Born Free Leap'n Lions RV Club Info & Discussion Forum

Our 2014 BF is equipped with a Winegard satellite antenna. With no previous experience obtaining satellite coverage/usage, any suggestions most appreciated.

I would say step one is to have a sat. receiver and contract with Directv, Dish, or whomever. If you buy the receiver, get an energy star one to make life easier on the batteries. Then be sure pins under the dome are set for your sat. company. All that remains is to be sitting where satellite is visible to the dome.
Good Luck,
Ralph

X2 on Bigdipper's comments. Also, depending on which satellite service you have, you probably will not receive your local channels with your satellite. This means you will not receive the major networks, i.e.. NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS. To receive these channels in your local area make sure your outside antenna is also hooked up to your TV. Assuming your satellite receiver is connected to your TV via an HDMI cable, your outside antenna would be connected via the coaxial connection. With this setup you can easily switch from one to the other by using your TV remote and switching the input settings.

We have Directv and get the network channels from New York and LA in the rv and at home. There is a small additional fee per month for this service. We have had this for about 10 years so I hope it is still available. Army, in the newer coaches, is the satellite receiver box located close to the tv? In our 2004 the receiver box is next to the refrigerator so the HDMI connection is not possible.

If you have Directv, i have a very nifty satellite finder app on my iphone that needs no internet connection to work. You just point it at the southern sky and the three satellites show up as three red dots in the sky. You can easily see where to position for a clear view, or if one is hopeless in your location. It is called SATools DTV and cost about $5. Has saved me a lot of trouble.

Judy

When we got our Direct TV service, the dealer recommended that for RV s the Direct TV birds are higher in the sky and therefore will be more available in case of nearby tree obstruction to the signal.

richnwendy wrote:Our 2014 BF is equipped with a Winegard satellite antenna. With no previous experience obtaining satellite coverage/usage, any suggestions most appreciated.

Which Winegard satellite dish, and is it Direct TV or Dish? To the best of my knowledge they are all manufactured for either Direct or Dish.

My dome on the roof which is stationary has pins to set satellites for Directv, Dish, and I think one or two others.
Ralph

I wonder if the OP has a manual aiming dish on the roof which I guess could be aimed an any satellite. You will still need a receiver and pay for the service from the satellite TV provider.

The experience I have had with Satellite TV is the dishes which are mfg for either Dish or Direct TV and will pick up HD satellite TV. I have used both a dish manually set on a tripod or the Winegard Traveler automatic dish mounted on the roof.

Thank you all for input. Your information helps get us started. Happy trails.

What Winegard Satellite Dish does BF install on the new BF's? Looking at the BF website, it just lists a Wingard Stationary Satellite, but doesn't specify which model.

I learned something new today, apparently Winegard makes a satellite dish (Roadtrip MinMax) which has switches which can be set for Diretct TV, Dish, or Bell satellite TV service. Interesting.

It would appear that if you have Dish or Direct TV at home you could pick up your receiver/DVR and put it in your BF.

I have a Winegard Traveler installed and when we travel I move our Dish Network DVR from the house and put it in our BF. It works great.

Dish is also very accommodating in allowing us to change our local channels to wherever our BF is located with a phone call or starting a Chat Session with Dish Network on their website.

Al1Florida:
We have a Winegard Road Trip Mission, Stationary model RT4000S. Thanks for your information and suggestions.