Travelling with Directv

[bfla]

I am looking to take directv with me when we go camping. At home I have a slimline 5 lnb dish and I have both HD and SD receivers in the house. I have read that trying to set up a 5 lnb on the road can be difficult so I was thinking of just going with a single lnb dish and one of my old receivers that I own (probably about 7-8 years old, before they started leasing them). I figure HD while camping is really not worth the extra trouble. I have the following questions about it:
1. What are the chances of getting my local stations? I will be camping anywhere from 50-200 miles from home, and sometimes further than that.
2. Will there be any issue using a single lnb dish on the road since I have a 5 lnb at home?
3. Will my sports packages (MLB, NFL) be available on the road?
4. Is there anything else I need to know to get this up an running?

Any and all advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[dlma1]

Have you considered buying this:

DIRECTV - Sat-Go Portable Satellite TV Receiver with 17" LCD Screen - Z11

As for your packages they are normally "mirrored" with each receiver.

 

[dfergie]

Welcome to SatelliteGuys!
Find a Phase III dish then you will get pretty much everything but the HD channels...

 

[SamCdbs]

Consider the "disaster recovery kit". Its a standard single LNB dish with a tripod with a built in compass and all the cables. While they say it is for disasters, its really for tailgating. I'm not handy and can set the thing up while tailgating in 10 minutes. You can replace the single LNB with a triple if you want to.

1 - It depends on where you are in a spot beam. Consult a map of the DMAs and go from there. 50 miles in one direction might be fine, but 15 miles in another might not. What we do when we go tailgating outside the spot is just call in and say we have moved to the DMA we are in at the time, which is technically true, and they light up the locals for that place immediately, which is really better anyway. Another option is just to hook up one of those $10 converter boxes people were too stupid to buy and an antenna.

2 - No. Just select the right dish at the set up screen.

3 - Of course, unless you follow my advice as above, in which case the blackout matrix for your new zipcode will apply (which you may or may not like better).

4 - Nope.

 

[bfla]

I was thinking something like this - much closer to my price range! I could do the same set up but with a 3 lnb for not that much more money. Do you know if either of these would work?

 

[bfla]

needed a 3rd post...

 

[bfla]

to paste the link of the setup I was looking at


http://my.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MyEbayBeta&CurrentPage=MyeBayNextWatching&ssPageName=STRK:ME:LNLK:MEWAX

 

[thetech2009]

yes sir that will be perfect.... good price to... just a little help on the setup, you may want to use your reciever to help find sat signal with the volume turned all the way up... the meter that comes with that is junk

 

[dfergie]

That only has the 18" dish with 1 LNB, you can get a tripod at Radio Shack and a pole at a Home Depot or such and cut to length...

 

[bfla]

what would be the benefit of the 3lnb over the 1? Ideally I just want access to all my channels (will settle for SD only) on 1 receiver. The 3 lnb would be for something like a dvr with 2 tuners, right? Or is there some other difference between the 1 and 3?

By the way thanks to all for the advice!

 

[Jimbo]

bfla,

Welcome to the site !!!

I would rec. going with the 3 lnb set up if you can swing it.

Jimbo

 

[dfergie]

Using the 18" Single LNB dish will greatly limit you... check out the list SatelliteGuys.US - Subscription List Home and go to Directv and check out the 3 sats to see what is on each...

 

[bfla]

checked out the list and it seems just about everything I need is on 101. Did not see NFL channels anywhere - that is a scary thought.

 

[thetech2009]

checked out the list and it seems just about everything I need is on 101. Did not see NFL channels anywhere - that is a scary thought.

nfl network and sunday ticket are also on 101

 

[Jimbo]

Using the 18" Single LNB dish will greatly limit you... check out the list SatelliteGuys.US - Subscription List Home and go to Directv and check out the 3 sats to see what is on each...

Don,
This looks like an old list, do we have access to a more update one ?
There is NOTHING mentioned about the 99 or 103 sats.

Jimbo

 

[bfla]

from what I was able to find it looks like 99 and 103 are mostly HD channels. There are a lot of locals for various cities as well. Do I have any chance of getting my locals with a single lnb? If not I can get the same tailgate satellite package for about $14 more with a 3lnb dish. Is 3lnb the only chance for me to get locals?

 

[Bob Nielsen]

from what I was able to find it looks like 99 and 103 are mostly HD channels. There are a lot of locals for various cities as well. Do I have any chance of getting my locals with a single lnb? If not I can get the same tailgate satellite package for about $14 more with a 3lnb dish. Is 3lnb the only chance for me to get locals?

According to Lyngsat the Orlando SD locals are on 101. HD would be on 99 or 103. The 3 LNB dish they are referring to is probably for 101/110/119 (required for locals in some areas, as well as some foreign language channels).

 

[Jimbo]

According to Lyngsat the Orlando SD locals are on 101. HD would be on 99 or 103. The 3 LNB dish they are referring to is probably for 101/110/119 (required for locals in some areas, as well as some foreign language channels).

Yes, thats the one I was referring to, not the new 99,101,103 one ...

 

[dfergie]

Don,
This looks like an old list, do we have access to a more update one ?
There is NOTHING mentioned about the 99 or 103 sats.

Jimbo

Yeah it does need updating...

 

[bfla]

decided to go with single (dual) lnb for ease of set up and since HD is not an issue. I will post back in a few weeks after we use it.