Traveling with Direct TV

I would suggest taking a receiver and have dealer make it work during pre-delivery!

Thanks everyone, very helpful info. We now have DTV at home and are anxiously waiting on our new Integra to try it out.

Mike, We have DTV. I had DTV set up a 2nd DVR in our home (We have the Genie setup). I then took it and installed it in our MH. When we go to a resort, I call them DTV and they quickly add the address to your profile and voila... You have local service. If you are like us, a few weeks here a month there, etc, it is perfect. If you are a day here, 2 days there, rely on cable for the locals.

The only complaint I have is the realization that trees at the sites are your enemy if they are in the wrong place. They usually are!!! Get your compass out and visually get an idea of where clear sight is before you level and put your sides out. Sometimes it is a matter of a few feet back or forward..

Good luck

Another option with Directv is to sign up for DNS - Distant Network Services. That will get you the ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC channels from New York or Los Angeles,depending on what time zone your zip code is in.

Mike@Asheville wrote:
Hi folks, we are preparing for our first MH. I've read numerous posts on Dish vs Direct TV, etc. I'm still uncertain about one issue so I'm looking help here. We ordered our MH with the Traveler satellite. We are out for about 3 months at a time. If we change from cable tv to direct tv at home can we hook our home box up to our MH on the road at no extra charge? I understand we will not be able to get local networks while traveling.

Are there other issues I need to consider?

Thanks all.

Pretty much the same experience here. We use a spare SD receiver from the house connected to our Carryout G2 portable antenna.

I also decided not to mess with the local channel spot beam switch-over. (1) We didn't want to mess with switching it back when we got home and (2) we can usually get the local channels with the batwing anyway. It's easy to switch back and forth between the antenna and the satellite. Our receiver has both an "antenna in" and a "satellite in" connector on the back. When the receiver is off, it passes the batwing signal to the TV; turn the receiver on and it passes the satellite signal. Easy-peasy lemon squeezie.

Skip

Not sure about the Traveler dish if it is good only for one or the other like some have mentioned here, But I have the Kingdome and I used to have Dish, then I switched to Direct and I never changed any dish. It works good with both. But Direct is better because you do not need spot beam like Dish. Dish you got to call them up and give them an address so that they can spot beam the local channels, not with Direct.

Not a Clue wrote:

Mike@Asheville wrote:
Hi folks, we are preparing for our first MH. I've read numerous posts on Dish vs Direct TV, etc. I'm still uncertain about one issue so I'm looking help here. We ordered our MH with the Traveler satellite. We are out for about 3 months at a time. If we change from cable tv to direct tv at home can we hook our home box up to our MH on the road at no extra charge? I understand we will not be able to get local networks while traveling.

Are there other issues I need to consider?

Thanks all.

You are saying you ordered a Traveler satellite with your motorhome. Which one did you get? Dish or Direct? That might make your decision for you. You can't switch they are different dishes.

This is not necessarily true. If a Trav'ler is factory installed it should be a Trav'ler for DirecTV. The reason for this is that the DirecTV version can be easily converted to Dish if that's the service the new owner has or chooses.
You can't go from a Dish Trav'ler to DirecTV HD but the change from DirecTV to Dish is just an antenna/LNB swap and a quick change in the controller setup.

I have Dish not Direct but they're really pretty much all the same.

I used to move my Hopper from home to the coach than I just called Dish and asked for one more Hopper and had it hooked up permanent in the MH on the same account....I called the MH a guest house and the installer didn't care one way or the other.

I'm betting you can do the same thing with Direct with whatever Directs version of the Hopper happens to be. Love HD and he ability to record whatever programs we want. The extra cost of $10.00/month is well worth it.

And, yes, I just call Dish whenever we stop of a period of time and change our service address. However, you may be surprised at just how much coverage you get without losing locals. For example, when we get a Boise, ID local we can still receive them all the way to Anaconda, Mt, Idaho Falls and even well south into NV.

We full time and like dish. They have a plan if your not ft you can turn it on or off as needed. Anytime we need to we can call dish and they will ping our reciver for local channels. They don't charge no matter how many times you change. Not sure but I thought direct had a limit for how many times they will do this for free. Perhaps a direct customer could comment?

We have DIRECTV both at home and in the motorhome. We started with it in the motorhome only and had the house added later. It only costs an additional $5.00 per month for the service in the motorhome, and an additional $6.00 per month to rent the HD receiver. When the motorhome is not being used the service and rental fee can be suspended. Suspensions have to be for a full month to get a billing credit.

With this arrangement we can change our local channels to wherever we happen to be. When we move to a new location the locals can be changed again. The only downside is that when we change locals it applies to b both the motorhome and the house. We do change locals when we travel in the winter months, but not in the summer time as we often have relatives staying at the house when we're out of town. I don't think they would be interested in watching out of state local channels.

One word of caution. If you travel north of the border and don't get good reception don't call DIRECTV for a solution. They have an agreement with Shaw Communications that they will not knowingly broadcast into Canada. If you call to complain or ask for a resolution they will shut off your service until you return to the US.

We almost made the mistake of calling, but fortunately were warned of what would happen by another camper that had already made that mistake.