Help setting up dish in a new Camper ?

[sprintcarcrazy]

I had dish in my prior camper, it only had one jack !

My new camper has 2 jacks, one in main room and one in bunk room.

I have a dedicated receiver for the camper during the summer months and was going to have the kids grab one of their receivers to tak along.

Here is the issue !

The camper has one cable going to an outside jack. This cable goes through the roof and over to the main jack which is a three jack rv type. It appears I can purchase a replacement outlet that will handle satellite for the one tv, but how can I get a signal through one cable to supply two receivers watching different channels ?

http://www.winegard.com/main_images/2451487.pdf

This is a replacement jack I can buy, but what else do I need ?



It appears to be a PITA to have to try to fish wire throught the roof, etc.
I have a dish 500 on tripod, with a single LNB, but have a dual LNB available. Not sure that will help.

We would like to be able to watch seperate stations on each tv.

Thanks in advance for the help !

 

[SimpleSimon]

Well, first, I'd probably scrap that weird wall plate - looks like it's more trouble than it's worth. Second, trace the cables you have using a multimeter (details on request). Then, figure out what you need to add.

You WILL need 2 separate RG-6 feeds from the dish to the receivers. There's no getting around that - unless you only want one satellite - and even then it gets hokey.

But first, you've GOT to find out where the various cables start and end. THEN a plan can be created to git-r-done.

 

[sprintcarcrazy]

One RG6 cable goes from the outside of the camper, an external jack to the funky wall plate. Another cable goes fron the bunk room to the funky wall plate. And another cable goes from the roof antenna to the funky wall plate.

 

[sprintcarcrazy]

The funky wall plate as it is, will stop the lnb voltage from passing, so it won't work. But there is another funky wall plate i could replace it with that allows the dish signal to pass to the main funky plate out, so that would take care of that room if I just unhook the cable thats coming in from external and put it on that connection that allows it to pass. But the 2nd tv is still an issue.

guess a muti-switch in the mix somewhere won't do it ?

 

[SimpleSimon]

guess a muti-switch in the mix somewhere won't do it ?

Only if you could deal with a single satellite and use a DishPro LNBF. You could use a DishPro Splitter jammed into the wall where the funky plate is.

If you want both the 110 & 119 birds to both rooms, you're gonna have to have two cables somewhere. I don't know if you want the dish on the roof or on the ground next to that outlet, so I can't say which way to go, but there's the story - as you suspected. Sorry it couldn't be better news.

I'd forget about funky plates. All you need is a barrel connector wall plate for the main TV, and a barrel connector to feed the 2nd (not yet installed) cable down the wall to the second TV.

It's gets a little more complicated if you also want to use the roof-mounted OTA antenna (if any). Then you'd go with a dual connector wall plate, and use diplexers to get the OTA signal down to TV 2.

 

[sprintcarcrazy]

Ok, I can order a new funky wall plate that will allow the dish signal to pass out the main room funky wall plate. I would still like to use the onboard roof antenna and it's a winegard amplified that the funky wall plate controls. When you turn off the power switch on the funky wall plate, it switches the signal to the aux/dish input.

I only use 119 when camping, so if I get the dishpro lnb, what do I need to get and at what point to I place it. I think the dish signal would pass to TV#2 as well when the switch to the funky wall plate is turned off.

 

[SimpleSimon]

OK - if you're going DishPro 119 only, that simplifies things EXCEPT:
Remember that if your house setup is NOT DishPro, you MUST be VERY careful when moving the camper's receiver back into the house. Do it wrong (instructions on request) and you can blow an LNBF or switch. This is because DP runs at a higher voltage than Legacy.

Anyway, back to the camper. I think you'd be better off forgetting about the funky switch junk and just use a DishPro splitter and diplexers to git-r-done. I can't draw worth diddly, so I'll try to just explain it.

You need a DishPro Single LNBF (a Dual will also work - Twin/Quad will NOT). DishPro splitter goes right where the 2 TV feeds come together. It's similar to a standard one, but do NOT try to cheap out - the difference is in how it handles DC power.

Now, in between the DP splitters output and the receivers, add conventional 2200MHz Satellite/ VHF-UHF Antenna diplexers. The antenna side of the diplexers goes to a conventional VHF-UHF antenna splitter. The other side of that goes to the antenna's power injector, and off to the roof.

Now, at the receiver ends, you put diplexers to break the antenna feed away from the satellite feed, and plug them into their respective connectors. Good to go!

The biggest downside of all this is the number of little boxes to be stuffed into the wall, but it'll give you total flexibility in use - one TV can be watching local OTA and the other can be watching satellite. No idea how much space is there, but there's always a solution for such things - like a plastic wart on the outside wall to hold the stuff.

I know this sort of text instruction can be hard to follow. Maybe you could try sketching it from the text to help it make sense. If not, I'll TRY to draw something for you.

 

[sprintcarcrazy]

Umm, I don't think the stuff in the house is dishpro. I have 2 dish 500's, one with quad, one with dual running 6 receivers, the 4 one has no external switches, but the dual has sw switches, maybe sw21 switches, I have my 811 and 510 on that one so they would not go out of the house. The quad has 2 311's, a 301 and a (not sure).

If I do away with the funky box, the OTA will not work I don't thing because it's powered from the funky wall outlet. At times when camping and massive trees, all you can get is OTA.

 

[SimpleSimon]

I understand that you'll have to wire some 12V to the antenna amplifier. Should be easy enough. Funky switching n longer needed because of the rest of the rewiring I am proposing. You might want a simple on/off switch for it.

As for your house setup, what you've posted doesn't jive for any kind of standard installation - but it doesn't matter to this discussion. If you have ANY "SW" switches, and/or NO "DP" logos on the LNBFs, you're "Legacy", and must follow a specific procedure when moving the camper's receiver (using DishPro) back to the house.

When convienent, you should map out your house's dish/LNBF/switch/receiver setup so that you'll have it ready if you ever need us to help you with a problem there. It's going to be the FIRST thing we ask.