How do I wire it in to the coach to be able to use the video control box in the upper right hand storage compartment. Also how hard is it to position the Dish 500 antenna to get the signal properly? My mh is wired for satellite with the connectors in the same compartment.
My coach has a catv connector in the electrical bay (no sat connector outside). A young Dish tech helped me get the coach set up properly. With his help, I was able to set it up so we could use the video switch box to select sat, catv, ant, etc. It has been about 7 years now so I don't recall a lot ...here is what my notes say.
- 322 Dish receiver w/Dish 500 portable dish (twin LNB)
- one coax lead from portable Dish 500 antenna into RV CATV-in-port via power pass 1 side diplexer
- power pass 1 side diplexer behind video switch to split out CATV connection and SAT connection
- sat cable from power pass 1 side diplexer behind switch across behind TV to sat receiver
- "Dish Plus Separator" (provided by Dish tech) behind Sat receiver to 2 sat inputs
- SG-4G 1000mhz splitter from 2 receiver outputs to 1 cable to Sat wall port to TV switch'
- Set up the portable dish and get a signal
- RUN TEST SWITCH AND SETUP FOR "DPP" SYSTEM (DISH PLUS PRO) ** NEVER RUN TEST SWITCH W/O A SATELLITE SIGNAL, & NEVER SAVE BAD RESULTS **
(we are no longer using this setup although the diplexers, etc are still there ...we now have a rooftop dish with two leads to the receiver)
Aiming the portable dish isn't all that hard ...at first it would take me 20 minutes or so, but eventually I could do it in about 5 min. I normally used the tones on the Dish setup screen, sometimes relay via radio headsets ...I eventually got a sat finder which helped a little...
- Get the skew, elevation & azimuth for your zip code from Dish setup screen
- Set skew
- Rough set elevation 1-2 degrees low
- Move along azimuth until sat finder peaks and then lock down azimuth
- Ease elevation up a tad until it locks on.
We got our original portable dish from the place we got the original receiver/service. Rather than taking their very tall tripod, I bought a short one from an RV parts place. They set it up the first time, and showed me how to aim the antenna etc. I later had a service call that resulted in a bit of "additional training." We used the portable antenna for 3 years or so fulltiming before we got the rooftop dish.