Dish Tailgator hookup ?

What year model is your Montana? There are at least 3 different wiring configurations for the Montana coax over the last 15 years or so.

Go over to the Montana Owners Club (MOC) forum. You can find schematic diagrams of the different wiring configurations as a help with sorting it all out. Along with help from other Montana owners who have gone thru the same problem. A number of us have been there/done that.

The problem with most trailers is all the splitters and connections between the 'sat in' outside connection and your receiver box. These portable sat antennas need to have a good, uninterrupted cable run to the box. Many people just string a new straight-through line. I have a Winegard Pathway X2 and have the same situation.

I think that sometimes you can use your original set up if you pull off the outside panel, find the line going to your TV, detach it from any splitters and connect directly to the line running to your Tailgater.

On ours I connect the dish to the MH where the cable can be hooked. At the distribution box there is a splitter, power thru one leg and not the other. One side of the splitter goes to the cable in o The box and the other goes to the dish box. Out on the dish box goes to the Sat. In on the distribution box. The rear and outside TV have dish from the box but I also have hdml from the dish box to the front TV for HD. No HD in the other two TVs but it works for me.

Mine also doesn't work when connected to the rv's distribution box which switches between "cable", "satelllite", "roof antenna", etc. I wanted to run the "satellite" coax to the Dish receiver without going through that box.

I went to where various "in" and "out" cables are connected to the distribution box and unplugged the "satellite in" cable. I connected (using a short extension coax cable) the "satellite in" cable to the input of the Dish receiver. From the dish receiver, I could use either the HD output or the component output to connect to the television.

The Tailgater coax can now be plugged into the "satellite" input outside the rv, so you don't have to go through a window.

PS: the "satellite in" cable is disconnected from the Dish receiver for travel. My "roof antenna" cable is also disconnected (from my converter box). To keep things straight, I use colored tapes on the cables (blue for one, green for the other) and put matching color tape next to the receiver and converter box inputs.