winegard travler shaw to direct tv

[roy67ss]

Hi all,

I am curious to know if anyone has tried to convert a Winegard Travler SK-7003 Shaw Direct to receive US Direct TV? I was thinking that it may be easily doable by changing out the lnb and arm assembly or maybe just the lnb if the arm is the same length. A Direct tv receiver would also be necessary and possibly the Winegard control box.

[roy67ss]

I wonder why they programmed so many sats into the control box. I think it can point to any of them and know there is a satellite there but, cannot do anything with the signal due to the lnb and receiver mismatching. Maybe???

[Bill_Satellite]

Swapping the LNB will not get you DTV. You cannot manually adjust skew but in many places with a dish that large you could, in theory, get all 3 satellites without any skew. The problems is that the Shaw Trav'ler will not be able to identify the DTV signal.

[roy67ss]

Bill, I know that Bell and Dish use circular broadcasts but I wasn't sure about Direct. Shaw is H/V. The Shaw turret also has GPS attached to get to the right direction for the desired sats and with the many sats programed into the controller, skew for the multi sat lnb's might be all that would need adjusting after the main one is lined up.

It is all hypothetical for now. I may experiment with it if I find a lnb and receiver to play with. Most of my thinking goes back to the FTA days when I was doing that for a few years.

[Bill_Satellite]

The Shaw unit is sold as 2 separate parts numbers because you can't get all of those parts in one box. The antenna and associated hardware is huge and that's what the 2nd part number is. However, the base is setup with the correct hardware to mount the Shaw antenna only so while I am sure it could be done you would need all of the DTV parts from the arms all the way up. It's also possible that the electronics are different inside the turret as Shaw uses significantly different broadcasts than Dish or DirecTV and if that's the case then there is NO interchangeable option.

[roy67ss]

Another interesting thing that got me thinking all this is possible is because the turret SK-7003 for the Shaw is sold separately from the dish,lnb and arm assembly. Why would Winegard sell this one in 2 parts and not the other ones? It kind of makes me think that the Direct TV and Dish Network stuff is possibly usable with the 7003 turret. I'd like to see them side by side.

[Bill_Satellite]

Chad Heiser wrote:
The direct TV head (dish and LNB) is heavier than a Dish Network head. I am not that familiar with Shaw in Canada, but I think the head is comparable to Dish Network.

A Direct TV Trav’ler head can be changed out to a Dish Network head, but you can’t go the other direction. The reason for this is the weight of the head and the construction of the lifting mechanisms (motors) on the two different Trav’ler configurations. The Direct TV Trav’ler has a stronger lift mechanism than the Dish Network Trav’ler does to support the extra weight of the Direct TV head. This is why the Direct TV version of the Trav’ler always costs more than the Dish Network version does. You can purchase a Direct TV to Dish Network conversion kit for a Direct TV Trav’ler, but there is no such conversion kit to go from Dish Network to Direct TV because of what I described above.

If I am correct that the Shaw head is equivalent in size/weight to a Dish Network head, then you will not be able to switch to Direct TV with your Shaw Trav'ler base.

The Shaw head is MUCH larger and heavier than either the Dish or DirecTV setup so the motor size is NOT an issue.

[roy67ss]

Looking at the Winegard website and comparing the Direct to the Shaw units, they probably use the same turret/arms and the Shaw dish is the largest of the 3 Travlers. My Shaw controller will let me enter several sats manually. I am sure that 101 is one of them but, I would expect a new controller may be required. The lnb arm length is related to the focal length and the dishes are very much equivalent curvatures so, theoretically changing the lnb and arm might satisfy the hardware side of the conversion. Most of my question is because a friend of mine may be wanting to switch to Direct TV from Shaw and the Travler is a fairly expensive unit to be replacing completely.

FYI, Bell Canada and Dish network are very similar and many of those dishes can be used for either network. Maybe the Dish network conversion is possible for the Shaw travler as well.

I thought someone here might have done a conversion or have seen a conversion.

[Chad_Heiser]

The direct TV head (dish and LNB) is heavier than a Dish Network head. I am not that familiar with Shaw in Canada, but I think the head is comparable to Dish Network.

A Direct TV Trav’ler head can be changed out to a Dish Network head, but you can’t go the other direction. The reason for this is the weight of the head and the construction of the lifting mechanisms (motors) on the two different Trav’ler configurations. The Direct TV Trav’ler has a stronger lift mechanism than the Dish Network Trav’ler does to support the extra weight of the Direct TV head. This is why the Direct TV version of the Trav’ler always costs more than the Dish Network version does. You can purchase a Direct TV to Dish Network conversion kit for a Direct TV Trav’ler, but there is no such conversion kit to go from Dish Network to Direct TV because of what I described above.

If I am correct that the Shaw head is equivalent in size/weight to a Dish Network head, then you will not be able to switch to Direct TV with your Shaw Trav'ler base.

[Bill_Satellite]

Maybe he wants DirecTV in Canada?

[Triker33]

Why wouldn't you want the Dish network in the USA that can be gotten by month to month?
DirecTV would be a 2 year contract.

[Bill_Satellite]

I am not aware of any conversion available from Shaw to DTV or Dish. Give Winegard Tech. support a call. It would take more than an LNB change, however. At a minimum you would be looking at all new arms to support a new DTV dish and LNB as well as a new controller inside for the correct software.