Winegard Trav'ler problems with reception...

[Jim]

I have the roof top satellite setup, a Trav'ler by Winegard, with 3 horns, and DTV. It's been working fine for several months (bought the RV used so don't really know how old the system is, but the RV only has 74K on it).

One afternoon after traveling 300 miles on good roads in excellent weather, I deployed the satellite, and it showed a "No LNB voltage" error message on the Trav'ler box. It had always been reliable in the past, showing satellites at 99, 101, and 103. Haven't been in a lightning storm with it deployed, either.

Called Winegard and the tech told me that the most common cause for that was a bad RG-6 cable between the base and the horns. So I found a replacement and installed it. Always careful to shut down everything first. Sure enough, that fixed it and I once again had all three satellites shown on the Trav'ler box display. But now, the DTV receiver was showing a 775 error. First time I'd seen that. Contact DTV tech support and they decide to send me a new receiver, just received it today.

I set it all up just now, checked my drawings for proper connections, and it's still got a problem. Same issue as with the old receiver I guess...only it's a newer receiver so it shows onscreen "Satellite signal not detected" during 'activation' setup. Testing for power shows that two of the satellites are fine, but one is not showing up.

It's football season and I want to get it fixed quickly, and the DTV phone and chat techs can't help much other than order parts, plus I don't know where their hardware responsibility ends with the Trav'ler.

Where do I go now for service? Do I call DTV, Winegard, or is any satellite shop OK?

Oh, yeah, and I'm out in the boonies...central east Oregon around Ontario now, but Burns soon.

Thanks for any advice on getting it fixed quickly. I've never had satellite before, and certainly never traveled with one, so it's somewhat of a mystery at this point.

[bullydogs1]

That happened with my traveler between 2 destinations...it turned out to be a hairline crack in the plastic LNB for 129....the Winegard dealer knew just who to call and the dish people were out that afternoon and replaced it....it works although sometimes I don't get the asterisk with 129 (which I am guessing means a locked superstrong signal,although 129 is very low on the east coast and is much better as we go west...also one very wooded campground, I can't lock in anything...but it is heavy wooded so I am not expecting it to.

[Jim]

Bill.Satellite wrote:
Depending upon the age of the Trav'ler you might need the PI29 power inserter and not the home PI-25. Does your Trav'ler have 3 individual LNB's (eyes) or just a single housing that contains the 3 LNB's? If you have the 3 individual LNB setup then the antenna has been modified to SWM using a SWM8 setup and this requires the PI-29 (29V) power inserter.

My Trav'ler is Model SK-SWM3, with 3 LNB horns. It's a big 34" X 26" oval dish and seems to do fairly well picking up all 3 satellites even when there are trees. My neighbors with a newer Winnie just moved to another spot because their smaller, low profile dish (2016 model) couldn't pick up anything, right next to my spot. And with what appeared to be a straight shot through the trees sighting along a line with my dish.

The SWiM model PI-21 power inserter was supplied by DirecTV and is labeled at 21 volts.

I think this Trav'ler is a 2010 model, based on the copyright in the Users Guide. I priced them out shortly after I bought this RV in Feb. 2016 and they were approx $2500, plus labor to install, estimated at $800, so I decided to use it for a few years.

I'm pretty happy with it even with the occasional problem. Great HD picture. And the automatic deploy feature...can't get better than that.

[Bill_Satellite]

Depending upon the age of the Trav'ler you might need the PI29 power inserter and not the home PI-25. Does your Trav'ler have 3 individual LNB's (eyes) or just a single housing that contains the 3 LNB's? If you have the 3 individual LNB setup then the antenna has been modified to SWM using a SWM8 setup and this requires the PI-29 (29V) power inserter.

[Goldencrazy]

Glad it is working. So you have a Swm system. The H`54 for the Genie has a built-in inserter. It automatically defers if one is already on line. I do like the Genie in the motorhome. The smaller componenrs are nice. For those with older wiring using the wireless with the bridge is an option. Mine is wired so no need to bring the wireless. The Matrix allows us to use either of the two recievers on all tv's and all are together in the front compartment. Intoo am a football nut so understand how pleased you are that it is working. Finally, those power inserters are weird. Rebooting is necessary sometimes.

[Jim]

Thank you Goldencrazy for the advice! It worked!

I actually took it, and this DESPITE the fact I'd already changed out the power inserter and the splitter, doing it again changed something, and the new Receiver from DTV came up with a new page that had me call in and 'reactivate' the receiver. Once I did that, I'm back in business. Watching the NFL game now. I happen to have 3 power inserters and splitter sets with all the leads. One of which I know was bad and had it marked. Then I had the one I'd been using, and the old original one that came with the RV.

I'm beginning to think that this problem was also with the 20 volt power inserters from China that aren't designed well enough to withstand the rigors of RV life. Two of them have died on me now in just over 9 months.

Thanks everyone, everything working now.

[Bill_Satellite]

The new receiver "could" be the issue as your Trav'ler could be an SK-3005 which would work fine with the older DTV receivers but will not work with any receiver with a model number of H-25 or higher without adding some additional SWM hardware. Let us know what receiver you removed and what receiver you replaced it with.

[donn0128]

Which receiver? Some require a B band converter, some do not. Also you need to go into setup amd be sure your receiver is configured correctly for your dish.

[Goldencrazy]

I don't know your setup but assume the cable from sat goes to wall switch and the another coax either direct to tv or through a switch. Check all of those connections. Your sat has acquired the necessary birds. The breakdown is between the sat and receiver. If all those connections are ok then it is a mystery. I had a problem that turned out to be faulty hdmi. Wasted a lot of time. Isolate eac component.