Hi there everyone, DW and I live full time in our RV. We have a home base in Sacramento area, but we travel frequently, and sometimes we want to watch TV when we are staying at a camp ground. We've found that DirecTv and Uverse DVR's don't work when we are on the road. For DirecTv, I found that setting up the tripod Satellite dish a pain to set up when we are on the road. The dome on our 2003 Allegro bus no longer functions. We are able to watch OTA when we are at Campgrounds, but sometimes we stay places that don't have any OTA service and no cable. We had DISH years ago when we lived in a house, but had not tried them yet. We'd welcome your thoughts on what equipment configuration and subscription has worked the best for you when being on the road. Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this subject. Safe TravelsEric and Carol

DISH Network. 3-yrs in and very happy with our choice.

We have had Dish at home and the RV for many years. Very happy with both. A number of automatic satellite antennas available with Dish.

For "some time" TV watching, I'd recommend a Pathway X2 with a Wally receiver. You can turn a Wally into a limited DVR by connecting it to a hard drive.For more TV options as a full timer, I'd suggest a Winegard DISH Travler rooftop automatic dish with a Hopper 3 DVR.There are several programming options from DISH. Depends on your needs.

Was a long time DTV viewer. Switched to Dish for the HD portables. Mostly happy. Love the RV part of Dish but the home version is just okay. I hate the home versions software or whatever runs the system. Too much lag time when doing some viewing changes.Out in the RV it's great since our X2 and 211 work fine together. I did add a hard drive for recording and pausing and that too works fine. Picture is great and setup is easy. I also installed the Dish Pointer Pro app for my phone. Helps when setting up in areas with trees.

There are thousands of posts of DTV vs Dish and it's like a girlfriend - everyone has their favorite. We use DTV with a HR44 receiver that we use at home and move it to the RV when traveling. Works great as all of the recordings are available. We have the RF Mogul dish which is field serviceable unlike Winegard. BTW it sounds like you mostly stay within the DTV SF/Sac spot beam so less local changes.

Best satellite option for full timing | Good Sam Community

Second_Chance
Explorer II
May 20, 2019
TechWriter wrote:
For "some time" TV watching, I'd recommend a Pathway X2 with a Wally receiver. You can turn a Wally into a limited DVR by connecting it to a hard drive.

For more TV options as a full timer, I'd suggest a Winegard DISH Travler rooftop automatic dish with a Hopper 3 DVR.

There are several programming options from DISH. Depends on your needs.

This is good advice - unless you are going to spend time in both the east and the west. The Trav'ler is a Western (or at least single) arc antenna, only. It will, however, pick up all three satellites on an arc at one time (it's a 3 LNB antenna). The Pathway X2 will pick up either the eastern or western Dish Network satellite arcs - but just one satellite at a time (single LNB antenna). We have been quite happy for four years with a Wally (preceded by its 211Z predecessor) with a hard drive for DVR use and a Pathway X2 antenna. The new Dish phone app makes it very easy to change our location to pick up HD locals via satellite (for recording, too!).

Rob

PS: if you use the search function on the forum, you will find dozens of threads on this topic.
TechWriter
Explorer
May 20, 2019
valhalla360 wrote:
Unlimited cellular internet.

Like OP we full time. Even with our unlimited AT&T, Verizon, and HughesNET Gen 5 sat Internet, I wouldn't want to give up DISH.

Cellular ain't everywhere -- in 3 of our last 11 South West campgrounds it was sat Internet only.
valhalla360
Navigator
May 20, 2019
TechWriter wrote:
valhalla360 wrote:
Unlimited cellular internet.

Like OP we full time. Even with our unlimited AT&T, Verizon, and HughesNET Gen 5 sat Internet, I wouldn't want to give up DISH.

Cellular ain't everywhere -- in 3 of our last 11 South West campgrounds it was sat Internet only.

We use it full time and while it's not everywhere it's in the vast majority of places...by the way, can't get satellite everywhere either. If the site doesn't have a clear shot to the right part of the sky, guess what, no TV. On the whole, we had blocked satellite more than we had no cell signal.

Gave up on Satellite a couple years back.

PS: We need cellular data anyway, so it's a pretty small cost to upgrade to unlimited compared to committing to a long term satellite contract.
2oldman
Explorer II
May 20, 2019
Setting up a DTV dish on a tripod was only a pain the first 10 times.
TechWriter
Explorer
May 20, 2019
valhalla360 wrote:
Gave up on Satellite a couple years back.

Sounds like you had a pre-Gen 5 sat setup.

valhalla360 wrote:
We need cellular data anyway, so it's a pretty small cost to upgrade to unlimited compared to committing to a long term satellite contract.

If there's no cell service, then there's no limited or unlimited.

Just finished camping in the mountains near Yosemite, nada cell service. Streamed Game of Thrones finale on my Gen 5. Raining, heavy overcast, next site camper parked in front of my dish. Worked like a charm.

I was skeptical of sat service until I needed it.
DarkSkySeeker
Explorer
May 20, 2019
trb46 wrote:
...when we’re out we use Dish with the King Tailgater with the 211Z receiver. We use the basic Dish for RV package...

Me too.
Dutch_12078
Explorer II
May 22, 2019
Bill.Satellite wrote:
DISH uses 2 sets of 3 satellites. One set located in the far East and one set in the far west. A dome will work with DISH and if you ensure you select the correct dome you can change some settings in the dome (ladder and roof work required) to change between the 2 sets.

Bill, you haven't been keeping up I guess... The Winegard Pathway X2 does not require any changes at the dish to switch arcs, just a menu selection.
valhalla360
Navigator
May 22, 2019
TechWriter wrote:
valhalla360 wrote:
Gave up on Satellite a couple years back.

Sounds like you had a pre-Gen 5 sat setup.

valhalla360 wrote:
We need cellular data anyway, so it's a pretty small cost to upgrade to unlimited compared to committing to a long term satellite contract.

If there's no cell service, then there's no limited or unlimited.

Just finished camping in the mountains near Yosemite, nada cell service. Streamed Game of Thrones finale on my Gen 5. Raining, heavy overcast, next site camper parked in front of my dish. Worked like a charm.

I was skeptical of sat service until I needed it.

Not sure which generation we had...no issues setting it up. Just for the cost, it didn't make sense when cell works at least as well.

If you had read my last post, sure, you can find remote areas without cell service but far more common is a nicely wooded site where cell works fine but we couldn't get a clear view of the sky.
Bill_Satellite
Explorer II
May 22, 2019
Dutch_12078 wrote:
Bill.Satellite wrote:
DISH uses 2 sets of 3 satellites. One set located in the far East and one set in the far west. A dome will work with DISH and if you ensure you select the correct dome you can change some settings in the dome (ladder and roof work required) to change between the 2 sets.

Bill, you haven't been keeping up I guess... The Winegard Pathway X2 does not require any changes at the dish to switch arcs, just a menu selection.

As I am sure you are aware, I was not talking specifically about the Pathway X2 but domes in general. Enjoy this unnecessary stab though.

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