Direct TV dish/receiver/hd/std questions

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dkperez

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Joined
Apr 2, 2010
Posts
38
We have a standard 18" round dish we've carried in the past when traveling.  It's on a tripod, I carry it away from the trailer until I can see the southern sky, get the azimuth and such, fiddle, and generally got satellite...

Last fall we switched at home from standard Direct TV to HD.  New receivers, new DVRs, and so on.  I still have one of the old standard DVRs and standard receivers.

What I'd LIKE to do is leave an old receiver in the trailer, and when traveling just use my old, round antenna with the old standard receiver, just take one of the receiver cards with me from home, and get regular satellite.  If I HAVE to, I'll take an HD receiver with me, but can I still use the old dish?

So, can I use my standard dish to get standard definition signals when on the road?  Or do I HAVE to get an oval dish?  And can I use my standard receiver, and just switch the plastic card from one of my HD receivers? 

Worst case, I'll have to get an oval antenna AND take a receiver from home.  If I DO have to change over, is it as easy (or hopefully EASIER) to find the satellite and find the satellite and get a signal with the oval HD dish or is it going to be a MAJOR pain in the neck?
 
dkperez said:
We have a standard 18" round dish we've carried in the past when traveling.  It's on a tripod, I carry it away from the trailer until I can see the southern sky, get the azimuth and such, fiddle, and generally got satellite...

Last fall we switched at home from standard Direct TV to HD.  New receivers, new DVRs, and so on.  I still have one of the old standard DVRs and standard receivers.

What I'd LIKE to do is leave an old receiver in the trailer, and when traveling just use my old, round antenna with the old standard receiver, just take one of the receiver cards with me from home, and get regular satellite.  If I HAVE to, I'll take an HD receiver with me, but can I still use the old dish?

So, can I use my standard dish to get standard definition signals when on the road?  Or do I HAVE to get an oval dish?  And can I use my standard receiver, and just switch the plastic card from one of my HD receivers? 

Worst case, I'll have to get an oval antenna AND take a receiver from home.  If I DO have to change over, is it as easy (or hopefully EASIER) to find the satellite and find the satellite and get a signal with the oval HD dish or is it going to be a MAJOR pain in the neck?
Click to expand...
If I get any of this wrong, not to worry, there is plenty of members that know a ton about satellite tv setup.  We actually still have the oval triple LNB dish and tripod in our unit, however I always just used a single LNB for SD off from it.  I don't believe it was any easier/harder than round dishes, unless your attempting to use the multiple LNB's and catch more than one satellite.  As for switching the cards, I'd advise caution.  Not sure that the card from the new receiver is going to work in the old one, and would not want to see you damage it.  Also, I believe I read somewhere that it's not advised to keep removing replacing the card anyway.  If your willing to pay the extra $6.00/month, you could just order another appropriate card and keep it in the old box for the RV, that's what we do.  Directv has this unit of ours listed as "play room", believe the kind sole on the other side of the phone was trying to keep me from having to pay $15.00 / month for RV package.  As an alternative, I suppose you could just set the dish up as usual and try one of the cards from the house and see what happens!
 
Will not work as the card is married to a receiver's serial number.  Just bring a receiver from home and get a new dish, they are not that expensive.
 
The old dish should work with the new receivers. You will have to get an inline power supply for the round antenna, new receivers do not provide the DC voltage out through the antenna cable. (You would have to get it for the new dish also)
Bob
 
The new receivers will work with older Satellite dishes (they do provide the switching voltage necessary).  The in-line Power Inserter is for use with single wire systems currently being installed, the difference is in the new Satellite Dish configuration not the receivers.

 
Well there ya go (told ya there were plenty of sat guru's here) if you just bring one of your new boxes in the unit, with your old dish, you may just be able to have SD in the trailer without spending any extra $.  Let us know how this works out.
 
The old dish will work with some newer receivers but I don't think it will work with the HR25. The HR25 requires a SWM dish.

It will work with the HR24 for sure because I have used one with mine.

I have a Winegard Traveler SK3005 on the coach and use my old 18 inch round dish when the Traveler is obstructed. I have to go into the setup menu and change the dish to an 18 inch one. I also tell it to hide the HD channels in the guide that I am not receiving.

If you have an HR24 I can send you the step by step setup menu procedure to use if you want it.
 
Excellent...  some time in the next couple weeks (prior to heading for Kansas City) I'll set up in the driveway and try the old, round dish, with our kitchen receiver - it's the only one that ISN'T a DVR.

I considered the Weingard Carryout 1518, but was told (and read on the box) that it apparently does NOT do HD with Direct Tv.  Which made it no better than my old setup, except that it'll find the satellite (which would be nice).  And once I read about how much trouble people are having with theft (do they REALLY have to chain this thing to the RV or a tree to keep it from being stolen?), I decided to hold off.
 
Just a suggestion/option - If your looking for an auto acquisition unit, we found our used dome on the internet, with shipping ($100.00) it was about $300.00.  Was not hard at all to install, no more setting up the tripod (with clear view) and the theft problem is solved.  However, this would depend on if you get your new boxes to work with SD dish.  Good luck to you!
 
I like the Winegard dome, but it has a couple problems...  I don't want one on the roof 'cause we spend a LOT of our time parked in parks where we're under trees.  We frequently don't have a clear view of the southern sky.  So, we'd need the portable one.  Which is apparently a theft magnet.

The OTHER problem is that the Winegard dome doesn't do HD, so I'll have to make sure it'll work with the HD receiver...

I also need to figure out how to do the SWM thing since the 5th wheel has a single input for multiple televisions.  Which I presume means SWM?
 
DK,
The single wire does not mean SWM, it just means that the manufacturer did not make the necessary arrangements when building the coach to accommodate the current satellite TV requirements.  They are way behind and they are having a hard time catching up as just as they do more things change leaving them behind again.  They do what they can but you will need to figure out what you need and then make the necessary changes in your coach or to your hardware to make it all work the way you would like.
What are your specific "requirements"?  What MUST you have?  If you can't have it all, what would you be OK with?  Do you currently have service with DirecTV or Dish Network?  Any more "must do" or what to do would help in pointing you in the right direction.
 
OK, let me try to do this without sounding any dumber than I already am!

The new 5th wheel has a cable/satellite setting as well as an antenna.  At home we currently have a contract with Direct TV.  HD, 2 HD DVRs, 1 HD receiver.  We've still got an 18" round dish on a tripod from when we had regular DTV.

In the new trailer we have a tv in the living room and a tv in the bedroom.  We need to have the living room set work from the satellite. 

We'd LIKE to have the bedroom tv work too, but I"ll have to get a second receiver.
I'd LIKE to run things from the old satellite dish, but if I have to I'll get an oval dish.

Bottom line, I'd really like to be able t run one of the TVs from the satellite, using the OLD dish if possible.

If I have to I'll get another HD receiver.  If I have to I'll get an oval dish.
If I do those things I'd like to have everything run from the one incoming connection (which is how everything works at home)

But, short term, I'd like to run one TV using the HD receiver from the old, round dish...
 
If you want HD on Directv, you need a dish and receiver that can handle it.  Direct's HD is on a separate Ka band satellite (other channels are Ku band) and you need a dish equipped with an LNB that will handle that. If your old house dish was also HD, it will work. If not, no HD.
 
Gary RV Roamer said:
If you want HD on Directv, you need a dish and receiver that can handle it.  Direct's HD is on a separate Ka band satellite (other channels are Ku band) and you need a dish equipped with an LNB that will handle that. If your old house dish was also HD, it will work. If not, no HD.
Click to expand...
Agree.
 
That much I got...  So, as has been said in here before, I CAN use the old, round dish, and get connected to the satellite(s), and get all the channels I normally get, they just won't be in HD...  And that will work even if I have to take an HD receiver with me?

Am I understanding correctly that the key card is SPECIFIC TO A RECEIVER?  So, even though I have spare, old receivers handy, I CAN'T just pull the card out of the HD receiver and take THAT with me instead of having to take the whole receiver down and take it? 
 
dkperez said:
You have kind of swayed around with your posts a bit.... However, if below is your actual questions then:

That much I got...  So, as has been said in here before, I CAN use the old, round dish (YES), and get connected to the satellite(s), and get all the channels I normally get, they just won't be in HD...  And that will work even if I have to take an HD receiver with me? (YES, IN SD ONLY THOUGH, CONFIRMED FROM A SAT INSTALLER SITE)

Am I understanding correctly that the key card is SPECIFIC TO A RECEIVER? (YES, AS PREVIOUSLY POSTED, THE CARD IS MATCHED IN THE PROVIDERS SYSTEM TO THE BOX)  So, even though I have spare, old receivers handy, I CAN'T just pull the card out of the HD receiver and take THAT with me instead of having to take the whole receiver down and take it? (CORRECT, SEE ABOVE, IT'S MATCHED IN THE PROVIDER SYSTEM MARRIED TO CARD AND BOX)  Also, with appropriate internal wiring configuration, you can view multiple TV's in the unit, however all on the same channel if you use only one receiver. 
Click to expand...
 
You can do what you want with an oval dish and a SWM single wire LNB that connects to a destacker in the coach that can provide up to eight outlets to feed DVRs or Receivers.
 
dkperez said:
That much I got...  So, as has been said in here before, I CAN use the old, round dish, and get connected to the satellite(s), and get all the channels I normally get, they just won't be in HD...  And that will work even if I have to take an HD receiver with me?

Am I understanding correctly that the key card is SPECIFIC TO A RECEIVER?  So, even though I have spare, old receivers handy, I CAN'T just pull the card out of the HD receiver and take THAT with me instead of having to take the whole receiver down and take it?
Click to expand...

Yes, with DirecTV, a single LNB 18" antenna will get you all of the DirecTV SD programming plus the DNS SD programming if you would like to add that.  Also yes is the answer to the data card.  Each card is tied to a specific receiver and cannot be moved between receiver to activate one or the other.
Dish Network customers cannot get all of their SD programming with a single LNB antenna but it's fine for DirecTV.
 
Everything worked fine...  We tried connecting through the trailer setup and couldn't figure out WHICH connection was the right one (there's a panel on the wall with THREE cable connectors next to the TV).  So, we went straight from the dish to the receiver and got that working.  THEN we plugged into the RV and went from the connectors 'til we hit the right one...

One of these days I'd like to get one of the portable domes so I don't have to aim the dish manually, but for the time being it works fine.

Thanks for the help.
 
Is there a difference between the round & oval dishes? My Direct TV service man is going to provide us with a dish for our RV. We plan on purchasing a tripod to mount it. He has both round & oval dishes & after reading these posts I'm now wondering the difference in the 2 & which will be better for us.
 
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