I'm looking at the Winegard manual model. Does anyone have any experience with this unit? Is it easy to adjust once you've hit the campground? How hard is the installation? Any help would be appreciated.
CRANK-UP RV Digital Satellite Dish
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It's a fairly good unit - but all of those type have one major drawback.
Usually you try to park your RV under the trees on the spot, which is a killer for the sat signal. IMHO you are better off with a tripod you can move away from the rig into the clear as you need to. Otherwise, you wind up jockeying the rig around looking for a clear LOS.
Major PITA in my opinion - especially if you pull into someplace late in the day & just want to relax with a frosty cold one and a ball game.
I have both the roof crank up and a tripod for the times trees are in the way. Lots easier to just crank it up than put up a tripod in my opinion. And if its in a motorhome with hydraulic levelers even easier.
Installation isn't bad, but the azimuth locking feature on mine didn't work well, because the center shaft had to be so accurately centered in the hole drilled through the roof. I ended up making a plate maybe 10" in diameter of aluminum that over came the problem, by allowing it to be centered correctly then mounted on the inside on the ceiling. Mine is an older Winegard RD4600. I think they have been redesigned some now. Mine is centered on the curve of the roof, but they make an adjustable ring to allow mounting on the sloped portion of the roof.
Winegard's digital elevation gadget is good. But since I put it in, I also made a print out of how many turns of the crank for what elevation. Works just as well with in 1/2 turn for me. If using the digital and running from the RV's 12VDC make sure the voltage is pure DC and not just rectified AC. The latter causes the readout to vary.
Which model is it you are planning to install?
Installation isn't bad, but the azimuth locking feature on mine didn't work well, because the center shaft had to be so accurately centered in the hole drilled through the roof. I ended up making a plate maybe 10" in diameter of aluminum that over came the problem, by allowing it to be centered correctly then mounted on the inside on the ceiling. Mine is an older Winegard RD4600. I think they have been redesigned some now. Mine is centered on the curve of the roof, but they make an adjustable ring to allow mounting on the sloped portion of the roof.
Winegard's digital elevation gadget is good. But since I put it in, I also made a print out of how many turns of the crank for what elevation. Works just as well with in 1/2 turn for me. If using the digital and running from the RV's 12VDC make sure the voltage is pure DC and not just rectified AC. The latter causes the readout to vary.
Which model is it you are planning to install?
Here's some pictures of my tripod mount.
I found that constantly setting the thing up makes having some fine tuning adjustments desirable. A permanent location at a home only needs aiming once. But in an RV everyday needs new aiming when traveling.
So I made elevation & azimuth that I can adjust with turnbuckles. Also note the barn hinge on the arm. It has a screw adjust so that placing an inclinometer on it will read the elevation directly. Also note the reflector's bolts are epoxied on to make easier setup. And nylon washers to allow easier adjusting.
I found that constantly setting the thing up makes having some fine tuning adjustments desirable. A permanent location at a home only needs aiming once. But in an RV everyday needs new aiming when traveling.
So I made elevation & azimuth that I can adjust with turnbuckles. Also note the barn hinge on the arm. It has a screw adjust so that placing an inclinometer on it will read the elevation directly. Also note the reflector's bolts are epoxied on to make easier setup. And nylon washers to allow easier adjusting.
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Are you aware of the major drawback of the crank up antenna is its inabillaty to see multiple sats?
Aside to wrdavis....How well does your dish fit in your compartment when traveling? I'm thinking of switching to the 1000.2 for HD
Aside to wrdavis....How well does your dish fit in your compartment when traveling? I'm thinking of switching to the 1000.2 for HD
It all breaks down to:
1. Tripod
2. Short Mast
3. Arm & LNBs
4. Reflector
5. 50' Reel of dual coax
6. Tent Stakes
All fits on a shelf I built in the compartment.
See this link for a small Ku Band dish for the RV.
http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-air-fta-discussion/190241-76-cm-portable-rv-dish.html
1. Tripod
2. Short Mast
3. Arm & LNBs
4. Reflector
5. 50' Reel of dual coax
6. Tent Stakes
All fits on a shelf I built in the compartment.
See this link for a small Ku Band dish for the RV.
http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-air-fta-discussion/190241-76-cm-portable-rv-dish.html
Holy Cow! All I wanted to do was pick up a little SatTV on my occasional travels. Maybe I'll just buy a tripod and experiment.
I bought my RV used, and it had a Winegard crank-up dish already installed. Most of my camping is at or near the beach so trees have never been a problem. The only issue I had was the azimuth lock isn't very rugged. One trip this summer during strong winds the dish would just spin around. I finally got it to lock with duct tape. When I got home I took it apart and found out the nut on the main shaft was loose. Tightened it up and have had no issues since.
I don't have a HD receiver in the RV so I get along with just seeing 119 fine. I can switch to 110 if there's something there that I really want to watch, but it requires running a "checkswitch" everytime I switch sats.
I don't have a HD receiver in the RV so I get along with just seeing 119 fine. I can switch to 110 if there's something there that I really want to watch, but it requires running a "checkswitch" everytime I switch sats.
