[Al Fischer]

About 20 years ago we bought a piece of property for a new home in the foothills ease of Fresno,Ca. Put our old tired motorome on it and proceeded to build. As soon as we got power I brought a TV in and cranked up the OTA antenna. NADA! Hmmm, No signal. Wend downtown and bought a Sony D* receiver with antenna. Clamped the dish on the front bumper, read the instructions and installed it. HEY! TV! Finished the house and mounted the dish and have been watching it now for about 20 years.

About a month ago I was surfing through what was on and didn't want to be preached at or buy some junk or watch another news program. I decided that night that maybe it was time to join the 21 century. Well, we get snail-mail spam of really good offers almost every other day about Satellite TV offers that were beginning to sound good. Started to Google to get a bit knowledgeable and ran into this forum. LOTS of good info, but still confused (not as much as a month ago, but confused).

Here is what I THINK I would like. HD on the 50" Sony in the family room, HD on the 32" Samsung in the BR, SD in the wife's 'office'. and SD in the guest BR. Probably a DVR in the Family room. The BR would be a separate receiver that could be removed and placed in the RV when we travel.

So I sent and email to D* and after paying monthly for 20 years, they only wanted to sell me something with little discount. So I will probably move to E*.

Looks like the Hopper setup is really neat, but it would eliminate being able to put another receiver in the BR to also us in the RV.

Read many posts about problems with CSRs, misunderstandings and what sounds sometimes like fraud. (I also understand that most folks have never read their contract, just signed it. I went into the showroom of a local dealer and got really good treatment. I will be giving him my business.

One big factor is the Winegard crank-up antenna on the RV. I understand the limitations of 1 LNB and am prepared to re-aim when wife wants a show on a different Bird! What I don't know is if it will work with E*. Winegard says it will work with Dish, DTV and somebody I never heard of. I just about refuse to change it and don't want any part of the Tailgater as I don't want to tote around any more stuff that I do now. Also theft could be a factor, especially when not in a formal RV park.

My internet access is not suitable for anything related with video and I am limited to 5GB with Verizon. No DSL, Comcast, and hills that can bring my downloads to 12kb. KB! not mb. Even the landline is marginal and many times dial up won't even connect. (the price you pay to live where you want)

Sooo, what do you recommend? The dealer showed me an impressive receiver with DVR (not sure of model) that probably can do more that I need and a 211K for the BR and camper, but he didn't know about using it with the Winegard. Looks like the 250 channel package is what we want.

Also, what is the problem with a DVR in an RV? I understand hard drives quite well, and have had no problems carrying 2 laptops when we travel. When a drive is not running, the heads are parked and can withstand quite a bit of vibration. I spent 37 years working in IT and aside from manufacturing problems drives have been quit reliable.

 

[jsk]

Your options:
* Get a hopper and 3 Joeys - You will have HD & DVR available to every TV
* Get a 722K - You will have HD in your Family Room and split the other output to your other TVs. You will have to have SD in your BR and you would only be able to watch two independent shows (live or DVR) between all of the TVs in your house (but that might be OK if it is just you and your wife). This is the cheapest option
* Get a 722K for your family room and the second output would go to your guest room. Get a 722K for your Bedroom and the second output would go to your office. You would not be able to share DVR programs between the two 722Ks.

Go to http://www.dish.com/dishdeals/ to look at different configurations and the prices. You won't see the option of splitting the second output of the 722K, but you can do it (just count the 722K as serving 1 HD TV and 1 SD TV).

You could also take any of the receivers in your RV, but I would get a Western Arc dish or at least a Dish 500. It would be a pain to re-aim the dish a million times.

 

[jsk]

One more thing. Dish offers satellite Internet service bundles for those who can't get other service. It is slower and you have a bandwidth limit. It was WildBlue, but now it looks like they changed their name to Excede Broadband.

 

[Al Fischer]

Well, the Hopper (while it certainly looks great) would mean I can't have another receiver on the same account. I am not about to pay for two packages just to use it in my RV. The 722 does look good and I think it is what the dealer was offering for the main TV.

I really have no problems reaiming the dish for a different bird as it is done easily from inside the RV. Have used a tripod and hated it. Besides one more thing to tote around and it needed a weight due to the wind blowing it over. (didn't take much wind)

So will a 222k work with the LNB from my RM-DM46 Winegard? I don't relish the idea of climbing up on the roof to mount another dish. I am in the mode of staying off ladders and roofs at this point in my life! I think the LNB is compatible (Winegard says compatible with D* and E*) but will a 222k be able to deal with only having one LNB attached?

 

[PokerJoker]

Also, what is the problem with a DVR in an RV? I understand hard drives quite well, and have had no problems carrying 2 laptops when we travel. When a drive is not running, the heads are parked and can withstand quite a bit of vibration. I spent 37 years working in IT and aside from manufacturing problems drives have been quit reliable.

The problem is that the hard drive in a DVR is ALWAYS running unless you actually unplug it or otherwise kill the power to it. With many motor homes this won't be an issue since they don't maintain 120v power while traveling, but many RVs have onboard inverters that keep the outlets going, and some folks even run their generators while moving.

I've had one DVR hard drive die because of this, so it's not just a theory.

Keith

 

[Al Fischer]

That is true. I guess I should have stated that the power would never be on when the RV was moving. Actually I am hesitant to even move my laptops when powered up and running. One of them has a sensor that parks the drives when feeling a shock or vibration.

What we normally do when RVing is place the home receiver in it's place and raise the antenna when we get where we are going. Can't run all the time on an inverter due to battery life. Of course, when in an RV park we have power, so no problem.