Dish TV

After years of manually aiming a tripod setup, I broke down and bought a Carryout GM1518 when I pulled into a campsite and my neighbor was selling his. He pulled out the next day before I had a chance to test it out. It didn't work and I started troubleshooting it via email with Winegard. Another camper who saw me with the cover off and fussing with it came over and said he had one but could never get it working and would almost give it away! Long story short, I ended with with two Carryout GM1518 Winegard dishes. The second one worked after flipping the switches so it would find the western arc. The results of troubleshooting the first one confirmed it had failed. After much trepidation, I shipped it off to Winegard where they actually replaced a couple of small parts on one of the boards to fix it. The repair wasn't nearly as bad as I had feared. (who does board level repair these days?) Afterwards, I had two working portables. I was going to sell one but then got to thinking about mounting one permanently on the roof for ease of use and keeping the other one for those numerous occasions we were assigned a site under the trees. That's what I've done for the past several years. Out west, there's no problem with trees obstructing the roof mounted dish but around home there's lots of trees. We're headed to Florida this winter and packing the extra dish - just in case while hoping we can get by with the roof mounted one. Like you, I don't like leaving something that expensive out all night when bicycles regularly disappear when left out. I do carry a long cable and big lock to secure the portable when I do leave it out. (chains are too easily cut with bolt cutters)