Multi-hopper account questions... with Camper twist

[shaferz]

Our current setup is as follows:

In our house:
Qty 2: Hopper (without sling - leased with dish)
Qty 4: Joeys (original ones I think - slow as a snail - leased with dish)
Qty 1: Sling adaptor.

In our RV:
Qty 2: Joeys (original ones I think - bought outright on amazon)

When we go camping each weekend, we simply take one Hopper out of the house, hook it up in our camper, aim the dish, do a CheckSwitch, and it works great with the two purchased Joeys in the Camper. I did all of the wiring for it years ago and it has worked great. Doing this lets us leave the other hopper at home with the sling adaptor plugged in so we can still use the Dish Anywhere app on our phones.

Wife is now fed up with the slowness of our system at home. We would like to upgrade to a Hopper 3 setup, but to retain our usage of the Dish Anywhere app on our phones, I think we still need a second Hopper (which I would hook up at home when we are home, and take with us when we travel.)

Current home setup has a dish hitting the western arc (110, 119, 129) with a duo node mounted on the house and then enters the house and has some splitters or taps to feed everything where it needs to go.

Current camper setup is again a dish hitting western arc (110, 119, 129), but with a solo node.

Have been trying to catch up on what is allowed and it looks like Dish chokes when people want more than one Hopper 3? If that is the case, do they allow a Hopper 3 and an original Hopper? Or is that equipment just not compatible?

 

[ChadT41]

You can have twin h3’s, but you’d have to purchase one of them.

 

[shaferz]

Good to know. Thanks.

Also sounds like the Joey's that we have now will all need to be replaced... unfortunately we own 2 of them already.

The question now becomes... should I:

- have Dish install a setup so that I can run two hoppers in the house with 4 total new joeys?
---- this would require me to take the Hopper in and out of the house each weekend we go camping. I would still have to buy two new joeys for use in the camper.

- or should I have them install a single Hopper 3 in the house with 5 new Joeys, and then just buy my own Hopper 3 with new Joeys for the camper, and leave them all in there at all times.
---- The new Hopper 3 has more tuners than our previous two original Hoppers so that would work fine in the house.
---- This would eliminate me having to juggle a Hopper in and out of the house.


I recognize that the two different ways have differences in the switches and stuff that the installer would have to use. Hmmmmm.

 

[ChadT41]

Unless you want the redundancy, that is the route I would go

 

[boba]

Would 2 Wally in the camper that you can turn off and on as needed work for you as long as you would be buying receivers for the camper?

 

[les.warden]

Would 2 Wally in the camper that you can turn off and on as needed work for you as long as you would be buying receivers for the camper?

Don’t forget to add cost of EHDs for Wally recording.

 

[ChadT41]

One $40 time cost will let all the Wally’s on the account use EHD. It would be made up in less than 3 months with the $15 DVR fee applied for Hopper accounts.

 

[Brussam]

Would 2 Wally in the camper that you can turn off and on as needed work for you as long as you would be buying receivers for the camper?

Once you have had a Hopper, Wallys are just not going to make it. A hopper 3 and Joey 2 are the way to go.

Assuming you have a Winegard Trav'ler, you will need a SOLO Hub and a DPH-42 Switch for a Hopper 3 in the RV.

 

[navychop]

I’d expect Dish to replace your owned Joey 1s with owned Joey 3s.


Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[shaferz]

Just spent quite a bit of time on chat with Dish and they confirmed what you guys mentioned... but I had to pry it out of them.

I asked if more than one Hopper 3 can be on a single account, and the answer was 'Yes, if you have more than 6 TV's.'

I then mentioned that I heard from a friend that if that was the case, you couldn't lease two Hopper 3's. The answer was 'That is correct - one would have to be purchased.'

They also mentioned that the leased Joeys would all be upgraded along with the Hopper. Hopper 3 upgrade charge is $100, the Joeys are no additional upgrade charge.


It really seems like the logical thing to do here is to have Dish come and install the Hopper 3 with 5 Joeys. I can then buy my own Hopper 3, plus two new Joeys for the camper, plus the additional hardware needed (hub/DPH-42.)

 

[ChadT41]

Sweet talk a tech and he may just give you the hardware(Hub/Switch). By sweet talk, I mean slip him a tip and they will fight to be first to your door for a trouble call. Even better if you schedule it with a retailer(a good one) and they will become your single source for higher quality work.

 

[shaferz]

Just as an update with an additional problem.

Hopper 3 plus five Joey 3's installed into the house - works spectacular. I cant believe we waited this long to upgrade. Long overude... Happy wife... happy life.

Ordered and installed the additional Hopper 3 plus two Joey 3.0 in the camper - install went fine. For the initial hookup, I just connected to the permanent dish mounted for our house so I knew signal would be great. Had to talk to 3 different chat agents before I would get one that would activate the additional units. Shouldn't have been that difficult but a few of them were obviously mistrained. To expedite things, I did the software updates while connected to the internet and all worked well.

After that tested well, I went on to hooking up to my newly mounted Hybrid LNBF on my tripod mount normally used for our camper. I quickly found that my cheap satellite finder was giving my fits and I could not get it to work. After an hour of using apps on my phone, I was able to get it lined up close enough, but still not as good as the one permanently used on our house.

I've got a feeling this is going to set me up for heartbreak as we get to new campgrounds and I want to aim the dish. Are there different little in-line finders that work with the hybrid LNBF? I did some searching and came across some $6-700 units, but at that point decided to quit digging on my own and see if you guys knew of any other options.

Halp.