have never been in a location where we couldn't get sat service from one arc or the other regardless of the tree cover. I've always been able to find a hole somewhere that I could get a signal through. We also have streaming available now of course using our unlimited cell data plans.
 
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