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Lucky9152's avatar
Lucky9152
Explorer
Aug 05, 2013

Need help with sattelite.

First off I wanna say I have never owned a travel trailer before.
I recently had a major house fire so I am living in a travel trailer on my property until house is repaired. My question is how can I hook my home direct dish to my travel trailer.
I have the directv slimline dish that uses the swm system that was for my home and would like to know if there is a way to use that dish in travel trailer. This is a rental so I can't drill any holes to run new lines.
It is a wildwood by forest river. It has two hookups on outside. One says cable and one says satellite. I have two tvs and two receivers I want to use. I have no idea where to even start as far as hooking this up. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

7 Replies

  • Thank you for all of your help. Per your advice I got it all up and running
  • Lucky9152 wrote:
    The dish that is on the roof of my house is still usable and the swm switch box is still good. The receivers were toast but directv sent me two new HD receivers. So I should be able to connect the swm switch box to the wall plate where the main tv is and connect the 2nd receiver to the wall plate in bedroom.

    As far as the outside connection on the outside of my house the cable comes down from the dish and connects to a swm 4-way splitter. Can I connect a cable from one of the outlets on the splitter to the outside sat connection?


    Yes. One of the cables needs to connect to the output from the 4-way marked with a red dot. The power inserter inside your RV will need to be connected to this coax. The second coax coming out of the splitter will go to your 2nd receiver. Be sure to pull the power inserter from the house or get a new PI21 (not a PI28/29) for use in the RV.
  • Under the circumstances, I suspect the DirectTV folks will hook you up if you have been a long time customer. Call them and see.
  • Yes but I believe your swm splitter has to have a power source.
    I don't believe you will be able to use second receiver in bedroom if you are using internal coax wiring in the rv. The coax has to be straight shot from swm splitter to receiver with no splitters in between. You would be better off running coax through Window to second receiver. The onlyrv wiring that will work is the satellite prep connection on the outside that usually goes to main living room TV (if your rv is equipped with satellite prep. If not you are best just running through windows or slide seal areas.
  • The dish that is on the roof of my house is still usable and the swm switch box is still good. The receivers were toast but directv sent me two new HD receivers. So I should be able to connect the swm switch box to the wall plate where the main tv is and connect the 2nd receiver to the wall plate in bedroom.

    As far as the outside connection on the outside of my house the cable comes down from the dish and connects to a swm 4-way splitter. Can I connect a cable from one of the outlets on the splitter to the outside sat connection?
  • You can do the exact same thing if what you have is a tripod mounted SWM antenna. You will need to run one coax cable to each receiver. One can be connected to the trailer port that says Satellite and you will find the other end of that cable somewhere near the main TV either a loose cable or a wall plate with a satellite label. The other coax will need to run directly to the location of the 2nd receiver and this might mean running it through a window or maybe you can get creative access through and outside compartment.
    You will install a SWM specific splitter at the antenna so you can run 2 separate cables in different directions and then connect the Power Inserter inside to the coach ahead of the receiver that is connected to the one special port on that splitter marked with a red dot.
    Once everything is properly connected you can point the tripod antenna (or use the house antenna as suggested) and watch yourself some dang TV!
  • Is your dish on the house still use able? Is swm switch box in your house still usable? Do you still have a receiver?
    If yes to all 3, move a receiver and swm switch to your trailer and run a cable from your house dish. Should be no problem.

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