Roadtrip Minimax

[rehamner]

I have two receivers hooked up to my minimax. The front receiver locks on just fine and I can watch all of the Dish programming. The second receiver loses signal depending on what channel I try to set. Shouldn't each receiver get the same programming?

[Bill Adams]

It would be great if that were true, but unfortunately, it is not. Dish uses 3 different satellites to broadcast all of their programming. The first receiver can automatically point the Minimax to the satellite required to watch the program you selected with that remote. The second receiver will now be a slave to that receiver and it can watch any programming that is on the same satellite that the first receiver selected but will not be able to receive any programming from either of the other 2 satellites.

[rehamner]

Thanks Bill. Dish argued with me that it was an install problem. Bad connection! Is the problem the same with Direct TV?

[Winegard Tech Help]

rehamner,

To fill in for Bill, the issue is not nearly as prevalent with DirecTV. DirecTV broadcasts 99% of SD programming from satellite 101, so each receiver should be able to get a very high percentage of available programming.

The only issue you may run into is if your local channels are spotbeamed off of satellite 119 (which seems to be the case about 50-60% of the time). Then you would run into the same issue you're seeing with DISH when trying to watch a local channel on one receiver and a non-local channel on the other.

If you let me know the market your local programming comes from, I can check to see if they come from 101 or 119.

[rehamner]

My local channels come from the Houston, Tx market.

[Bill Adams]

Also, no dome is capable for receiving the DirecTV High Def (HD) programming if that is important in this case.

[Winegard Tech Help]

rehamner,

It looks like some of your SD locals come from satellite 101, others come from 119. So you will have no problem watching the locals on 101 and any other channel, but you'll run into a tuner conflict if you try to watch the locals from 119 on either receiver.

101: KPRC NBC-2, KUHT PBS-8, KHOU CBS-11, KTRK ABC-13, KTXH MNT-20, KRIV 26-FOX, KIAH 39-CW, KXLN UNI-45, KTMD TMO-47, KPXB 49-ION, KYAZ 51-AZA, KUBE 57-IND, KFTH 67-TFT

119: KLTV 07-ABC, KCEB 14-CW, KYTX 18-IND, KYTX CBS-19, KFXK 52-FOX, KETK 56-NBC