If you recall, prior to RV-103 launching on her first mission, I looked into getting satellite TV without success. You can find that story here.
Anyway, while here in CA, we had a neighbor in the campground for a few weeks that suggested a local company that specialized in RV’s for satellite TV. That is how we ended up doing business with Sacramento Valley Satellite.
We spoke with Mr. Danny Curiel, the owner of the company, and found him quite reasonable. He is the preferred satellite company of choice for Camping World here in the area. I had sent him the link to my blog on our first experience trying to get satellite TV so he would be up to speed on what we were looking for. And, surprise, he actually read it! That gave me hope we finally would be dealing with someone who knew what they were doing.
Mr. Curiel went over the various packages with us and we chose Dish Network to be our provider and the Bronze plan with 100 channels and Bronze HD. The price was to be about $40 per month with a 2 year contract. He did talk us into getting a new dish that stood alone over the one we already had installed on the roof. This dish stood on its own tripod and had sensors to locate three satellites at a time. The cost for the dish was only about $45.
A technician named Jason came out the next day. I found him to be a very professional and competent technician. He got our system set up and showed me how to point the dish. The best part was the fact that he gave me his cell number to call in case I had any problems. This way I would not have to deal with the idiots at Dish Network wasting hours pressing numbers and talking to clueless technicians. He also provided a hearing device that I put in-line with the cable to help locate the satellites.
The weather was supposed to turn bad shortly, and Jason left one last piece of advice; Get three tent stakes and stake down the dish so it wouldn’t get knocked over in the wind. Unfortunately, I did not heed his advice right away. After he had left, I went inside and had some lunch while enjoying our satellite TV. Soon after, the TV screen went to snow, and then a message came up saying the receiver had lost the satellites. I looked outside and sure enough, the dish was lying on its side. The wind was blowing hard (how did I miss feeling the RV rocking?) and rain was coming down in sheets.
Cursing, I went out into the rain and set the dish back up. I then walked over to the KOA camp store and bought three stakes. Within 10 minutes I came back and the dish had blown over again. I stood in the rain trying to tune in the satellites and only succeeded in locking on to one. That would have to be good enough until the next day.
The next day the weather had cleared and we had beautiful skies and warmth again. I went back out to try again to lock onto the satellites. Another RV had parked beside ours that morning and the owner was outside trying to get his satellite dish aimed. The RV belonged to an elderly couple who had been traveling full-time for nine years. He told me that he had his dish for nine years and always had trouble trying to aim it. We put our heads together to solve the problem and I quickly realized that he would be of no help when he couldn’t even determine which way was north on his compass.
You see, to aim my dish, I need to know three things; Where to point the dish in the sky or the degree, how high in the sky or the azimuth, and which way to tilt the dish sideways or the skew. With Dish Network, you go into the menu, plug in your current zip code, and the menu provides you with the proper degree, azimuth, and skew. You then move your dish to the proper azimuth and skew, locking the dish in place. Then here comes the fun task of finding the degree.
To find the degree, you need a good compass that has the degrees marked on it. You line up the degree markings on your compass with the “direction of travel” and then turn the compass until the needle lines up with the north marking on the dial. Once the needle is lined up, you look where the “direction of travel” is and that is where you point your dish. Note: you must keep the compass away from the RV and the dish for metal effects the compass and you will get a “false” north.
You then plug in the earpiece so you can hear the satellite tones. You first turn the dish to the left of where you anticipate the first satellite will be and slowly sweep right listening for the tone to change to a higher pitch. Once you hear the first pitch change, you keep sweeping right until you hear the second and third satellite. Once you hear the third satellite, you sweep back left to the second satellite and stake down the tripod in place.
The elderly gentleman was once again out trying to point his dish. I showed him where to point the dish, but he disagreed with me. He thought the satellite numbers were the actual degrees and at one time actually had his dish pointed directly at his RV instead of the southeastern sky. The satellite numbers are the names of the satellites and have nothing to do with the degrees here in CA. I was looking for EchoStar 110, 119, and 129 at 153 degrees in the southeastern sky.
I left the gentleman to his search, and I went about finding my satellites. After a few tries, I finally found them and staked the dish in place. I then went inside to have the receiver start the search for the satellites and at first it worked and found all three. Later on, it lost two of the satellites, and then later, it found only two. Oh well, even though we had two satellites, we still have something to watch. I placed a call out to Jason to ask him for advice, but knew I probably wouldn’t hear from him for a couple days due to the Easter weekend.
Jason called me back the next day and said to have Gypsy watch the signal strength on the TV and while I gently moved the dish back and forth with it still staked down. Sure enough, we got all three satellites locked in and it was time to watch TV! Well done Jason and I hope that Sacramento Valley Satellite gives you a raise.
Though we are pleased with the satellite installers, I am not so sure how pleased I am with Dish Network. We are to have 100 channels plus HD. Those channels are there, but there are many duplicates up and down the “dial” and the channel guide is cluttered with paid channels such as Movie channels, triple X channels, paid sport channels, and other useless channels we won’t pay for nor watch. I set the channel guide to show only the channels we subscribed too, but Dish Network felt they needed to clutter up the guide with these other useless, paid channels. I would suggest to Dish Network to take this clutter off the guide.
One nice thing about our setup is if I am content to watch just one satellite, I can hook the receiver into our dish on the roof.
Three days later the elderly gentleman finally got his dish pointed correctly. Unfortunately, it rained and a hard wind blew today. We got some snowy reception, but never lost our lock, but his dish wasn’t staked down and it blew over. I hope it doesn’t take him three days to get it pointed again.
One last thing, since we have a dish on a tripod, I can move the dish and receiver to our condo when we are in Florida and enjoy satellite TV there. It truly is a portable system.
