Dish - Portable Antennas in Southeast

We're new RVers, looking for advice on a portable Dish antenna.  We're looking at the new Playmaker - hey, it's cheap! - but we're wary of being limited to the western arc only.  The majority of our travel is going to be in the Southeast.

Anyone have experience with the Playmaker?  Will either it or the Tailgater (another western arc device, I think?) work in our part of the country? 

You would be better off spending the extra bucks for a Pathway X2 that can use either arc. There are quite a few east coast locals that are or soon will be on the eastern arc only, and the elevation angle for the western arc sats is significantly lower in the sky than the eastern arc, making aiming more of a challenge at times. The X2's larger dish also means less rain fade.

The Pathway has a large metal receiving reflector. Some of the cheap one have small metal coated plastic.

I've been on the Western satellites for five years and have travelled the East coast from Bar Harbor to Key West. I've not had a single problem with that. Note that I have had a Traverl'r the whole time so I could have switched.

Ernie

You've been pretty fortunate in your locations then. The 17 degree difference in elevation in central Florida alone can make a huge difference in a heavily treed park, just as I'm sure it would in Maine with the western arc, especially the 129 bird at just 12 degrees or so. If you normally change your service address to get the area local stations, there are at least 18 markets where Dish is dropping the western arc channels, so they'll only be available to eastern arc users. And I understand the Trav'ler can only be manually aimed at one of the eastern arc sats, not the full set.

Have the Pathway X2 for when I am under trees and the Winegard Travl'r on the roof won't do the job .. The Pathway X2
is awesome .. Finds the bird every time when it can see it .. It also handles 2 TV's but you have to run 2 lines, one to the
front TV and one to the back if you have 2 TV's .. Takes a little setup but not to bad ..

The biggest problem I do have is the Pathway X2 is not Dish Hopper compatible, so if I have to use it, then we get out
the Dish 211K receivers and use them .. Working with dish has not been to bad. I deactivate the Hopper and activate the
211K receiver ... Cost is the same .... Live in Jacksonville FL, and usually hook to Sat 61.5 and 72 or 77 .. When I am on
the Winegard Travl'r then we use 110 and 119. Have all my subscription channels on either system ... Good luck ..

Tailgater and VIP211K works great for me in both eastern and western. Just tell it where you are when setting up.

Wizard46 said:

Tailgater and VIP211K works great for me in both eastern and western. Just tell it where you are when setting up.

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The Tailgater does not use the eastern arc satellites...

NY_Dutch said:

The Tailgater does not use the eastern arc satellites...

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I don't know beans about the technicals of satellite dishes but I do know that I have been using a Dish  Tailgater and VIP211K receiver for 2 years all in the Central US and I always aim it SE to get best satellite coverage.  What satellites am I receiving?  Like all  satellite dishes (including the two dish ones I had at home, they do not like rain or even very much rain before they give the no signal message.  Dish is okay to work with once connected but when trying to reopen my Pay As You Go this time I got transferred 4 times (twice - hanging up each time). Finally had to resort to their website to reactivate my service.  Their people all seem to speak in weird accents to my near deaf ears.  LOL

Bill N said:

I don't know beans about the technicals of satellite dishes but I do know that I have been using a Dish  Tailgater and VIP211K receiver for 2 years all in the Central US and I always aim it SE to get best satellite coverage.  What satellites am I receiving?  Like all  satellite dishes (including the two dish ones I had at home, they do not like rain or even very much rain before they give the no signal message.  Dish is okay to work with once connected but when trying to reopen my Pay As You Go this time I got transferred 4 times (twice - hanging up each time). Finally had to resort to their website to reactivate my service.  Their people all seem to speak in weird accents to my near deaf ears.  LOL

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The Tailgater only uses the Dish western arc satellites at 110, 119, and 129 degrees. It does not work with the eastern arc satellites at 61.6, 72.7, and 77 degrees. As long as you have a clear view in the correct SSW (about 214 degrees magnetic from Kansas City) direction with sufficient elevation, you'll get decent reception of the western sats. If you travel further east and want to view the local channels, you'll find a number of them are only on the eastern arc sats with more coming.

It takes a pretty heavy rain storm to knock out the signals from our full sized triple satellite tripod mounted dish.

Customer came in one Saturday morning and asked for me to help him with a portable sat system. I began to explain the nuts and bolts of western, eastern etc. He politely stopped me and said " I'm too old for that, which one do you have?" My response was the " Pathway X2" He explained of his plans to travel then asked if it would work for him? Then would I show him how to set it up one time then let him set it up?

Bottom line he purchased the X2, brought his coach back so we could accomplish the initial set up then when he tried the set up I had a sort of cheat sheet of steps (to refresh his memory) which he performed flawlessly.

Before he left he stated the other local shops had him so confused on what to buy it made him angry. He liked my approach and would be back in two months.  He came back at the end of his trip and brought be a nice bottle of Scotch (single malt) as thanks. His wife was very happy with the sat shows which was the real reason for the Dish system.  Of course there were a few minor things that happened to the MH and could I see that they were fixed before their next trip?

Not everyone understands the nuts and bolts. Some just need to purchase and setup the "damm TV for my wife"

Cheers

NY_Dutch said:

The Tailgater only uses the Dish western arc satellites at 110, 119, and 129 degrees. It does not work with the eastern arc satellites at 61.6, 72.7, and 77 degrees. As long as you have a clear view in the correct SSW (about 214 degrees magnetic from Kansas City) direction with sufficient elevation, you'll get decent reception of the western sats. If you travel further east and want to view the local channels, you'll find a number of them are only on the eastern arc sats with more coming.

It takes a pretty heavy rain storm to knock out the signals from our full sized triple satellite tripod mounted dish.

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Thanks Dutch for the education.  I know you are right because I had to call Dish today when setting up at a new campground and they had me verify the 110, 119 and 129 Satellites being received.  Also good to know the degrees from KC as we are only a couple hundred miles south of there and I was told to point it SE but it eventually always seemed to wind up in the S or SW position (Tailgater).  Thanks again.    Bill

No problem, Bill, happy to help...

I picked KC as kind of a generic "central US".  ;D

NY_Dutch said:

No problem, Bill, happy to help...

I picked KC as kind of a generic "central US".  ;D

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An amusing end to my story.  We left our previous CG very early to get to the next one early as the ST Louis Cardinals were playing a 3 pm ballgame on MLB.  Got all set up in the new spot, called Dish as reported earlier and got the sat to work.  Clicked on MLB and got a notice that the station was blacked out in my area!  Oh was I mad.  So I called Dish back and told them my Pay As You Go covered MLB no matter where I was.  They said - You are in Missouri and the Cardinals want to fill their stadium so we have to black it out.  My reply was (as tempered as I could make it):  The game is in New York City!!! Not St Louis and besides, I am 250 miles away from St Louis.  Sorry she said, that's how it has to be and I hung up on them (steam coming from my ears).  Just for fun, a few minutes later I clicked on the MLB channel again and lo and behold the game was ON.  Funny how a squeaky wheel can get the grease the louder it squeaks.

Every time I sign up for Dish, it takes me being transferred four times to different departments so now I found out I can do it on line with no problem and no having to decypher foreign accents.

Leave it to the USAF guys to get something done! 

Old B-52 driver

It actually isn't Dish that determines which games are blacked out where, but the league itself. One way around it is to leave your service address at a previous non-blacked out location until the game is over. You can find out what is blacked out for your location on the Dish Game Finder page. This time, it looks like the league might have lifted the black out at the last minute if the game sold out.

NY_Dutch said:

It actually isn't Dish that determines which games are blacked out where, but the league itself. One way around it is to leave your service address at a previous non-blacked out location until the game is over. You can find out what is blacked out for your location on the Dish Game Finder page. This time, it looks like the league might have lifted the black out at the last minute if the game sold out.

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I pretty well agree with that Dutch but when it comes to Dish anything can happen.  It is positively the worst company I have ever had to deal with.  The league does not black out games in Missouri that are played in New York.  It is Dish that puts up the 'viewing of this channel is not authorized' notice.  This game was the first of a double header,single admission, make up for a rained out game.  The stands were near empty for this game so I doubt any blackout was lifted but Dish was in their usual fouled up mode.

Following all of this I had my last run in with them just yesterday when I had to make 5 attempts to stop my PayAsYouGo service (not get charged for another month) before I was successful.  Most maddening was calling in and told the wait was 10 minutes and asked if I wanted a callback when an agent was available.  I selected Yes and waited.  The callback came right on time and told me (in the exact same verbiage) that the wait time was 9 minutes and asked if I wanted to be called back at that time.  Once again, I selected Yes and the callback came at the predicted time and ONCE AGAIN it repeated the message that the wait time was 10 minutes....  This went  on for four cycles until I finally just let the phone stay open for 9 minutes and an agent answered.  I could not understand much of what he said but my wife who was also listening said it was pretty much gibberish.  He finally did cancel my PAYG but then tried selling me something that neither I or my wife could understand. Finally I had to just tell him thank you and hung up.  Then I receive an email from Dish telling me I am cancelled and that my account has been charged for the boxes necessary to return the equipment.  EXCEPT I own the receiver and Tailgater so this must have been a form reply.  I was only on Dish for 6 months when I cancelled home and internet service because of disputes.  I willingly paid a hefty early termination fee just to be rid of them and figured the PAYG could not be that bad.  It is and that's about all I can say.  Sorry for the rant.

Dish has contracts with the major sports leagues to rebroadcast their games. The leagues specify the conditions for blackouts that Dish must follow.

With PAYG, there's no need to call in to cancel, just don't pay the next month's bill. We did that off and on for a couple of years until we started using Dish year round. Sometimes they send a past due notice, but just ignore it. The majority of my contacts with Dish Customer Service are with their online chat service. There's no language or accent problems then, and I have a record of what was said by whom.

Dutch, I still believe this was Dish's  problem because quite a few other channels were also listed as "not authorized" but later came in clear as a bell.  I had forgotten the deal about how to stop PAYG and that, no doubt, caused part of my problem but what I did served to reinforce that dealing with Dish verbally is no fun.  I have used their Chat Service and this time they gave me a phone number and told me that I had to call billing as they could not help me.  I do know that a lot of the Chat services offered by different companies are actually contractors who operate as company representatives and handle the easy problems.  I found that out with Good Sam when one of the chat guys promised me something and later when talking on the phone to GS they told me that the Chat folks are not actually GS and can't make promises.  Oh well.  Problem solved and thanks for you information.

Well, it's certainly possible that there was some sort of technical glitch I suppose... Glad it worked out for anyway.