Im sure alot of you fine folks have run into this. I have the winegard dome type satalite reciever which works fine but is sometimes blocked by trees or whatever. Can you plug like say a tailgater typ...
As already mentioned, the coax comes from the dish and to the Sat box first, and then to your multi-switch. So if you plug your portable dish directly into the external coax hookup you have bypassed the receiver box and won't get a signal. You have to do what msturtz said, or run the coax from the portable dish directly to the receiver box.