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Best Direct TV receiver for Travel Trailer

7K views 22 replies 12 participants last post by  carl6 
With regard to local channels, there are a couple of options to consider. One would be to get a separate RV account for your travel trailer. If you are going to be doing a lot of traveling, that may be worth consideration, and would allow you to get either the east or west coast DNS (distant network service) - major network stations.

Another option would be to use an HD receiver and pair an AM21 OTA receiver with it. That way you could always get the nearby local stations using OTA rather than satellite. This would require you to set up a slimline dish though, which is more difficult than the 18" round dish.
 
ctbay said:
You guys are so far over my head! I guess in time I will learn directv like I knew Dishnetwork.
With the old style single lnb and a d12 receiver I should be able to get all programing with the exception of the locals. That would put me trying to aim the dish at 101 sat. I am familiar with the 110 sat on dish. With the directv dish would the receiver show programming for 110? How hard is it to aim the dish for 101? I thought the directv sat were only 99 101 and 103.
Like I said I am really new at this since I've had dish for the past 12 years or so. I really don't care about the hd or the locals. I only camp 5 or 6 times a year for a few days and I am only 10 miles or so from home.
Ten miles from home you will get your locals, no problem (maybe, see below).

The only satellite you need to worry about with a D12 receiver is the 101, all SD programming comes from that satellite. You can receive that using the 18" round dish. BUT - there is one possible gotcha. What is your zip code, or the name of the town you are in? Some local channels do not come on the 101, so it is still possible you might not get your local channels via satellite. Your comment about only wanting SD but getting H25 receivers suggests you might be in one of those markets.

If you can set up a tv with rabbit ears at your camping location and get local stations, that could also solve your local station problem (and still use satellite for all the other channels). That may very well be possible as close as you are to your home.

As to aiming the dish, start out at your house, in your yard or driveway where you can practice. You can get aiming information at www.dishpointer.com Once you are comfortable with it, it is very easy and easily repeated.
 
makaiguy said:
Many older low-end tv's have only a single antenna/cable input. Early basic D* boxes included a built-in RF modulator to output your satellite programming to channel 3 or 4 so that you could view it on such tvs. When not watching satellite programming, you could switch the box to just pass any cable or antenna signal you connected to the "Off Air In" jack through to the tv.
Correct, except the box automatically did that switching. When the sat receiver was on, the signal to the TV was the modulated output of the sat receiver. When the sat receiver was off, the signal to the TV was whatever was connected to the off-air input. That input was just passed directly through to the TV.
 
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