OTA Kinda Sucks

[DKRITTER]

We have a Trav’ler for Dish and a Hopper2 in the DS. We also have the Dish OTA adapter.

We are less than happy with the OTA performance, in my 2 previous RV’s the performance was fine.
I have tested the cable that goes from the amp to the bat wing and it tones just fine. I have also just put a new coax on the bat wing and ran it thru the door to the amp, no difference. We have replaced the amp, no difference.

If I program either the Hopper2 or the TV’s directly I get about 1/3 of the channels I get from my home setup with an antenna in the attic. At RV Parks if they are not within a few miles of a tower it won’t pick anything up.

Any suggestions on how to improve performance? Changing service address is simple, but it screws up the home set up so I’d rather not if possible.

 

[Neal]

I've been happy with my Winegard Rayzar but I also experimented with DISH OTA adapter and use a separate HD antenna for that. I assume you have a coax connection routing from your bat wing to the OTA adapter and did the channel scan within the Dish setup screen? When using Dish you have to scan from the Dish menu, if you are connecting direct to your TV(s) you have to channel scan on the TV's directly, as you probably know. OTA is hit or miss and has a lot of variables from line of site, interference, etc. I would assume the bat wing would be ideal but this is what I've experimented with on the Dish OTA adapters.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IF70QCW/?tag=rvf01-20

 

[Old-RV'er]

When the government got rid of analog TV, the distance the digital signals can travel is reduced (analog used to bounce off the top of the atmosphere-now line of sight only), and, many frequencies were turned from VHF to UHF (either DOD wanted them or phone companies wanted them) frequencies which many newer sets fail to get/program in. We here in N-GA, are stuck with ATL stations for OTA, all the channels come in fine except NBC. Why, so I called their broadcasting dept., he told me that most newer TV look once for UHF, then ignore them the second and subsequent times in search. He said to turn off TV, remove power, let it lose all settings, and try again, but after coming home, it works without doing that. Atmospheric conditions also have a huge bearing on if we get that channel or not. Some days fine, some days forget it. We are (digital is mostly line of sight) about 75 miles from the tower, and I got antenna that says it good out to 100 miles. Re-tuning the set (searching for channels again) sometime brings it back, then it goes away again. Our best TV is something built into the Samsung set which gets channels over my wireless network (TV Plus), so we get those channels So if you have a wireless connection, make sure the Sony sets are logged into your wireless, they may get some channels over that which are built into them. I have not checked to see if they do or don't, next time we are out. Yes, my antenna is boosted.

Now in the MH, if the power amplifier is off, we don't get nothing, if it's on, and again depending on how far we are away from the broadcast, we can get some things. Mostly it's PBS stations, with maybe one normal channel. Since TV lately disgusts me generally, we hardly don't watch it. If within 50-75 miles, and pointing in the proper direction (check what other folks have theirs pointed toward), you should get those channels, if out further than 75 miles, then I suggest you find other activities instead of OTA tv. Cannot help you with any DISH stuff, decided after we got rid of DTV, wont pay for TV service again, just aint nothing worth watching, we take lots of walks, or read. FWIW-I also though my cable was not working but it seems fine when close enough to get OTA. The mothership did find the ground satellite wiring was wrong, so they fixed that when last there. The cable connection works fine, most parks have some rudimentary low end cable TV for you, so we use that if we got to see weather. FWIW-2: My biggest fear is forgetting the antenna is up, so we hang something on the handle to remind us to lower it. The old coach had a fixed OTA antenna, so did not have to worry about that, it was worthless, powered or not, had to be within 30 miles for it to get anything. That could have been wiring issue, too much trouble to fix.