Forum Discussion

srd1941's avatar
srd1941
Explorer
Jun 06, 2022

Power Insertr

I have a question about a power inserter for TV. I have two different TV antennas, a Winegard G3 for when I am on the road and a standard Direct TV satellite dish mounted on my RV port at home. When my home Direct TV antenna was installed I was told I needed a power inserter so I purchased an AT&T PI1RI-03 inserter from Amazon and installed it between the satellite dish and the receiver. I later purchased a Winegard G3 and it came with its own inserter. I know that the Winegard inserter sends power to the G3 to search for sattelites. Isn’t that all that a power inserter does is send power back to whichever antenna it is hooked to or do different inserters have different functions. The reason I’m asking is that I have the AT&T inserter mounted permanently on the wall of my RV and whenever I take the RV out I uninstall the receiver from the AT&T inserter and install the Winegard inserter for the G3 antenna and then reinstall the AT&T inserter when I get back home. I sent an email to Winegard but I’m not sure I worded my question well enough. This is the answer I received from Winegard:
You cannot use the DirecTV power inserter in place of the power inserter for the Carryout G3.
The power inserter you have at home is to provide your receiver signal, the power inserter for the Carryout G3 makes the system search for signal etc.
So back to my question, do different power inserters have different functions so they only work on specific antennas or do they just supply voltage where needed and the antenna decides what to use it for. It would be convenient to just leave one hooked up all the time and not have to change back and forth. Thank you
Stan
  • The power inserter for your home dish powers the LNB and any associated switches you may have. The power inserter for the G3 has to supply power to the internal drive motor(s) and electronics including the LNB. The two inserters likely have different output current capacities as well as possibly different output voltages.
  • The power requirements are different. Different ones are required. That's also necessary because the satellite TV circuit and the OTA TV circuit are completely separate and run through different coax and routing.
  • wa8yxm's avatar
    wa8yxm
    Explorer III
    Very good chance the voltages are different.. The mobile one is likely battery voltage (13.6) and the home one more likely 18/36

About RV Must Haves

Have a product you cannot live without? Share it with the community!8,793 PostsLatest Activity: Aug 22, 2023