RV setup

[wsandjs]

I have a Dish 222 receiver and would like to set up in my motorhome. So far, I have had no success. The back of the receiver has two SAT IN (1 & 2) connections, and a "Home Distribution" connection. I normally use this receiver in my home with two TV's. The cable from the dish is split with two cables then feeding SAT IN1 & SAT IN2. The "Home Dist" port connects a cable to the second TV. My motorhome has a KVH R4 dish antenna. I have connected the cable feed from the dish to the SAT IN1 port, and run a cable from the "Home Dist" port to the SAT IN port on my RV's distribution panel. Unfortunately, I'm not getting anything. What am I doing wrong? One RV dealer has said I need a Dish 211 or 311 receiver instead of the 222.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[ronharp1]

Your RV dealer is correct. The sat domes only use one LNB at a time and need the single tuner receiver to work best. It's been this way for a number of years now. The 211 has the cable out for the rear TV also. When you get it all set up be sure to do a check switch. That will show you what sats it will pick up.

Ron

 

[Tomboy257]

I use the 222 in my MH, but I use a tri-pod mounted dish. I can use the roof mounted winegard in a pinch but only one input and no seperate viewing on front and back TVs

 

[wsandjs]

Thanks Tomboy for the response. Do I have the receiver cabled properly? Antenna cable to SAT IN1, cable coming from "Home Dist" port on receiver going to distribution panel SAT IN connection on MH's distribution panel? At home, the second tv is via a wireless connection via the antenna on back. Don't plan on 2nd tv use in MH. Also,at home I need to have TV set to channel 74 or something like that. I've been using channel 3 on the tv, do I need to change it to whatever channel is being used at home? Thanks again for your input.

 

[Tomboy257]

Sorry I didn't get back sooner.... On our Bounder, the external"Park Cable" input is lableled "Satelite Ready" This means that the "Park Cable" line doesn't go through the antenna booster. In the interior compartment where all the TV connections are I have two cables going to a "Cable/Antenna" switch. I disconnect the cable from the "Cable" side of this switch (I think there is a barrel connector there, if not put one in so that you can attach a longer piece of coax and a seperator). Also in that compartment is a video distribution box. It is used to send the signal from the DVD player to the rear TV. Mine is labled "Sat/DVD/Aux". I plug in AV cable from the "Sat" input to TV1, I then ran extra AV cable from the "Aux" input to TV2. By setting the distribution box to "Sat" for TV1 and "Aux" for TV2 I am able to view independent programming on both TVs. Also by changing the input on the TV remotes I can veiw over the air programming from my batwing antenna.

As our Bounder had a Winegard crank-up dish from the factory, the compartment to the right of the TV had some cabling already installed (the AV cable going to the video distribution box), and a power outlet for my receiver. I fished the extra coax and AV cable behind the TV for this setup.

Hope this helps

 

[delta_charlie]

Hi, when I used to have a VIP 222 I found it would work just fine with only the Sat 1 hooked up. Just run a check switch and ignore the warning about receiver 2 not being hooked up correct. Receiver 2 will not work of course but receiver 1 should be fine.

Regarding hooking up the TV, how many do you have in the RV? I would start with a direct connection from the receiver to the first TV just to get things going. You could use the HDMI, component or composite. The second TV could use the coax output but it would only have the same programming as the first TV. Play with the home distribution only after you get the direct connection to work to make it easier to sort out what is and what is not working.

Hope this helps, DC

 

[harshness]

The first order of business is to temporarily bypass the distribution box and make sure you've configured your distribution channels and TVs correctly. You'll think yourself pretty silly if your outputting a AIR signal and your TVs are set for CATV (or vice versa).

 

[Tomboy257]

Sorry I didn't get back sooner.... On our Bounder, the external"Park Cable" input is lableled "Satelite Ready" This means that the "Park Cable" line doesn't go through the antenna booster. In the interior compartment where all the TV connections are I have two cables going to a "Cable/Antenna" switch. I disconnect the cable from the "Cable" side of this switch (I think there is a barrel connector there, if not put one in so that you can attach a longer piece of coax and a seperator). Also in that compartment is a video distribution box. It is used to send the signal from the DVD player to the rear TV. Mine is labled "Sat/DVD/Aux". I plug in AV cable from the "Sat" input to TV1, I then ran extra AV cable from the "Aux" input to TV2. By setting the distribution box to "Sat" for TV1 and "Aux" for TV2 I am able to view independent programming on both TVs. Also by changing the input on the TV remotes I can veiw over the air programming from my batwing antenna.

As our Bounder had a Winegard crank-up dish from the factory, the compartment to the right of the TV had some cabling already installed (the AV cable going to the video distribution box), and a power outlet for my receiver. I fished the extra coax and AV cable behind the TV for this setup.

Hope this helps

With this setup I cycle through the TV's inputs (using the TV remote) until I find the one displaying the sat signal.

I have also used Delta_Charlie's method with my crankup dish for short stops when I didn't want to set up the outside dish