Direct TV in the fish house

[The_King48]

I'm sure this has been brought up before. Sorry I'm not very good with the "search" on this forum. I have a extra receiver model # H25-500 that I could use in the fish house. What do you use for a dish? Any good / bad experiences?

[cableguy2]

I use a standard definition receiver with a crank up winegard dish, works awesome.

[The_King48]

I don't want to put a hole in my roof. I was thinking about the tri pod set up. How long does it take to dial in? I've never messed around with the dish before.

[Savage Brewer]

The H25 is designed to be used with a HD Slimline dish or in combination with a SWIM module. The old dish only locked on the 101 satellite, and only the elevation and azimuth mattered.

The new HD dish also uses signals off of the 99 and 103 satellites along with those on 101. The signals on 99 and 103 are much weaker and you now have to take the skew of the dish on axis into account. Without an AIM meter or equivalent (I think they are selling for around $700) tuning a HD dish can be a real bugger, even more so if you have not done one before.

You might be better off trying to find a SD receiver that will work with the old 101 only dishes as they are much smaller and easier to tune. If you want HD on the ice it might get interesting and or a bit expensive.

[The_King48]

Can I get standard definition on the H25?

[Savage Brewer]

You can receive both types of programming, but the question is if the H25 will work with non-SWM style dishes?

I dont know for sure, but from the google searches so far it appears that the H25 will only work with SWM dishes.

It appears that the H24 and older will work with either dish style, but the H25 is SWM only.

So that leaves you with 4 options...

Get a Slimline dish with integrated SWM, and deal with the tuning headaches.

Get a standard dish along with an external SWM-8 and associated parts to make it work.

Get an older receiver and dont mess around with the SWM at all.

Leave the TV alone and find some games to play if you are not actively fishing at that time.

I might chose option 4 as it requires the least work, but if it is important to have TV I would reach out to a local DirecTV dealer in your area.

[castmaster]

Do the King Dome units support HD?

[Savage Brewer]

Do the King Dome units support HD?

They only support HD when used with Dish Network.

Standard def only on DirecTV

[The_King48]

dam this sounds complicated..... Does anybody live close to St Michael or Otsego that would be willing to help me for the first time.?

[hunter76]

I have Direct TV. Very easy to set up.

[Savage Brewer]

I have Direct TV. Very easy to set up.

Which dish are you using and with what receiver?

[alleyesonme]

i have the 18" round style dish that came on the ice castle, with the standard direct box. hook everything up, go to the aim screen on the dish box, enter your zip code, it will tell you the degree to point the dish at mine is pointing southwest at the 101 degree sat., once it starts to lock on signal make fine adjustments to get the best possible signal. oh and i had to crank it up 17 1/2 cranks up from fully down to get the best signal but that could change depending on differant factors. as a dish newb it literally took 5-10 min to get it up and watching tv for the first time. i also used the compass on the iphone to point the dish as close to 101 degrees by tiurning it by hand then went inside and started to fine tune by the hand dial inside the shack.

[FishFindHer]

We also have the crank up dish that came with the ice castle. (Thinking about doing the Dish network "pay as you go" plan.) For those who have the pre-mounted dish, do you have issues with snow/ice freezing things up? Hubby is concerned that we might break something and doesn't want to invest the money into buying a receiver, etc. if it's not going to work right. I really want my TV though

[alleyesonme]

you can call winegard directly and get a direct tv basic receiver free if you do a monthly plan with them my bill currently in 26.50 for the first year and looks like somewhere in the 50-55 range for the next year. i was looking at the dish pay as you go also but have to buy a box for 99.00 and then the fees assosiated with the monthly deal. i am going to use the ic to camp out of so it will be used all summer also.

[Savage Brewer]

The problem that "The_King48" has is that he has a receiver that is only compatible with SWM dishes, (Single Wire Multiswitch).

Some of the newest DirecTV receivers will only work with SWM dishes, they will not work with the LNB on the older dishes.

This is specific to DirecTV and the followinf models I am aware of:

DirecTV H25-xxx

DirecTV HR34-xxx

DirecTV HR44-xxx

All other DirecTV receivers can work with the older style LNB.

[alleyesonme]

there is a nice chart on the winegard web site that tells what dish's and box's are compatible and what type of ad dons are required but from what I saw with any box other than standard def a b-band converter is required. check out there site or give them a call help me out greatly talking to there tech guy

[Savage Brewer]

The B-Band converter was pre-SWM.

With the release of the SWM LNB's and the newest receivers, B-band converters are no longer used.

[Chad Holst]

Has anyone ever used the "tailgater"? We recieved one from a sponsor. comes with a reciever, the dish, wire. Just need service, they said. $20 a month?

[FishFindHer]

For anyone interested in Dish, you can get the Dish receiver a little cheaper on the Winegard HSOforum($75 vs. the $99 you pay on the Dish HSOforum). Then you own it and don't have to pay any monthly rental fees, etc. It is HD capable and you can even add your own hard drive to turn it into a DVR (one time "activation" fee of $40 to do that). The receiver is called the Vip 211z.

The cheapest "pay as you go" plan is $39/month. For those of you (like me) who don't have satellite at home and don't plan on using your fish house year round, this seems like a good deal. (We do have an RV for summer, but we really don't watch much TV in it...definitely don't want to commit to a two year plan right now.) There are no activation or cancellation fees. Basically you pre-pay for the month & if you don't pay for the next month, the service just shuts off. Oh, I also saw you get 3 free months of Starz with any of the packages.

I'm excited about getting HD in the fish house, but I'm a little concerned that tuning it in with the crank up dish that came with the fish house is going to be a PITA (that's where something like the tailgater looks nice...it tunes itself.) Any other Dish users out there with a similar setup who can share their experiences?

[LakeDocktor]

In my opinion, the crank up Winegard dishes are designed to be used with DirecTv more than Dish Network. The truth in the matter is that programming comes from different satellites. While DirecTv is capable of obtaining both satellites needed for their SD programming on the crank up dish, Dish Network is not. This means when you change the channel from HD to regular programming or to local channels, you need to repoint the dish. You would be far better off with a traditional dish set up on a tripod or an automatic satellite dish like the VuQube or Tailgater when using Dish Network in a mobile capacity.

[FishFindHer]

Thanks for that info. I think with the basic package we're getting all of the HD channels we want (including my locals)are on satellite 129. If I can tune that one in, I should be good to go. If I'm missing one or two random channels, not a huge deal.

We do have an old Dish at our house (we used to have dish at home but switched to cable). Can we put that on a tripod and use that?

[The_King48]

I called Winegard and my H24 box is compatible with there dish. I think that's the way I'm going.

[LakeDocktor]

Thanks for that info. I think with the basic package we're getting all of the HD channels we want (including my locals)are on satellite 129. If I can tune that one in, I should be good to go. If I'm missing one or two random channels, not a huge deal.

We do have an old Dish at our house (we used to have dish at home but switched to cable). Can we put that on a tripod and use that?

Keep in mind that even though your locals may be on 129, not all HD programming is on 129. There are still quite a few channels (ESPN and USA to name a couple) that come off of 119.

Depending on the dish it could possibly work. If is it the round, Dish 500, then you will not receive your HD channels. You need the oval Dish 1000 or 1000.2 to get the satellites you need for programming.

Off topic and back to the Traveler automatic finding satellite system, they work great, but the VuQube is a much better choice for this. The main reason being that the Traveler only is compatible with Dish Network, while the VuQube can acquire signal from both Dish Network and DirecTv if you ever decide to change providers.

[forcedtowork]

I purchased the Winegard Anser(carryout) for my fish house this fall, I have yet to use with my direct tv, but I plan on testing it out soon before the I hit the ice.

[FishFindHer]

Keep in mind that even though your locals may be on 129, not all HD programming is on 129. There are still quite a few channels (ESPN and USA to name a couple) that come off of 119.

Depending on the dish it could possibly work. If is it the round, Dish 500, then you will not receive your HD channels. You need the oval Dish 1000 or 1000.2 to get the satellites you need for programming.

Not sure if it will let me post a link here, but according to this http://dishuser.org/129list.php it does show ESPN and USA on 129.I looked at the list of the channels on the "basic" package (ones that I would actually watch, anyway) and it looks like they're all there, as are locals for Duluth-Superior and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Yes, the dish we have at home is the HD one. We just switched to cable this past spring because the trees around our house had grown in to the point that we were no longer getting our HD channels. They made us send our receiver back, but we still have the dish on the garage.

Edit: looking more closely at the list, it looks like ESPN and USA are only for Alaska on the 129...so you were correct. Still, it looks like most of my channels are on 129, so I guess we'll just see how it goes with the crank up dish. Maybe look into doing something with the garage dish if we have to. Thanks again.