Automatic Dish?

There is only one choice and its the Winegard Pathway X 2.

It is the only one that gets both arcs.

Getting both arcs can mean the difference between getting a signal or not if you have interfering trees.

I am totally pleased with mine.

I was surprised the first time I hooked it up and turned on the 211 receiver; no searching for menus. The power on screen says "Portable automatic antenna detected."

Then you select your arc, where you are at and scan.

I used to use a 2 lnb dish with sat finder. Worked well, but was sometimes tricky to initially lock in. When I upgraded the tv to hd I got the Dish tailgater. It only gets western sats. I've used it from FL to northern Michigan, from western PA to Wyoming. The only 2 problems I've had are the smaller dish inside has a harder time finding sats with trees and brush; and as a channel surfer if I change from a channel on 1 sat to a channel on another sat the tailgator wants to rescan sometimes to get a better signal. A dish with 3lnb's would not do that, but would be trickier for the initial setup.

I'm heading to New England in May and will find out if it works there.

The Pathfinder X2 does get both eastern & western sats, but is bigger than the tailgator and will not fit in mystorage spot in my Class B.

We use a pathway X1 (western arc only) with no problems. I will be mounted to the roof soon. The pathway X2 can get the eastern arc but can't be mounted on the roof.
When in the northeast one of the western arc satellites is low in the sky so the trees might be more of a problem but that hasn't bothered us much. The VIP211 still works if it doesn't see all three satellites, you just might loose a station.

I have The tailgater for my dish and have been disappointed at the inability of the unit to access western arc sats as I travel the east coast...I would avoid the tailgater. I usually get two sats and not the third....this seems to be the consensus with the tailgater.

The current "pick of the litter" for Dish compatible portable domes is the Winegard Pathway X2 with both eastern and western arc capabilities. It only works with VIP series receivers, since the Hopper DVR series needs a different type of LNB set to support the multiple (4-18 including optional OTA) tuners.

Dishes are desigened for either eatern or western arcs... From what I understand, That said a western Arc Dish MAY work on both but you may loose a few channels.

Since I do not (At this time) have DishNetwork, I am not sure.

Domes: (And portables like the winegard Pathfinder X2) work very well with a single VIP-211 since it is a single channel device, but if you have two of them, or a multi-channel DVR. you have a problem.

Finally Mounted (roof top) or portable

If you park among trees a portable may be able to "Connect" when a roof top would be blocked.. but rooftops are easier to "Set up" (push a button and you are done)

My recommendation is one of each and a A(bove)/B(elow) switch.

We've been nationwide with ours and find the Western arc works out fine. We have a King Tailgater and have had good results. Something to keep in mind, if you store your rig plugged in, unplug the 211 as even when 'turned off', the dish is powered and will occasionally be heard running. Unnecessary wear and tear. I got the Tailgater with the intention of using it portable having had a rooftop manual dish on our previous coach. After a few months of dragging the dish around the campsite, I found, in my case, the extra 12' of elevation equaled the ability of moving the dish around on the ground to dodge obstacles and since reception was a wash either way, I ended up mounting it permanent on the roof.

quasi wrote:
We camp mostly in the midwest and southeast areas where trees are the norm, hence the portable. I plan on a ladder mount but keeping it re=locatable should the need arise. Just trying to determine if I need to use both eastern and western arc satellites since we'll be doing a lot more long distance camping.

Jim

based on our experiences you should be fine with western arc access.

We camp mostly in the midwest and southeast areas where trees are the norm, hence the portable. I plan on a ladder mount but keeping it re=locatable should the need arise. Just trying to determine if I need to use both eastern and western arc satellites since we'll be doing a lot more long distance camping.

Jim

quasi wrote:
I've decided I'm through with the meter and phone apps to point my dish and I'm going to get an automatic antenna. There's a bunch of possibilities but I have a question. How important is it to have the ability to use western arc satellites? That will trim the field down a little. I have a 211z for my trailer since Dish has decided not to offer anything for the Hoppers. Anything else I should be aware of?
TIA
Jim

we have a roof-mounted Winegard Trav'ler using a Dish 422 DVR receiver. love pushing a button and have the antenna do its thing automatically. we are set up for the western arc satellites and have had no trouble locking on anywhere we've been. we haven't been everywhere in the country mind you but we've been all over the west and to Florida and most of the SE with no problems. the biggest con are trees since you can't adjust the antenna as easily as you can with a portable.