By far the biggest downside with the domes like our Pathway X2 given the Hopper lets you record multiple shows at once but with the Pathway you can only record a single show at a time.The auto aiming "dome" style dishes do not work with the Hopper series receivers.
Yes, with your X2, you have the best "dome" available since it can use either arc satellites and has a larger dish than most. And yes, we've also seen numerous times when roof mounted dishes failed to get a signal. Sometimes they give up and sometimes they drag out either a portable "dome" or a tripod mounted dish similar to ours. In the 14 years we've been using our portable tripod dish, we've never landed on a sight where I couldn't get a signal from one arc or the other. And I almost never choose sites for their satellite view. The longest coax run I've used so far was 300 feet with the dish set up on top of a berm behind our site. The photo below is a 200 foot run. Bragging rights to anyone that can name the Florida park where this was taken. Hint: It's a state park that isn't called a state park.By far the biggest downside with the domes like our Pathway X2 given the Hopper lets you record multiple shows at once but with the Pathway you can only record a single show at a time.
While this can be frustrating at times more often than not I have a hard enough time finding ONE show to watch! Given we never watch anything "live" I'll go through the guide on any given day and pick things to record that we can watch later. If all else fails, there's always oldies like Gunsmoke.
Otherwise despite a few quirks it's served us pretty well going into our 4th year with it and we've never been at a site where we couldn't position the dome to get at least some satellites. Had to go out over 150 feet at one park in Texas.
We've met a number of campers with big rigs and roof mounted sat antennas that couldn't get a signal given their fixed location. Even if we had that kind of setup I'd want a portable as well given the number of times that happens.
Yep, good point. Tripod that you can use to level the dish is almost a necessity IMO. At least in the vast majority of sites we've stayed at.We had Dish using a portable Pathways II antenna for 3+ years with our travel trailer. Worked great. We ended up getting a tripod to put it on to get better angles in the hilly country we were in frequently.