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Dish Tailgater Antenna

Yahoo Message Number: 90687
Has anyone some personal experience with the Dish Tailgater? Good, bad or otherwise. Not with Dish themselves. TIA

Gil B

05 Inspire
51322

Re: Dish Tailgater Antenna

Reply #1 –
Yahoo Message Number: 90690
Gil,

My Kingdome went went out of commission a couple of years ago. I found a Vue Cube unit for sale in the RV park we were visiting. King Controls is now marketing this unit under several names, Vue Cube, Tailgater and another name that I can't remember. Some use a hand held remote control.; some are fully automatic. It depends on your willingness to pay the price. Ours is not automatic.
We use DirecTV, non-HD. They work on Dish also with different guts. Performance is excellent. We have been able to find our satellite even in campsites with many trees. Sometimes we have to use a long cable but, that is OK because it only needs a single cable for both power and signal. Amazing! Bottom line:We love it. I would buy another if needed. However, I might pop for the automatic unit as the prices seem to have come down recently.
Check out their website and call them. Sometimes they have factory refurbs available at low cost if you are interested in that.
Daron Hairabedian, 98 Allure 30223

Re: Dish Tailgater Antenna

Reply #2 –
Yahoo Message Number: 90698
We have the tailgater with Dish which I bought with my last coach and kept when I sold it. I also have the Winegard Trav'ler SK-1000 roof mount unit which I love. Just push one button when we pull in and in 15 minutes Satellite is fully functional. But sometimes depending on the park and the way the coach is parked we are partially blocked from the southern sky and so I installed am A/B switch so I can use either the Winegard or the Tailgater if needed. The Tailgater only gets two of the three dish satellites whereas the Winegard gets all three. But two are enough for most viewing anyhow. The satellite companies have gotten away from the distant networks thing, but with Dish, whenever we pull into a park for any length of time, a quick call to tell them where I am and they enable the local networks. We never the major networks for anything anyhow, but I like having PBS if I can.

Joseph Burkle

2008 Country Coach Inspire 360 Founders Edition 43' quad slide tag axle 425 HP C9 pusher http://www. Wind-seeker.com/

Re: Dish Tailgater Antenna

Reply #3 –
Yahoo Message Number: 90715
Daron,

Could you please share how you have

Re: Dish Tailgater Antenna

Reply #4 –
Yahoo Message Number: 90716
(Sorry I hit send button earlier by mistake)

Daron,

Could you share how you wired your vue cube at your coach? Did you place the cable from the vue cube in the bay where one normally hooks up the cable from the RV park? And whew is the receiver location in relation to this set up? I'm seriously thinking of buying a "tailgater" but wanted to know how (or if) it can be hooked up to my existing outside "cable in" box. Thanks in advance, Ed. 98 Alkure 30259

Re: Dish Tailgater Antenna

Reply #6 –
Yahoo Message Number: 90734
I do not use the cable connection located in the utility bay.
I am the second owner of my coach so I do not know if the following is factory installed or aftermarket. (I am inclined to think that it is aftermarket): The input from my Vue Cube connects to a cable located in the bay under the driver seat. Initially when I purchased the coach this cable was installed to a connector mounted through the front wheel well. It was capped but, it seemed like a poor environment to have a connector as it would be exposed to a lot of debris. So, I removed the fitting from the wheel well. Now I hook-up directly to the cable in the compartment. The cable is fed under the dash over to the passenger side windshield pillar then up into the cabinet above the passenger then to my receiver. The receiver is mounted vertically against the bulkhead. I keep the cabinet door open so that the signal from the remote will reach it.

Somehow this works even though the remote can not actually "see" the receiver's eye. It is not an RF system. Lee Zaborowsky explained this to me some time ago. The signal from the remote is reflected off the surrounding cabinet surfaces to the receiver.

I did not use an A-B switch as the Vue Cube is the only antenna I use ever use.

Daron Hairabedian 98 Allure 30226

Re: Dish Tailgater Antenna

Reply #7 –
Yahoo Message Number: 90743
Ed,

FYI. I just noticed an ad booklet from Camping World showing The Tailgater automatic, Dish Network version at about $395. I am not sure but, it sounds like CW is in a co-op program with King Controls. Might be OK if you like Dish Net.
Daron
 

Re: Dish Tailgater Antenna

Reply #8 –
Yahoo Message Number: 90744
As explained earlier, I use both the Tailgater and the Winegard Trav'ler for Dish Satellite reception. I had the Tailgater and Solo ViP 211k receiver which I had purchased for my previous RV and kept it for the Country Coach. This coach had the Trav'ler. The Trav'ler was set up for DirectTV, but a call to Winegard confirmed that for a few hundred bucks I could convert it to Dish which I prefer. So they sent me the hardware and I had Bobby from Kustom Coach in Junction City do the changeover. The receiver sits right next to the above-dash mounted TV in a glass front compartment. My remote works right thru the glass. There is a winegard switch over the door which I use to power on the Trav'ler when I arrive at my destination. It automatically raises, swivels and locks in on the three dish satellites. So 15 minutes later all I do is turn on the TV and I have my programming.
However, if I am partially blocked by a tree or something, then I have an A/B switch night next to the receiver. I throw it over to B and this takes the signal then from a cable down in the bin below the driver. I connect that to my tailgater with a 50' coax cable that I can position anywhere near the coach where I can get a signal. This option greatly improves my ability to get satellite in a more wooded campsite, for example. While I could easily live without TV for a few days, quite often we go to lakes where we stay for a month or more at a time. I would not care to be without satellite for that length of time, so the Tailgater is a very handy option. Reception is just as good as the Trav'ler... no difference in the quality of the HD signal... just that my Tailgater only receives two of the three satellites... Trav'ler gets all three. But frankly I never watch the stuff on that third satellite anyhow so in practical terms for me there is no difference, and if I did not have the Trav'ler installed, I don't think it would be worth it for me to pay all that money for the expensive system when the little Tailgater works as well as it does.

Joseph Burkle

2008 Country Coach Inspire 360 Founders Edition 43' quad slide tag axle 425 HP C9 pusher http://www. Wind-seeker.com/