DirecTv . . Switching from SD to HD

[ken_burke]

All . . . . . We are thinking about going from SD to HD with Directv. Has anyone done this lately??
They will update our equipment for free, and charge an extra $13 per month for the Gene HD package.
However, they will NOT provide the tripod (they have in the past), and will not give us more than 20 feet of cable. They will charge for more than 20 feet of cable (we need at least 100 feet of cable at some campgrounds).
They will give us a SlimLine dish, and a DVR (HR34, or HR 44).
. .
It was obvious that they did not want to talk to us about traveling and resetting the dish. Finally, I just agreed, and said okay, our present campground is our final destination.
. .
Did you have to pay for the tripod and extra cable when going from SD to HD?? Direct TV is getting harder and harder to deal with. We had to fight with them to give us local programming when traveling across country.
thanks . . . .ken

[Bill_Satellite]

From 2001 to 2012 I owned RV Satellite Sales and Internet Anywhere. We sold and installed satellite TV and satellite internet systems for DirecTV, Dish, Shaw Direct and Bell Express Vu. In 2012 I went to work for the Winegard Company. In 2014 they blindsided me and laid me off (but did give me some severance). Since then I remain unemployed! Anyone have a job for me?

[Ron3rd]

buc1980 wrote:
Bill satellite what you do for living that you know so much about DIRECTV.

Don't know what Bill does now but I recall he said he worked for Winegard for several years.

[buc1980]

Bill satellite what you do for living that you know so much about DIRECTV.

[Bill_Satellite]

Most RG6 (including that shipped with the Winegard products) is steel with a copper clad. A solid copper core is quite expensive and not necessary. If it's solid copper you will usually also find that the tiny ground wires that wrap the core are brass as well. MotoSAT used this coax on their TX side of the Datastorm satellite internet systems but regular steel (copper coated) coax on the RX side. It likely was not necessary there either as the early Datastorm's did not use solid copper and many are still working today.

[docj]

Wayne Dohnal wrote:
I believe "solid copper core" means that the center wire is copper, as opposed to copper plated steel used the the lower cost RG6. All RG6 is solid core. A stranded core would never work with the connectors.

Good catch; you are correct all coax is solid core, the issue is copper vs copper-plated..

[Wayne_Dohnal]

I believe "solid copper core" means that the center wire is copper, as opposed to copper plated steel used the the lower cost RG6. All RG6 is solid core. A stranded core would never work with the connectors.

[Bill_Satellite]

If you are only going to have 1 receiver you can usually do that fairly easily if the receiver will fit somewhere near the main TV. You just connect the receiver to the TV via HDMI and you are all set. The receiver will not have a coax output but you can buy and RF Modulator and take the Yellow/Red/White RCA outputs and convert them to coax. You then send a SD signal via coax to the 2nd TV.

[ken_burke]

Bill.Satellite wrote:

ken burke wrote:
All . . . . . We are thinking about going from SD to HD with Directv. Has anyone done this lately??
They will update our equipment for free, and charge an extra $13 per month for the Gene HD package.
However, they will NOT provide the tripod (they have in the past), and will not give us more than 20 feet of cable. They will charge for more than 20 feet of cable (we need at least 100 feet of cable at some campgrounds).
They will give us a SlimLine dish, and a DVR (HR34, or HR 44).
. .
It was obvious that they did not want to talk to us about traveling and resetting the dish. Finally, I just agreed, and said okay, our present campground is our final destination.
. .
Did you have to pay for the tripod and extra cable when going from SD to HD?? Direct TV is getting harder and harder to deal with. We had to fight with them to give us local programming when traveling across country.
thanks . . . .ken

If you need that much coax you are going to need to go buy some. It does not need to be solid copper core but good RG6 or RG6 quad will do just fine. Be sure to get an HR44 and not the 34 and if you want to be able to watch more than one channel on one TV you will need a client as well (for 2nd TV and 2nd channel) for $6/month. Without the client you will still be able to watch 1 channel and record 4 more but all TV's must be watching the same satellite channel or one watching satellite and one watching OTA.

Thanks for the response. We will only have the HD on one TV. It will be hard enough to wire up only one TV; Hooking up the bedroom TV will be a lot harder.

[Bill_Satellite]

donn0128 wrote:

Bill.Satellite wrote:


It does not need to be solid copper core but good RG6 or RG6 quad will do just fine.

Not according to the fella who just installed our Genie system. It requires solid copper coax!

Yeah, he was wrong. Please understand that their is nothing wrong with using solid core, it's just not really required. I have been using my Trav'ler and Genie and H25 in my RV since Jan 2013 without solid core coax (Winegard standard coax) without issue.

[docj]

donn0128 wrote:

Bill.Satellite wrote:


It does not need to be solid copper core but good RG6 or RG6 quad will do just fine.

Not according to the fella who just installed our Genie system. It requires solid copper coax!

DirecTV installers are taught from a script; most have very little technical understanding of what they are doing. They are taught things like "solid core coax will work better than stranded core" and that's what they are expected to use. In reality the signal loss difference between the two kinds of coax is small and in most cases either will work.

This is no different than the big debate over RG6 vs RG59 that periodically shows up in threads. Short lengths of RG59 can be used without serious degradation of the signal strength; it's just not a good idea to use it routinely in satellite TV installations. But if there's a length of it already installed in your RV it may work just fine.

[donn0128]

Bill.Satellite wrote:


It does not need to be solid copper core but good RG6 or RG6 quad will do just fine.

Not according to the fella who just installed our Genie system. It requires solid copper coax!

[Bill_Satellite]

ken burke wrote:
All . . . . . We are thinking about going from SD to HD with Directv. Has anyone done this lately??
They will update our equipment for free, and charge an extra $13 per month for the Gene HD package.
However, they will NOT provide the tripod (they have in the past), and will not give us more than 20 feet of cable. They will charge for more than 20 feet of cable (we need at least 100 feet of cable at some campgrounds).
They will give us a SlimLine dish, and a DVR (HR34, or HR 44).
. .
It was obvious that they did not want to talk to us about traveling and resetting the dish. Finally, I just agreed, and said okay, our present campground is our final destination.
. .
Did you have to pay for the tripod and extra cable when going from SD to HD?? Direct TV is getting harder and harder to deal with. We had to fight with them to give us local programming when traveling across country.
thanks . . . .ken

If you need that much coax you are going to need to go buy some. It does not need to be solid copper core but good RG6 or RG6 quad will do just fine. Be sure to get an HR44 and not the 34 and if you want to be able to watch more than one channel on one TV you will need a client as well (for 2nd TV and 2nd channel) for $6/month. Without the client you will still be able to watch 1 channel and record 4 more but all TV's must be watching the same satellite channel or one watching satellite and one watching OTA.

[FlatBroke]

O boy I'm staying out of this one! Still got a pounding head ache from my last Directv post. LOL

[Jim-Linda]

What we have is called a non-penetrating ground mount. It a framwork base that the Slimline dish mounts on, no tripod.

Jim.