Winegard trav'ler and Dish Hopper

[timanddebbie]

My wife and I started our fulltime adventure just a few days ago. I also just installed a new Trav'ler for Dish network. We moved our s&b hopper and Joey into the rv. I am having a problem with getting the 3 tuners to work. Tuner 1 and 2 work fine. Tuner 3 keeps losing signal. I ran the check switch several times and tuner 3 says it is connected to satellite 118 and fails on the other 2 connections. I know dish operates on sats 119, 110 and 129 in the west. The trav'ler control box says it is connected to 119, 110 and 129. I haven't hooked up the Joey yet. How do I get tuner 3 to find the correct satellites? Is this a dish, winegard or something else problem? Thanks for your help.

[TechWriter]

First, how is you RV setup wired? It should be one of these two ways . . .

• Single Coax connection
• Dual Coax connection

[az99]

After you get it wired correctly or add the solo node, keep in mind that just because it says you are on 110,119,129 does not mean you are getting a signal on all of them.
129 can be totally blocked with 0 signal but the display on the control box will still lead you to believe you have 129.

[timanddebbie]

I currently have 2 (new supplied in the trav'ler setup) coax cables running into the coach. Output #1 going directly into the hopper. Output #2 not hooked up to anything, yet. I am guessing I need to get the solo node to put in place and finish wiring up to the Joey in the bed room. But, would my current setup give me these problems with tuner 3?

[luvlabs]

Your wiring is incorrect. Both lines from the Trav'ler have to go into the Solo Node. From there, you can either run a single line to the Hopper (with a 75 ohm cap on the unused side of the Solo Node) or a line to the Hopper and one to the Joey.

[TechWriter]

Originally Posted by timanddebbie

I currently have 2 (new supplied in the trav'ler setup) coax cables running into the coach. Output #1 going directly into the hopper. Output #2 not hooked up to anything, yet. I am guessing I need to get the solo node to put in place and finish wiring up to the Joey in the bed room. But, would my current setup give me these problems with tuner 3?

Probably.

[timanddebbie]

I finally finished the install and added the solo node. Everything is now working great. Thanks for everyone's input.

[TechWriter]

Thanks for verifying what I suspected -- you can connect a Hopper directly to a dish & get a 2-tuner DVR.

[luvlabs]

Originally Posted by TechWriter

Thanks for verifying what I suspected -- you can connect a Hopper directly to a dish & get a 2-tuner DVR.

???????????

You connect a Hopper to a dish without the SoloNode and you get 2 satellites. But you still have three tuners. I not sure that the Hopper would even function on two satellites as it normally has to see all three to be functional.

[TechWriter]

Originally Posted by luvlabs

You connect a Hopper to a dish without the SoloNode and you get 2 satellites.

Nope -- If you're connected to a 1000.2 or 1000.4, you'll get all three sats.
However, Tuner 3 gets "confused" and thinks it sees sat 118:

Originally Posted by luvlabs

But you still have three tuners.

Nope again. You have 2 tuners that work. In the example below, I tried to record 3 programs at once. The Hopper let me, but indicated a "Signal Loss" on Tuner 3:

Originally Posted by luvlabs

I not sure that the Hopper would even function on two satellites as it normally has to see all three to be functional.

It will work on 2 sats because you can use a DISH 500 Pro Plus 2 LNB dish. In this case you would get sats 110 & 119.

[luvlabs]

Thank you for explaining that. Although it would work, it's not real useful without the 129 satellite which carries the local HD broadcasts.

[TechWriter]

Originally Posted by luvlabs

Thank you for explaining that. Although it would work, it's not real useful without the 129 satellite which carries the local HD broadcasts.

Look at the first photo in post #10.