Beware Winegard Trav'ler if you want HD in Northeast

[susseandchris]

We have had issues with our Trav'ler roof-mounted sat antenna. Unit is currently down and unusable. In my internet research about this product, I have seen multiple posts on websites such as 'Satellite Guys' saying that the Trav'ler is useless for picking up HD satellite 129 in the DISH system in the northestern US. Best advice I have seen is to purchase a dome-type portable that is capable of receiving the eastern arc HD satellite. Was gonna buy a new Trav'ler, but now thinking about a Winegard portable. Would appreciate comments on this!

[huntram]

So our experience traveling all the way to Maine is that if you have a Western Arc Travlr all dish locals are also on SD on 110 or 119. So we cover the rest of our channels we lived with that in some market's. We normally travel in the West so we didn't want to trade dishes. Some eastern markets DO also transmit on 129, Orlando being an example.

[dbonney]

I was just in Maine fable or three weeks in July. Just north of Acadia. I used the Winegard manually for the 61 satellite and also locked onto 72. It also worked for me last year in Western Mass.

Over the last few years have done the same in PA and NY in areas not receiving sat 129. Had the same result locking on to 61 and 72. You should manually look for 61 not 72 .I usually get 72 as a bonus.

[az99]

Winegard still does not believe anyone needs the EA sats or they can't figure out how to program it.
129 sat works well in the NE as long as you camp in an open field with no trees for 1/4 mile.
Good luck getting 72.7 in the manual mode. Many people can't. That has been covered here multiple times.

[Dutch_12078]

Northern ME is on the fringe of the 129 sat CONUS coverage, but the biggest problem may be the low 12 deg angle needed to hit it. It doesn't take much tree cover to block that. For contrast, the Dish 72.7 bird is at a 37 deg elevation in northern ME.

[Bill_Satellite]

The OP was about Dish Network. The coverage for DirecTV is much better than Dish due to the Central US orbital location.

[dahkota]

We spent the last three months in New England, going as far northeast as Jonesport, ME. We used the western arc (110, 119, 129) except in a couple of campsites where trees were in the way; we manually tuned into 61 or 72. I think maybe twice over the summer we were unable to get HD (129) but that was due to trees.

If you can't get 129, try to 'manually' get 61. Often, manually tuning in to 61 also gets me 72. Good luck!

[dturm]

Just got back from a trip including upstate NY, northern VT, MA and didn't have any problem with my Trav'ler. We didn't go to ME. Got all DirecTV channels even in marginal sites with some tree cover.

[lryrob9301]

susseandchris wrote:
Was gonna buy a new Trav'ler, but now thinking about a Winegard portable. Would appreciate comments on this!

If your going DISH Network the best portable to use is the Winegard Pathway X2. It has a much larger reflector than the normal dome type portable which allows much stronger signal reception. I have used mine in Canada on DISH Eastern Arc sats up into NB, NS, and PEI.

[We_Cant_Wait]

I'm in NY and have full signal strength on our Traveller on Sat 129.

[Bill_Satellite]

Do you have a Trav'ler that you have used in these areas without success or are you just posting what you have read? The NE is a very big area. NE as in Maine or SE as in S. FL can be a challenge for any antenna using the WA satellites (110, 119 and 129) but not useless as you seem to imply. The Trav'ler can be set to manually point to the 72.7 satellite (at least you could the last time I checked) and get all of the Dish programming except the National Networks.

[SCVJeff]

Have you communicated with the factory?