Direct TV

jerseyjim wrote:
I have DirecTV in my house. 2 TVs, 2 receivers. The living room is HD, the bedroom is SD.
When going on, say a snowbird run, I take the bedroom box(SD) and put it in the motorhome. My set-up is basic...tripod, dish, strength meter and compass.
I get the coordinates from the DirecTV website.
Seeing mine is a basic...I don't set it up until I'm at my destination. Most cgs have cable, anyway. My setup can take 10-20 minits,depending.
I tell DirecTV nothing....just pay the bill on time. Local channels thru the Batwing...all goes into a passive junction (switch) box. Small TVs (19" or less) don't really need HD anyway.
I do not have, or need, any extra "feeds" ($) like East Coast or West Coast.

I did exactly the same thing for 3 years until I ditched DTV and went with the free over the air signal.

Dish Network just came out to the state park and upgraded me to a new Hopper3 DVR receiver and Hybrid LNB at no cost. Can now record 16 programs at one time but not likely to do so. Nothing was ever said about being in RV.

jnharley wrote:
We upgraded to the Genie last year. DirecTv would not send us the equipment to install ourselves and insisted on sending a tech out. No problems at all. The installer was well versed in installing in a RV. Basically all he had to do was unplug the old equipment and plug in the new Genie system. We are full timers and our service address is SD but the install was done in MS.

X3
Direct TV did our install too. 3 Genie boxes, 1 DVR to 4 TV's. Knew exactly what he was doing. All for free! Couldn't argue, I've got other things to do! Time to call back & reschedule with a different installer.

We upgraded to the Genie last year. DirecTv would not send us the equipment to install ourselves and insisted on sending a tech out. No problems at all. The installer was well versed in installing in a RV. Basically all he had to do was unplug the old equipment and plug in the new Genie system. We are full timers and our service address is SD but the install was done in MS.

randy328 wrote:
DirecTV installed a new receiver in my new trailer just last month. I told the customer service rep just to send the receiver out and I would install it, she said an installer had to do it for "liability" reasons. They did not charge me for the install. Took the installer less than 10 minutes total.

Randy, that is exactly what the rep told me when I ordered the equipment! However, the tech refused to "install" it and would not just give me the equipment!

DirecTV installed a new receiver in my new trailer just last month. I told the customer service rep just to send the receiver out and I would install it, she said an installer had to do it for "liability" reasons. They did not charge me for the install. Took the installer less than 10 minutes total.

We live in Florida and use Sats2Go in Willis TX (near Houston). We travel full time and stop there for satellite stuff. He is the RV satellite "guru" and he does excellent work for fair price. www.sats2go.com
DirecTV does not do RV installs because many of their installers don't have the expertise to understand the wiring. When you find an RV Satellite installer they will get Directv to send them the receiver and will install it for you.

I picked up a portable SAT DISH for DIRECTV with a two port head and I would bring along the SAT RCVR that was in our two bedrooms.

Sometimes I would have to reset my service by calling DIRECTV and they would reset it just fine. I guess when I unplugged my older SAT RCVR it would lose it chip setting.

I ran two RG cables from the two heads of the SAT DISh with one going to the living room area of the Rv and the other one going to the bedroom tv.

After hooking up the SAT RCVR I would use the VIDEO out of the SAT RCVR and feed the video input on the TV set. This way I could use OTA-CABLE-SAT by just switching the remote setting...

Never had any problems with DIRECTV doing this. i would however lose my LOACL TV stations when I moved outside my ZIP CODE area.

I did this until NATL TV came out with digital HDTV a few years back and then just stopped bring along my DIRECTV stuff with us. The OTA TV signal were all in HIGH DEF HDTV mode so this was a much better signal then coming from the standard DIRECTV signals. OTA HDTV is free to the public of course. My BATWING OTA antenna with the dipoles works great for us pointing at the local towns that transmit OTA HDTV signals.

The newer SAT TV setups for RVs today appears to be alot different than back in the old days. Probably way to expensive for me to try to use them...

My SAT TV story...

Roy Ken

You can hire a independent contractor to do the install for you. They do the work and DTV supplies the equipment.

But it's not rocket science so do the installation yourself. We've always had DVRs starting with Tivo and now the Genie system.

Since you're FT perhaps you would want the better quality HD. That starts with the TVs - do you have HD TVs? We really like the HR44 because it can record 5 channels and if we're in the trees just watch recorded shows. Plus we time shift and rarely watch live shows rather just skip the ads.

The Genie is great because all you need is a coax to the second (bedroom) or third receiver (outside) and the Genie Client box. Or they have a wireless equivalent but check the installation for distance limits with other WiFi. The HR44 is SWM only and you must have a SWM dish. Automatic dishes are expensive of course while the portable SWM dish can have 150' of coax.

Do some research on who can do the installation for you if you choose not to do it yourself. Since you are going to FT you can go to them.

There is a article suggesting SD will end in 2019 so consider that.

I bought and installed the Trav'ler roof antennae fairly easily. I upgraded my home Directv with the Genie Wireless system and take it to the trailer for trips. Nice system. Now all TV's can watch different programs. Love it.