I have been looking at all the different satellite dishes available.Can anyone suggest what to get for a first timer? All I want is something simple. I have dish net at home if that helps in choosing.Thanks,

wal mart sells a 211 receiver and automatic dish for about $452.bumpy

Simplest and cheapest is a basic tripod mounted dish, 1000.2 or 1000.4. But they can sometimes be a pain to get correctly aimed to receive all satellites.Easiest to set up is one of the automatic satellite dishes such as the Tailgater. But it is more expensive and only works with certain receivers such as the vip211k, vip211z, or a couple others. And some have reported having problems with their Tailgaters. Ours has generally worked fine so far.There is at least one other auto sat dish but it is even more expensive.You can add the RV to the home account for $7/mo.

We have a tailgater with Directv now and it fine...we usually sit it on the roof to keep it out of the way. I have been looking at a dish from Winegard that combines the off air tv ant with your dish...If it will fit into the hole that the current TV ant is in we might go for that as an alternate when we are not covered by trees and need to use the portable dish...its about $250.

We have a Winegard Carry out. We use a Direct TV receiver from the house. The Carry out can be used with either satellite company by changing the dip switches in the dome.It is easy to set up. I would be frustrated if I would be trying to use an adjustable model.

I use the Winegard Anser, whichis "semi automatic". You only need to set the elevation (simple) and the unit finds the satellite. I chose this because it lets me use my dish dvr from home, and is capable of watching a different channel on each tv.

satellite dish for camping | Good Sam Community

Merrykalia
Explorer
Feb 06, 2014
robsouth wrote:
I got my dish (Direct TV) at a yard sale for $5.00. Made a stand out of PVC for about $8.00. Take a receiver from home and voila..Satellite TV on the road. Basic service, but who cares, I'm camping not sitting in the house watching TV all the time.

We did basically the same thing, but we had a friend that had a rental house. The previous tenants put in Directv, but moved out. The owner called Directv and told them to come and get the dish. It's still there, so he calls me 13 months later and tells me to come and get it. I was there the next day and took it down. We had already made a PVC holder with a compass mounted on it as well as a level.

All in, about $15.00. We have 3 different receivers at home, so we have one that is designated for the RV during the spring, summer and fall and the daughters' play room during the winter months.
robsouth
Explorer II
Feb 06, 2014
I got my dish (Direct TV) at a yard sale for $5.00. Made a stand out of PVC for about $8.00. Take a receiver from home and voila..Satellite TV on the road. Basic service, but who cares, I'm camping not sitting in the house watching TV all the time.
Dutch_12078
Explorer II
Feb 06, 2014
The entire basic Dish satellite system for our motorhome cost a bit less than $250, including the receiver and tripod mounted manually aimed dish. A typical complete setup takes me about 15 minutes and we receive all three satellites with no need to move anything.
2112
Explorer II
Feb 06, 2014
We use the little manual MP1 and take our Dish Network
receiver from the house. Point to 129 for HD and 119 for our local channels. The dish was $160 and I pay nothing extra for the service.
Ponderosa
Explorer
Feb 05, 2014
I recently set one up. It is the Dish 1000.2 that gets all the channels. I am using it with a Hopper and/or a 211k in the RV. I have tripod that I use to use on a smaller dish and it was wobbly and unstable. So I got an adapter that fits a CST/Berger survey tripod. It is rock solid, very stable and steady and that makes it easy to find the sats. It also can be used on uneven ground. Only takes a couple minutes to set it up. The adapter (or the whole thing) is sold by www.tv4rv.com.
parrothead48
Explorer
Feb 05, 2014
We have the Dish tailgater and love it. Portable and set up is easy.
1492
Moderator
Feb 05, 2014
Moved from Forum Technical Support
DutchmenSport
Explorer
Feb 05, 2014
The service technicians that set up our DISH at the house sold us a second "dish" and tripod. I learned how to set it up, marked the post, and use a compass to get everything lined up with magnetic north. Set up is relatively easy after you set it up the first time and make your base-line "tick" marks on everything. We use one of the receivers from the house. The "dish" on the house and the "dish" in the trailer are identical.
RoyB
Explorer II
Feb 05, 2014
When I was doing it I used a two port ROUND DISH for DIRECTV (You would need one for the DISH Network).

Then I run a RG cable from each of the two ports on the SAT DISH to two SAT RCVRs I brought with me from my house.

One SAT RCVR is in the living room TV area and the other SAT RCVR is in the Bedroom Area.

Then I run VIDEO CABLEs from each SAT RCVR to the VIDEO INPUT on each TV in the trailer.

This way I can select either SAT TV or regular CABLE/OTA TV by using the TV REMOTE...

Worked great for a few years but when the NATIONAL BROADCAST came out with their digital TV signals from the local towns I stopped bringing along the SAT TV stuff... We now watch full blown high def digital TV for the NATIONAL BROADCAST TV channels coming from the local towns where we are camping using the OTA BATWING antenna on the trailer. HDTV is free to the public and is easy on the eyes...

Roy Ken
brirene
Explorer
Feb 05, 2014
I use the Winegard Anser, whichis "semi automatic". You only need to set the elevation (simple) and the unit finds the satellite. I chose this because it lets me use my dish dvr from home, and is capable of watching a different channel on each tv.