Suggestions for motorhome setup.

hdflsts2002

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Jul 1, 2008
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I'd like some suggestions as to the best setup for Motorhome use.

Currently at my home I have an H3 with 3 4k Joeys.
For Motorhome use (weekends through summer and fall as well as a couple week long outings) I currently have an owned 722k receiver a 1000.4k dish with both eastern and western arc LNBs a high quality Tripod and SuperBuddy for tuning. This has worked well but to drive the three TVs front of coach, bedroom and outside, Only the front tv get's HD and the bedroom and Outside share a signal. While this has worked well for the first couple of years, I'd really like to come up with something where I can have 3 independent channels all in HD.

I'd like to do as little new cabling as possible, as running cable through the coach is anything but an easy task. So it would preferred to use as much of the factory cable as possible. This is a 2002 Holiday Rambler so the cable is all RG59. My first thought was to just pickup another H3 and a couple Joeys or wireless Joeys but every time I have spoken to dish they say that one Hopper account even if the second is an owned hopper.

I thought about a 3 Wally setup but could not find any info on wiring three in the same system. I see the new Hopper Duo but it looks like that would only work for a 2 TV setup.

Running one new RG6 feed from dish to Media bay at the front of the coach would not be terrible and from there I have access to the individual RG59 runs that go to the bedroom and outdoor Sets. In a perfect world I'd love to keep the 1000.4k dish with the east and west LNBs as that gives me the option to shoot either way from a campsite and gives me the best chance to get signal as well as the fact that I can setup and sight the 1000.4 in a matter of minutes and with the fine tuning adjustments on it, I can peak the snot out of the signal.

Thanks in advance to all for suggestions and guidance.
Tony
 
Are you saying you somehow have a Hopper 3 and a ViP722k on the same account? Or two accounts?


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Are you saying you somehow have a Hopper 3 and a ViP722k on the same account? Or two accounts?


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Same account. As long as the 722K is owned and not leased then they allowed me to have it on the same account. Actually have two 722Ks and a 222 on my account with the H3. The older receivers are ones that I had previously purchased so as not to be locked to a contract. Then when I did the H3 upgrade I moved one to the motorhome and turn it on when we take the motorhome out and the other 722 I use when we have outdoor parties at the house in the summer. I call in and reactivate those as needed and then call to deactivate when we are done.

Ideally I would have liked to just put another Hopper 3 with a couple of Joeys or wireless Joeys in the motorhome. That would have been easy peasy. Sure I'd have had to buy another dish and a new eastern and western hybrid LNB but the rest would have made it a snap. However everytime I have called and asked I have been told only one Hopper per account owned or not. I'm wondering if that same applies to Hopper or Hopper 2??? Perhaps I should call again and ask if I have an owned previous gen Hopper could I add that to my account.
 
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Same account. As long as the 722K is owned and not leased then they allowed me to have it on the same account. Actually have two 722Ks and a 222 on my account with the H3. The older receivers are ones that I had previously purchased so as not to be locked to a contract. Then when I did the H3 upgrade I moved one to the motorhome and turn it on when we take the motorhome out and the other 722 I use when we have outdoor parties at the house in the summer. I call in and reactivate those as needed and then call to deactivate when we are done.

Ideally I would have liked to just put another Hopper 3 with a couple of Joeys or wireless Joeys in the motorhome. That would have been easy peasy. Sure I'd have had to buy another dish and a new eastern and western hybrid LNB but the rest would have made it a snap. However everytime I have called and asked I have been told only one Hopper per account owned or not. I'm wondering if that same applies to Hopper or Hopper 2??? Perhaps I should call again and ask if I have an owned previous gen Hopper could I add that to my account.

There are a lot of members of this forum that have 2 or more Hopper 3's, but nobody I've ever heard of has a 722 and a Hopper on the same account.
 
There are a lot of members of this forum that have 2 or more Hopper 3's, but nobody I've ever heard of has a 722 and a Hopper on the same account.

I have had the 722Ks and the 222 on my account since I upgraded to the H3 a few years back. I was told even back at the point of upgrade that since the receivers were purchased that I could have them on the account with the H3 and could activate and deactivate as needed. Now they did say that if these were leased receivers that this would not be an option.

I have seen threads here of people with multiple H3 setups but every time I have called dish to see about adding another to my account if I purchase one I have been told that was not an option. I've checked periodically here in hopes of catching a member of DIRT online to see what they might be able to do about this but never seem to be able to catch a DIRT member online anymore.

I just really want to be able to have HD at all three locations in the Motorhome without having to rerun cable throughout or having cables coming in through the windows. Some flavor of hopper with either Joeys or wireless Joeys would be the simplest. Hell if I could even add an older version hopper I wouldn't need to change the reflector or LNBs I could just add a 42 or 44 switch.
 
There are a lot of members of this forum that have 2 or more Hopper 3's, but nobody I've ever heard of has a 722 and a Hopper on the same account.
I just ran into this last weekend with a customer. She has a 722 at home, and a 211 at her camper. She wanted to replace the 211 with a hopper and Joey, and keep the 722 active at home for her son. Dish wouldn't allow it. Csr said as soon as the hopper gets activated, the 722 will deactivate.
 
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Just logged into my account and did a screen shot of the equipment on my account.
Screen Shot 2019-05-14 at 10.58.01 PM.jpg
 
I just ran into this last weekend with a customer. She has a 722 at home, and a 211 at her camper. She wanted to replace the 211 with a hopper and Joey, and keep the 722 active at home for her son. Dish wouldn't allow it. Csr said as soon as the hopper gets activated, the 722 will deactivate.

Were her receivers purchased? That seemed to be the key point on mine. Rep I spoke with during the upgrade said that since the receivers were owned by me that they could be on the account but that if they were leased receivers that would not be an option.
 
Count your blessings. It’s not that you pulled a fast one, it’s that you achieved something while they were transitioning and didn’t have the rules down pat.

That said, you can certainly buy a second H3 and get it activated. And the Joeys. If the CSR is clueless, demand a supervisor. You might say you sometimes carry it to your RV. Or remain silent on that. Best option.

But yes, it is likely your LNB and possibly dish will need to be replaced, along with other items. I will leave that to others more knowledgeable than I.

BTW, do not go with an original Hopper. Go with the HWS if you don’t get an H3. Then ask for a free Snap to make the HWS as fast as an H3. But I think you’ll be happier with an H3.

DIRT may return to us.


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I have had the 722Ks and the 222 on my account since I upgraded to the H3 a few years back. I was told even back at the point of upgrade that since the receivers were purchased that I could have them on the account with the H3 and could activate and deactivate as needed. Now they did say that if these were leased receivers that this would not be an option.

I have seen threads here of people with multiple H3 setups but every time I have called dish to see about adding another to my account if I purchase one I have been told that was not an option. I've checked periodically here in hopes of catching a member of DIRT online to see what they might be able to do about this but never seem to be able to catch a DIRT member online anymore.

I just really want to be able to have HD at all three locations in the Motorhome without having to rerun cable throughout or having cables coming in through the windows. Some flavor of hopper with either Joeys or wireless Joeys would be the simplest. Hell if I could even add an older version hopper I wouldn't need to change the reflector or LNBs I could just add a 42 or 44 switch.

I hear you and don't doubt you, it's just that I don't know how you accomplished the impossible and had a Hopper added to an account with 722K's and a 222K when that is specifically against the business rules which only allows up to 2 purchased 211's or Wally's on an account with a Hopper. Even though you accomplished that you can't get them to do what's become acceptable and have 2 Hopper 3's. Amazing...
 
You can see here that the Hopper is leased but the others are owned/purchased.


Screen Shot 2019-05-14 at 11.05.28 PM.jpg
Screen Shot 2019-05-14 at 11.05.40 PM.jpg


Screen Shot 2019-05-14 at 11.05.53 PM.jpg
 
Were her receivers purchased? That seemed to be the key point on mine. Rep I spoke with during the upgrade said that since the receivers were owned by me that they could be on the account but that if they were leased receivers that would not be an option.

The business rules state that up to 2 owned (purchased) 211's or Wally's are allowed on a Hopper account. Before you I've never seen or heard of an exception to that.
 
I hear you and don't doubt you, it's just that I don't know how you accomplished the impossible and had a Hopper added to an account with 722K's and a 222K when that is specifically against the business rules which only allows up to 2 purchased 211's or Wally's on an account with a Hopper. Even though you accomplished that you can't get them to do what's become acceptable and have 2 Hopper 3's. Amazing...


I hear you there! I scratch my head every time I read a post here where someone is talking of a multiple hopper setup. I guess it's time to make another call and just keep asking to speak to the next person up the ladder until I get someone who can do what obviously is acceptable to do. Have any experience with Wally's???? Perhaps I could just add 3 Wallys a 42 switch and a stackable splitter. If I'm reading correctly I could feed the Wallys from the splitter and use the RG59 cable already strung in the coach.
 
I hear you there! I scratch my head every time I read a post here where someone is talking of a multiple hopper setup. I guess it's time to make another call and just keep asking to speak to the next person up the ladder until I get someone who can do what obviously is acceptable to do. Have any experience with Wally's???? Perhaps I could just add 3 Wallys a 42 switch and a stackable splitter. If I'm reading correctly I could feed the Wallys from the splitter and use the RG59 cable already strung in the coach.

The RG59 if it's good quality would probably work for the Wally's but is not approved and may be problematic. We've installed several Wally's on the Hybrid channel stack splitters and they've worked fine but it sounds like a Hopper 3/Joey 3 setup would be ideal for what you want.

Maybe they won't do a second Hopper 3 for you because when they call up your account they freak out when they see those 722's and 222 with a Hopper. I have been told in the past that their computers won't even allow that mix. :eeek
 
I hear you there! I scratch my head every time I read a post here where someone is talking of a multiple hopper setup. I guess it's time to make another call and just keep asking to speak to the next person up the ladder until I get someone who can do what obviously is acceptable to do. Have any experience with Wally's???? Perhaps I could just add 3 Wallys a 42 switch and a stackable splitter. If I'm reading correctly I could feed the Wallys from the splitter and use the RG59 cable already strung in the coach.
That may work for a while, but the rg59 will eventually burn out running those wallys. And that's if you can do more magic and get dish to activate three wallys on your hopper account!
 
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Hell I'd happily ditch the other gear if they'd let me add another hopper and a couple of Joeys. The 222 has already been collecting dust for a long time and the party 722 get's 3-4 weekends worth of use a year. The Motorhome 722 get's the most use of the 3 and most of the time it's on only because after a weekend out in the coach or after coming back from a week's vacation in it I often forget to call and turn it off until the next months bill comes in LOL..

So I'm thinking what I should probably do is pickup an HWS or H2 so that I can use my same reflector and LNBS and then call dish and just keep pushing until someone makes it happen. Like I say wouldn't give a tinkers damn if I had to give up the VIP receivers if I can get them to add the other gear.
 
Currently at my home I have an H3 with 3 4k Joeys.

For Motorhome use . . . I'd really like to come up with something where I can have 3 independent channels all in HD . . . This is a 2002 Holiday Rambler so the cable is all RG59 . . . I thought about a 3 Wally setup but could not find any info on wiring three in the same system.

In my RV I have a H3 with two Joey 2.0s so pretty much much you want.

Since wired Joeys use MoCA, crappy RG59 should be hunky dory as MoCA frequency requirements (650 - 875 MHz) were designed with bad wiring in mind.

Here's how I did it (Note that I use a 1000.2 portable with DPH LNBFs so that I only need to run a single coax between dish & RV):
https://rvseniormoments.files.wordp...d-Travler_One_Hopper3_Two_Joeys-4-18-2018.jpg

If you can swing two H3s, then your wiring gets more involved. For example, you would have to run at least two coax lines from a portable dish to your RV. Also, networking two H3s requires quality coax from the switch (a DPH42 in this case):
https://rvseniormoments.files.wordp...travler_two_hopper3_two_dph42s_05-15-2019.jpg

What's great about a two H3 system in an RV is that they'll be no "echo" between TVs. In my RV, the front TV is connected to my H3, but the bedroom TV is networked to a Joey. Since these two TVs are less than 40' apart, we get echoing TVs if both of the TVs are tuned to the same program. (It's a MoCA issue.)

BTW, if you are only using a portable dish and not a Winegard Travler, then there's no need for two DPH42s or AB switches as shown in the above drawings.
 
A 1000.4/DPP LNB only requires a single coax to the RV if the DPH42 is mounted at the dish.
For one H3, sure. But for two H3s you'll need 2 coax runs if you mount the DPH42 on the dish or 3 coax runs if you mount the DPH42 inside

But I think you mean "Why bother buying a 1000.2 dish when I just have to hang a DPH42 switch from my already purchased 1000.4 dish?"

For me, the former is simpler.
 
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