Winegard Trav'ler Replacement

[pigman1]

After numerous problems with our Winegard Trav'ler and unbelievably obnoxious people on the phone that call themselves "customer service reps", we gave up. Instead of purchasing another disaster we removed the piece of junk and installed a dish from RF Mogul. OMG!! What a difference. The antenna finds the necessary satellites in less than half the time the Trav'ler took on it's best days and operation is so easy it's almost magic. Press power on, press search, and it's done.

Not only that, but the antenna has the ability to tune all the way down to the horizon, regardless of your latitude. The Winegard would not tune below 18 degrees above the horizon. This effectively eliminated reception in the northern reaches, such as Alaska. We've spent 8 summers in Valdez, and unless I went to extraordinary measures, the Winegard was useless up here (we're in Valdez now). This year I turned the Mogul on and in less than 4 minutes I was watching DirectTV in very heavy cloud cover with occasional showers.

I purchased the antenna from Don at Precise Satellite in Florida. He will install or send you a unit for you to install. I did it myself as I'd installed two other Trav'lers. The R F Mogul is lighter and much easier to handle, but is very stiff and strong. The install does require new wiring, so be prepared to punch a new roof hole or run it down a refer vent.

For anyone interested in a first class product with replaceable parts (unlike Winegard) and super customer service, contact Don at Precise Satellite or Royal at R F Mogul direct.

[Dutch_12078]

CA Traveler wrote:

TechWriter wrote:
Since the Travler is able to acquire an Eastern Arc sat with a Western Arc LNB, it must be the software (ie, the Travler has better software).

A 68 degree separation is huge so do you have to instruct the Traveler on which set to acquire?

The central US location of DTV (99, 101, 103) is a huge advantage that covers the lower 48 states and Alaska.

Not in the park I'm in right now. The DTV and Dish western arc sats are completely blocked by trees and a hill, while the Dish eastern arc sats are easily acquired by anyone about a hundred feet from the tree line or more. The DTV 99-103 sats are at a ~34 degree elevation with an azimuth right into the hilltop, while the Dish EA sats are at ~40 degrees, with an azimuth that points away from the hill. My new neighbor was outside cussing up a storm a few minutes ago because his roof mounted dome can't find a signal and his wife is not happy. If he had Dish, I'd consider letting him connect to my EA LNB, but alas, he has DTV... 😉

[Dutch_12078]

ljr wrote:

During my email exchange with RFM they said there is a difference between the EA and WA satellite technology that makes the WA aiming code not directly transferable to the EA. That’s all over my head but I guess it means that both they and Winegard have to overcome more than just the physical LNB spacing issues.

Yet Winegard manages the EA/WA arc differences quite seamlessly with their Pathway X2 automatic dish.

[ljr]

jorbill2or wrote:
The traveler can’t recieve all three eastern birds .. it can manually recieve ONE on one of its 3 lnb by selecting it from the manual tuning menu. One will give you most of the channels. I know it’s been said but the spacing is different between the 3 western and 3 eastern . A new lnb would ,yes, get the spacing right sure perhaps a redesign from the std head to enable folding and then the programming would need to be changed ( different skew etc). I don’t know how difficult that would be. Good question for Winegard and RF mogul. For someone who travels nationwide like us if would be valuable.

During my email exchange with RFM they said there is a difference between the EA and WA satellite technology that makes the WA aiming code not directly transferable to the EA. That’s all over my head but I guess it means that both they and Winegard have to overcome more than just the physical LNB spacing issues.

[CA_Traveler]

TechWriter wrote:
Since the Travler is able to acquire an Eastern Arc sat with a Western Arc LNB, it must be the software (ie, the Travler has better software).

A 68 degree separation is huge so do you have to instruct the Traveler on which set to acquire?

The central US location of DTV (99, 101, 103) is a huge advantage that covers the lower 48 states and Alaska.

[jorbill2or]

The traveler can’t recieve all three eastern birds .. it can manually recieve ONE on one of its 3 lnb by selecting it from the manual tuning menu. One will give you most of the channels. I know it’s been said but the spacing is different between the 3 western and 3 eastern . A new lnb would ,yes, get the spacing right sure perhaps a redesign from the std head to enable folding and then the programming would need to be changed ( different skew etc). I don’t know how difficult that would be. Good question for Winegard and RF mogul. For someone who travels nationwide like us if would be valuable.

[CA_Traveler]

We all make choices about what to buy. This short thread has pro/con posts for both Winegard and RF Mogul. 🙂

[TechWriter]

ljr wrote:

TechWriter wrote:
Can your RF Mogul also acquire Eastern Arc sats like the Travler can?

If you're a DIYer, you can buy a DISH RF Mogul here.

I just exchanged email with them. The answer was “no”.

They also said that while they have interchangeable LNB assemblies for different providers, 61.5 is too far off center to fold properly so no EA LNB assembly option.

Since the Travler is able to acquire an Eastern Arc sat with a Western Arc LNB, it must be the software (ie, the Travler has better software).

[Bill_Satellite]

This game (company) is not new. RF Mogul has been a more expensive option for many years (2011). The are a very small niche product company just like MotoSAT was. The product is now very good. It's always nice to have choices.

[pigman1]

I agree fully with CA Traveler. Once through the Winegard warranty the really don't want to deal with you, to the point of being absolutely obnoxious on the phone. All they appear to know is "send it to us". No diagnosis, no reasonable estimate as to what the problem might be, and for sure not even a guess as to if they have the necessary parts or the cost to fix. Our Trav'ler was 5 years old and wouldn't retract. When I called they sneered that my antenna was "Old and out of date". When I tried to find if they even had the necessary parts for my old and out of date antenna, the phone person (certainly not a technician) would only repeat the "Send it in" mantra. So I was looking at removing the antenna, packing a 50-70 pound package and paying the cost of shipping it to the mid-west with no clue as to whether I was wasting time, money and effort, and they flat refused to even discuss it. Just wonderful customer service and product support. I got more information about the Winegard by talking to Royal at RF MOGUL than I ever got from Winegard. No more Winegard for me, thanks.
There's a new game in town now and thank God for it.

[CA_Traveler]

The RF Mogul Eagle is a great product and it worked great for the entire Alaskan Highway and Alaska for DTV. I did not change the DTV service address for the locals on that trip.

I called about converting to Dish and the kit was $350. You change the arm, LNB and firmware. And likely a kit to convert from Dish to DTV. No personal experience on this nor have I needed any repairs, rather called and asked.

I haven't needed any repairs or firmware updates but quite easy to do in the field if required. Firmware updates are trivial, download, save to a flash drive, insert into the controller and reboot. If it's that easy for a owner then it seems likely to me that a tech would already have the flash drive.

My view on the company is quite different than Bill's. Namely they were not allowed by a recent owner to fix or redesign the MonoSat dish and started a new company. And there are too many posts about having to send the entire Winegard dish to them for repair. Sounds like fun to remove and ship that monster.

The RF Mogul roof dish does not have any electronics that can be exposed to the weather, rather it's all in a small box that is inside the rig. The dish contains motors, gears, LNB and GPS antenna, all easy to replace parts if necessary.

Search operation: Acquire GPS, about 30 seconds if rig AC power just turned on. Full elevation, set skew from GPS input, set elevation from GPS input, start azimuth rotation and find the birds on the first rotation. Optimize dish pointing for the signals. About 3+ minutes.

[az99]

I would love to get rid of my Trav'ler and say good bye to Winegard forever but the RF Mogul has no ability to get 72 or 61 even in a manual mode so that is the deal breaker for me.

[Bill_Satellite]

My 5+ YO Trav'ler still works perfectly and I have had no problems and I have not been required to do even 1 software update. I wonder if RF Mogul can claim the same.
Understand that RF Mogul is run by the same folks who ran MotoSAT until MotoSAT went broke. It's a great niche product and if you hate Winegard then you can jump right on the RF Mogul train. You just have to be handy if you have a problem as the dealer network is very, very thin. The factory folks will walk you through solutions, send parts and do what they can, but you really need to be very self sufficient if you do encounter problems.

[ljr]

TechWriter wrote:
Can your RF Mogul also acquire Eastern Arc sats like the Travler can?

If you're a DIYer, you can buy a DISH RF Mogul here.

I just exchanged email with them. The answer was “no”.

They also said that while they have interchangeable LNB assemblies for different providers, 61.5 is too far off center to fold properly so no EA LNB assembly option.

[donn0128]

I dont blame you. Over 2 thousand dollars in repairs in 12 years is just plane horrible. Winegard has to be one of the worst when it comes to customer service.

[TechWriter]

Can your RF Mogul also acquire Eastern Arc sats like the Travler can?

If you're a DIYer, you can buy a DISH RF Mogul here.