Setting up Dish Tailgater and Receiver

k1hog wrote:
I have never been concerned which way the dish qube was facing, and it allways works, mybe I should start being mindfull of the position.

Johnnie

The tech told me it is not super critical it be exact North pointing. The handle aimed generally north is ok. I do a general pointing of the direction I know the satellites using a cheap azimouth compass are and then point the handle 180 deg away from that.

Honestly I haven't checked to see if the receiver is warm or not. I'll do that this weekend. I now point the handle of the tailgater opposite of S.W. I get faster acquisition than pointing the handle due North.

I have never been concerned which way the dish qube was facing, and it allways works, mybe I should start being mindfull of the position.

Johnnie

One hint in setting up the Tailgater, in our instructions at least there was no mention of making sure the handle of the unit was pointed NORTH. This is a must due in order for the system to properly lock on to the satellite.

Like others said, go ahead and try it. If it doesn't work you know what you need to do.

Mine gets very warm. After the rain stotm here in the nw ours quit working, total signal loss. After I chatted with dish on line they came to the conclusion I had to take it to the dealer for repair. I remembered hearing about the original cable that came with the system and that it was poor quality. I had bought a new cable last year, so after being told I had to take it in for repairs I replaced the original cable and now it works like new. Kinda irritating for the tech to take the easy way out and pass the problem on to someone who talks English.
So here we sit in Langley, BC watching our favorite programs from back home in Portland, OR. All on our tailgator that needs to go in to the shop for repairs. Go figure.

I purchased one from Camping World.

I didn't have to do this, mine just worked. I've heard about this problem though, in the context of buying one from an aftermarket seller (even Amazon), instead of buying directly from Dish.

Uni505, is correct. The steps he used worked for me as well.

Johnnie

Unit505 wrote:
I had to hook my receiver to the house dish to get the latest download. It was the only way. The software from the factory was outdated so the tailgater would not work without the latest download. Took about 20 minutes for the vip211z to download the new software with the house dish. It completed and I plugged in my tailgater and it worked. Without the latest download, the tailgater may not aquire signal to update the receiver software. This is also why they say to let the receiver stay connected to maintain it's regular software updates.

Does your receiver get super hot when left connected all the time. Dish told me that's normal for them?