DirectTV / Wineguard

[rkymtn57]

Please , excuse me for probably asking a question which has been asked many times , i searched without any specific luck.
Direct TV has just told me that I must get a dish and receiver from Wineguard to take my home box with me when i travel , is there any eletrical switching that Wineguard or Direct has to do before it will work when i travel ?

I want to find a used dish and whatever else i need on EBay to stay within my budget.

Thank you ! D

[Yellowboat_]

I don't know if it is still offered by DirecTV but at one time they sold a kit for use on your home system if for some reason your home antenna was disabled by a storm. The kit consisted of a DirecTV antenna, tripod, and cable. I bought one from DirecTV for $50.00 and used it in my RV till I bought a Carryout antenna. If you want, or need, HD this will not work.

Here is a similar kit that is being sold on Ebay.



Safe travels.

JD

[CA_Traveler]

Receiver Setup: After banging my head against a rock several times trying to reproduce the setup I made these instructions which may help others. Different dish types and TVs required additional setup. Different TV types also meant that the DTV remote would not work both TVs. Dish pointing is not included.

Here are the receiver setup instructions I used when moving the HR24 receiver from home HD to the 18” round portable SD dish for the MH. Note: The HR24 is a dual tuner DVR (connect 2 coax cables) but that is not a factor in the setup.

Home – Slimline 5 Dish and HD Channels

1. Install 2 B-Band Converters and all cords
2. Turn on receiver wait for setup to complete (about 6 minutes).
3. Menu-Settings & Help-Settings-Display-TV Ratio: Widescreen 16:9
4. Menu-Settings & Help-Settings-Display-TV Resolutions: Check all resolutions.
5. Menu-Settings & Help-Settings-Display–Video: On, Pillar Box, Dark Gray
6. Menu-Settings & Help-Settings-Display-Preferences-Guide HD Channels: Hide SD duplicates.
7. Menu-Settings & Help-Settings-Satellite-Repeat Satellite

Setup: Dish setup: Option 4–Slimline 5 02: Multiswitch Dual. To confirm: Menu-Setup-System Setup-Info & Test-More System Info and confirm dish type

MH – Portable 18” Dish and SD Channels Only

1. Do not install B-Band Converters
2. Plug in all cords. Turn on receiver wait for setup to complete (about 6 minutes)
3. Menu-Settings & Help-Settings-Satellite-View Satellite Strength-Satellite 101, final check after aiming the dish
4. Menu-Settings & Help-Settings-Display-TV Ratio: Standard 4:3
5. Menu-Settings & Help-Settings-Display-TV Resolutions: Check 480i only
6. Menu-Settings & Help-Settings-Display–Video: On, Pillar Box, Dark Gray
7. Menu-Settings & Help-Settings-Display-Preferences-Guide HD Channels: Hide HD duplcates. Note: This takes a few minutes to change.
8. The MH Portable dish will not receive/record HD and will display ln not found for HD channels.
9. Menu-Settings & Help-Settings-Satellite-Repeat Satellite

Setup: Dish setup: Option 1 – 18” round dish 02: Multiswitch Dual. To confirm: Menu-Setup-System Setup-Info & Test-More System Info and confirm.

The only practical mounting for the receiver in the MH was vertical in a cabinet and that required the use of a RF remote which the HR24 supports. Switching back to the IR remote for home was tedious since the front panel had to be used to switch the remotes. Before long I purchased a second RF remote to use at home. Each of the RF remotes was programmed to support their respective IR TVs which was another reason for having the 2 remotes. Programming the remote can be found under Menu-Settings & Help-Settings-Remote Control-Program Remote.

Later I added a HD SWM dish to the MH and used these settings for the MH. Note: The MH TV is HD and Widescreen. The HR24 receiver will also operate with the single SWM coax.
MH – HD Dish – SWM Dish and HD Channels

1. Do not install B-Band Converters
2. Plug in all cords. Turn on receiver wait for setup to complete (about 6 minutes).
3. Menu-Settings & Help-Settings-Display-TV Ratio: Widescreen 16:9
4. Menu-Settings & Help-Settings-Display-TV Resolutions: Check all resolutions.
5. Menu-Settings & Help-Settings-Display–Video: On, Pillar Box, Dark Gray
6. Menu-Settings & Help-Settings-Display-Preferences-Guide HD Channels: Hide SD duplicates.
7. Menu-Settings & Help-Settings-Satellite-Repeat Satellite

Setup: Dish setup: Option 17 Swimline-3S(SWM), 01: SWM, Dual. To confirm: Menu-Setup-System Setup-Info & Test-More System Info and confirm dish type

[Clay_L]

rkymtn57 wrote:
OK , great ....I might call my installers whose numbers I still have. Thanks !

If you are close to Palisade CO (abuts Grand Junction) I have an 18 inch dish and tripod you can have for free if you pick it up.
Sorry - not interested in shipping it.

[rkymtn57]

OK , great ....I might call my installers whose numbers I still have. Thanks !

[CA_Traveler]

I want to find a used dish and whatever else i need on EBay to stay within my budget.

You might get one for free, a friend gave me one. I've seen a few along side the trash. I made my own stand and used it for years. Had 50' of coax and an additional 100' which I used a few times due to trees.

[Bill_Satellite]

rkymtn57 wrote:
Please , excuse me for probably asking a question which has been asked many times , i searched without any specific luck.
Direct TV has just told me that I must get a dish and receiver from Wineguard to take my home box with me when i travel , is there any eletrical switching that Wineguard or Direct has to do before it will work when i travel ?

I want to find a used dish and whatever else i need on EBay to stay within my budget.

Thank you ! D

You do not need anything specifically from Winegard. Your D12 receiver (mentioned in another post) is an SD only receiver and will work with any DirecTV antenna. DirecTV could provide you with one if they wanted to. A local DirecTV installer might have some 18" round dishes that are throw aways just laying around.
I do like the Winegard MP1 do to its small size and hard shell to prevent damage when not being used. The included compass is junk so buy a compass and a signal meter and after a bit of practice you will be watching TV in less than 10 minutes.

[CA_Traveler]

1mtnman wrote:
My experience is that a Direct TV non HD Dish will not support a HD receiver so you might want to check that out prior to buying a Direct TV dish from any source.
I would like to hear from anyone who has attempted this same process.
I made the mistake of going from a non HD receiver to a HD receiver. I now have a HD dish which is way too large to carry in my truck camper.

I used my 18" SD dish with a HR24 receiver which has HD. Just set the receiver to hide HD channels and change dish types from my slimline 5 at home.

But different receivers have different capabilities.

[rkymtn57]

What is in my 5th. wheel is a 17" Concertone LCD Monitor ??

[rkymtn57]

Thank you Roy and Don , it can get confusing but im trying to learn about it. D

[donn0128]

Buy an 18 inch round dish and tripod from any number of online retailers. Add 50 feet of coax cable and your ready to go.

[RoyB]

Sounds like DIRECTV is describing a system that will do HD TV -Maybe that is what you have at home...

I just went to the local RV place and they had a boxed up SD DIRECTV PORTABLE DISH that had the alignment markings and compass on it..

Looked like this


This also had a TWO CHANNEL HEAD on it.

I already had a SAT BEEP DETECTOR which really helps in finding the SAT real quick...


Then I got two 100-foot rolls of RG6 TV CABLE. Using two cables allows you to run one cable to the home entertainment center and the other cable to the bedroom. You can watch different channels in each room just fine. The portable dish allowed me to wind up all of the RG cable on it so it made a nice carry-all thing on the trips.

I would bring along two SAT RCVRS from home on my trips. Each of the two RG cable connected to the SAT RCVR ANT inputs. The VIDEO OUTPUTS of each SAT RCVR would then connect to a VIDEO INPUT channel of the two trailer TV sets...

Once all hooked up you can select SAT TV, OTA TV using the batwing antenna or cable TV when at a regular camp ground all with using the TV REMOTES.

My SAT RCVRs would sometimes lose there SETUPs when I disconnected them so I had to re-activate them when I got to the camp site. You can do this over the phone or on-line but be sure you have your ACCOUNT INFO WITH YOU. I made copies of my info and taped it on each SAT RCVR so I would have all the info I needed.

We got good STANDARD CHANNELS on SAT TV, also got 6-36 CHANNELS on OTA TV picking up the local HIGH DEF HD TV signals from the local towns and of course CABLE TV from the campgrounds..

Eventually we just dropped bringing out the SAT TV items as the full screen high def digital TV signals from the local towns covered all of the local stations which is most of what we liked to watch anyway...

Roy Ken

[rkymtn57]

Thank you all very much , Im not concerned with HD and my receiver mdl. # is D12-500. I think all I need is an SD dish ?
Thank you ! D

[1mtnman]

My experience is that a Direct TV non HD Dish will not support a HD receiver so you might want to check that out prior to buying a Direct TV dish from any source.
I would like to hear from anyone who has attempted this same process.
I made the mistake of going from a non HD receiver to a HD receiver. I now have a HD dish which is way too large to carry in my truck camper.

[CA_Traveler]

All you need is a dish that supports your home receiver, could be SD only, HD, multiple tuners etc. At many CGs you'll see a variety of automatic and manual dishes and Wineguard is not the only mfg.