Portable Satellite Antennas

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BoomerD

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Joined
Jun 21, 2014
Posts
1,326
Location
Grays Harbor County, WA
We're Dish customers at home, and would like to get a portable Dish unit for our "on the road" time as well. The coach has an older Winegard crank-up manual antenna, but supppsedly it's set up for DirecTv...and truthfully, I don't really want to mess with it.

With all the problems we've had with this coach over the past year, I just don't "love it" enough to justify spending $1500-$2000 to replace the manual with an automatic.

Any recommendations for a GOOD portable dish?

I've seen more bad reviews than good for King' new "tailgater" unit..although their older "white cube" units seem to have been decent. (Discontinued...but available, either used or refurb'd)

I like the looks of the Winegard Pathway X2, but haven't been able to see one in person.

I know there are some "cheaper" units...but are they better?

I pretty much want a "hook it up and watch TV"  unit...no muss, no fuss.

Thanks.
 
The Wineqard Carryout is a decent automatic dome, and it's not as restricted in receivers as the Tailgater is, plus it can be (DIP switches) set to do DirecTV SD (not HD). I've got one, but am using DirecTV now on a Trav'ler -- used to do the Dish pay-as-you-go.
 
We have the Pathway X2 and used it a lot until we switched to the Trav'ler. Prefer the Trav'ler, but the X2 comes in handy when we can't see through the trees. Works well and only uses one cable for both power and satellite.
 
Like you guys my first choice was the Trav'ler but I couldn't justify the cost  so ended up with the Pathway X2 because it can do both eastern and western arc satellites and handles two receivers unlike some of the other options.
 
yeah...I'd LOVE to have one of the Trav'ler units...but can't justify the cost for this coach.

Amazon has the Pathfinder X2 with the Dish VIP211z receiver for about $450...not terrible.
 
The X2 is also a larger dish than most of the others,, Larger= more gain =Stronger signal... Just so you know.

I'm told Direc is discontinuing SD in 2009, this will make all domes useless on Direc.

With Dish, Domes are only good if you have a SINGLE receiver.. Multi channel devices and multiple devices will not please you on a dome.
 
I'm told Direc is discontinuing SD in 2009, this will make all domes useless on Direc.

Maybe, or maybe not. It's not SD vs HD that is the potential problem - it is the wavelength (transmission band) of satellite broadcast used. Right now, Direct broadcasts HD only on a wavelength (Ka band) that dome-type antennas cannot receive. When they free up the transmitters that now broadcast SD on the Ku band, those wavelengths become available for something else. They haven't yet said what that will be, but they own those wavelengths and will surely do something with them. So stay tuned for further Direct TV announcements and don't spend big bucks on equipment just yet.

PS: The "2009" is a typo; it's 2019.
 

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