Full time RV'er with DISH issues needs expert help!

McHero

New Member
Original poster
Feb 25, 2016
2
0
Livingston TX
Having some issues with my DISH setup & I just need to talk to some people in the know.
Here's the hardware, DISH VIP211z connected to external (powered) hard drive and connected to a KVH R5.

I'll start out with a brief history. When I first acquired the rig we where with DirecTV in the house (before fultimming). I grabbed a SD box & connected it to the KVH R5. I had to fight with the KVH R5 to get it to function with the DirecTV box. I had to mak-up cables so that I could update BOTH antenna AND RF firmware so now I'm current on the firmware side of things on the antenna.
When I was with DirecTV I had ALL the SD channels and everything appeared to be 100% functional other than the fact I only had SD channels. I was told by KVH that the R5 would only "see" two birds. One LNB so I could only see one bird at a time. This was no problem. If I was watching a channel & them moved to another channer on the other satellite the R5 would only take a couple of seconds to tune in.

When we sold the house I oved EVERYTHING into the motorhome, the SW8, DVR and internet decca. Everything still worked BUT I had to instruct the DVR that I onlt had one antenna. Again, everything was functioning properly, just could only see one satellite at a time.

I quickly realized that the whole DirecTV setup was sucking up LOTS of power. The SW8 would getr real hot, I had the DVR running 24/7 and also had a wall-wart for the internet decca. I decided this was NOT going to work for when we are boondocking. Did not want to leave the inverter on overnight PLUS my DirecTV Bill was getting ugly (just had to say that).

I ended up pulling ALL the DirecTV hardware & purchased the VIP211z grabbed one of my external Hdrive & subscribed to DISH.. After a number of switch tests the VIP211z locked on two birds. I was in action! Now I could get some HD channels, something I did not have with DirecTV. When I would move locations I would call Dish & give them a new service address, recycle both antenna & VIP & i'd be back in action within 5 minutes or so.

I'm currently in Laughlin NV and I'm now having issues. AT first looking at the guide I see I have MANY more HD channels than I normally have. I looked that the list of satellites & I now have three! 119 110 129.

It appears the R% is having issues staying locked on the satellite when I select certain channels. Getting REAL FRUSTRATING!

I'm sure their are not too many people familiar with the KVH R5 but I figured I'd give it a shot. Odd that KVH tells me that the R5 will only lock on to 2 birds yet now it's locked onto three.

Do I run multiple switch tests? I'm just trying to figure out how many satellites I need to get back to normal.

Ideas, suggestions?
 
Have you tried this?

http://www.kvh.com/Pages/DISH-Help/DISH-Network-Information/RV-Products.aspx

Or maybe try this:

1, Turn off the receiver and R5
2, Disconnect the coax to "sat in" on the receiver
3, Turn on the receiver and run check switch till it shows no sats recieved
4, Unplug the receiver, reconnect the "sat in" coax, plug in the receiver
5, Turn on the receiver, THEN turn on the R5 in that order
6, Let it run the start up routine and down load the program guide
7, Check to see if it got all 3 sats
 
Might be time to consider a self aiming dish meant for Dish. Maybe the Winegard G2+. There are others.
 
I used to RV and had a Winegard Carryout. I would have to do the check switch clear/reprogram process every once in awhile. Mostly when I changed locations as the receiver wanted to "remember" the previous settings.
 
Oh yea, forgot. I had to do some special setting on the Carryout so it knew I was on the WA since I lived in an EA area and would go WA when I traveled in the winter. There were different settings on the Carryout for WA and EA. Not sure if you have to do anything like that for the R5.
 

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