[Archived]

Chip, we have a KVH L-3 updated to an R-5. We have good HD in-motion with Dish & the KVH. We did have to add a switching box that tells the antenna which satellite to look at, and the switching is automatic. I have a 211K receiver with a solid state hard drive connected to it as a DVR. We can record HD while traveling with this sytsem. I will tell you that we generally recomend Direct to our customers, but you cannot get HD in-motion with Direct unless you go to the very expensive ($15K+) marine antennas, and they are about 18″ tall. Direct TV is a little more user friendly, and it did take a lot of components to make our system work like it should with Dish. If you do not need in-motion the Wineguard Traveler with Direct is currently the best option. The Wineguard HD Direct Traveler can be made to work with Dish. The Dish Wineguard cannot be switched to Direct because of the size of the dish.

[Archived]

Chip,

I have Dish both at home and on the bus. I like the dish service but it is a personal preference thing.

My coach had a track star 360 in motion when I purchased it. It is compatible with both sd and hd Dish and sd Direct. For Dish service it does require a suitable receiver and I use the 211K. Other on roof self aligning systems may need another variant (211Z perhaps). These are not DVR and to my knowledgeable DVR with the capability to communicate with a self aligning dome is not available. Per heaps stationary only systems are but I know nothing about them. Dish tech support can answer your questions. When traveling Dish will change your billing address and provide local channels for your location. It takes a phone call and 15 minutes. I don’t think dish will provide national locals (New York or LA) any longer.

i have had trouble with the signal being blocked by overhanging trees. We park for football season in that kind of park. I ran a new RG6 cable from my receiver location (stateroom cabinet in my coach) to the weather proof cover on the street side rear where I had a cable input barrel connector. I modified it to add a second barrel connector for satellite input connection. When we are parked in Auburn, I have a permenent mounted satellite dish I connect to shared with 2 other sites. I could just as easily connect an automatic external dish there like the Dish tailgater. But as you know that requires a clear line of site. The adjacent site to mine had no luck with his tailgater due to the trees. It is just a matter of enough cable to get a clear line of site but in some places that may be a couple of hundred feet which is pushing the max cable length

The extra receiver, since I have dish at home only adds about $7 a month to the bill. When it’s activated. Dish will give you a month by month no contract account but perhaps at a premium.

good luck in your search

[Archived]

I installed an HD Dish on my previous Liberty that Tim now owns and that was the only way to get HD with a dome, all others required the open style antenna’s. I liked the Dish because I could turn the service on and off as needed.

[Chip & Pam]

i appriciate the feedback. I talked to some folks about both providers. Dish folks are pretty satisfied as are the direct tv folks. Since I am set on being able to have a portable HD as well as my roof mount I think getting the traveler and portable will be my plan. The tracstar will come off and I’ll post it for sale/parts soon.

Thanks

[Corey]

Chip,

We replaced our obsolete (SD only) KVH with the travl’r and directv.

It works great.

Joe

[Tim]

thanks joe, I’ll be doing the same thing