Upgraded from 18" to 24". WOW!

Not surprising in B C. I use that size dish in GA so I rarely have rain fade.

It wasn't that many years ago that upgrading the actual television from 18" to 24" was a big deal. Televisions, satellite dishes and bank accounts are things where bigger is better.

Just a few years ago I couldn't afford an 18 inch TV.

Are you using Shaw Direct? We currently have Bell at home but are considering the switch so that we can use it in the RV without any issues.

blofgren wrote:
Are you using Shaw Direct? We currently have Bell at home but are considering the switch so that we can use it in the RV without any issues.

Here's the story in a nutshell:

We have Telus sat. service which uses a Bell 82 or 91 satellite. We only use 82 which is the high def. sat. and our dish only has one eye that will catch either sat signal depending on the elevation and azimuth angles I aim for. Standard def. doesn't have many stations/shows on Bell that we care about so we only want sat. 82 which is a few degrees lower and to the left of 91.

We had an extra PVR in the house and just moved it into the trailer (we're allowed 6 max. in the house). As I've now learned, an LNB doesn't care which sat. service you are using so you don't need a dish specific to Shaw, Telus or other provider. The new dish I got is Ariza and have never heard of them. One thing to know is the Bell sat. has a signal foot print that cuts off at around 200-300 miles south of the border. Don't know about other sat. providers.

Conceptually, the principle of installing sat. TV in an RV is pretty simple - run co-ax from a dish to a receiver and cable (HDMI or component) from a receiver to a TV. Interestingly, the various RV manufacturers brag about their units being wired for sat. but they do not provide a spot for a receiver or a 120 volt recept. to plug one into. Luckily we had a vacant unused location above the kitchen cabinets which is perfect. I wired power off the MW recept. and ran an HDMI cable from the receiver to TV via the ceiling space. I could not find out how and where they ran co-ax from the exterior jack to wherever it goes and abandoned it and ran a new (high quality) co-ax from the jack up to the receiver.

Hope this helps and you can always PM me if you have any other questions.

Moving to Tech Corner

I use a 70cm dish for Shaw (30"? maybe).

It does matter what LNB you use depending on your provider. Probably less so if you're only shooting for 1 bird.

When Bell put the new Nimiq 91 up, we switched to Shaw because of Bell's limited footprint.

I gave up on the RV's wiring. I ran 3 coaxes through the utilities entrance into the basement where I have 2 receivers, one of which is a PVR. They connect to an HDMI switch which is connected to the TVs - anything to anything.

I didn't bother connecting the receivers to the inverter because we never run sat. when dry camping, but the TVs are inverter powered.

joebedford wrote:
It does matter what LNB you use depending on your provider. Probably less so if you're only shooting for 1 bird.

I believe where it matters is when you are using two or more satellites and then the spacing of the LNBs is important because the various sats are at different elevations and azimuth which would then make a dish specific to the sat. provider. With one LNB it's easier too because you don't need to worry about skew.