Satellite Dishes- in-motion etc etc

I have an in motion dish set up for Dish Network service. Glad the last owner paid for it. It does work and probably works very well on I10 cross Texas where there's no trees, mountains, over passes and what ever else that will block the signal. Loose signal lock for more than 5 seconds or so and the antenna goes back into a search pattern attempting to regain. Being roof mount and with our stays mostly in heavily forested camp grounds east of the Mississippi River the antenna line of sight is obstructed more often then not. As such the carry out gets used more than the roof mount.

Dome antennas work well for Dish with full access to all possible subscriber features. Not so much with Direct. You'll need to move up into the Traveler series for HD with a Direct subscription.

My recommendation would be a carry out and a DVD library for when traveling down the road. Also a TV mounted where a driver can see it is not a good thing to have operating while in motion. Troopers frown on such.

If you want to watch TV driving down the road with the grandkids then you should have the necessary DVD's on board or record a bunch of kids programming before you leave. This will allow you to have the kids watch uninterrupted programming no matter where you are and how many trees you might encounter. No dome will allow you to watch DirecTV HD and no dome will allow you to watch different programs coming from different satellites (Dish and DirecTV use 3 different satellites to receive all of their programming). In motion is great but it has many, many draw backs. Watching previously recorded programming has no limitations and can be viewed anywhere, anytime under any conditions.
Dome antennas from every manufacturer has many limitations. The Winegard Trav'ler (the open face antenna that folds down for travel) has only 1 limitation and that is the ability to watch live TV while driving down the road. Even that option is limited if you pass under a bridge, beside a tree or light pole or drive through a tunnel. If you travel exclusively in the SW where there are few, if any trees, this is not an issue. If you plan to travel any of the Northern US, it can be a very serious issue.

Ditto what Dutch said. Grandkids sometimes come with us and they can watch whatever they want and we can watch what we want. We also have wireless Genie so we're not tied into the trailer's coax system. Also, if you want HD programming from Directv only the Travler will work.

Do you want to be able to view satellite service while you are travelling down the highway ?

If so then you need to have a dish that will rotate automatically to stay locked on to the satellite. Plus it needs to have a low aerodynamic drag that why most folks use the dome type antennas.

Heres a helpful guide from wingard to select the correct antenna
http://www.winegard.com/mobile/satellite-antenna-selector

The Winegard Trav'ler automatic dish receives multiple satellites at the same time, allowing multiple TV's to receive programming from different satellites at the same time. The single satellite crank-up and dome style dishes, regardless of whether stationary or in-motion, only receive one satellite at a time, allowing only the programming on that satellite to viewed by multiple TV's. The Trav'ler is the only Winegard roof mounted model that's capable of receiving HD signals from DirecTV, but all of them can receive HD signals from Dish.