Dish Network Play Maker Sat Antenna Problems

[gmg]

We have used an older generation Winegard Carryout Dish antenna for 5 years and it has worked very well. The downside though is that it requires 2 cables. One for the satellite receiver and the other for power. I thought it would be good To have one that receives its power through the receiver coax cable so that I only would need to deal with one cable. So we purchased a Play Maker unit. The problem is when changing channels it looses signal and requires resetting and new signal acquiring. i spent about 2 hours on the phone with Dish last night trying to sort it out with no luck. Their conclusion was that there is something wrong with the wiring in the trailer. What could be the problem? The previous Carryout Dish worked just fine with the same trailer wiring. By the way the receiver is connected to a dedicated satellite coax connection and not the cable connection.

[lryrob9301]

Just a guess but I would bet there is a splitter installed in that satellite cable run inside the trailer. That would allow data flow from the antenna to the receiver but would not allow data flow from the receiver back to the antenna for a channel change to another satellite. Is there two satellite receiver connection locations in the trailer?

[jorbill2or]

Also you are now running power through the coax. ( which of course was your goal) While it may have worked just passing the video on the old setup the addition of Power has obviously caused a problem. Check all connections , like the one behind the sat “in Jack“ you plugging into on the side of the rv no shorts etc and insure it’s a direct run to the tuner box from there. Too long a cable 50 ft total including the interior run is std but I’ve seen it work with longer , bad connections, poor quality coax all possible.

[rexmitchell]

Does your trailer have a dedicated satellite jack on the outside or are you running it through the cable coax? If you aren’t on a dedicated satellite coax this could be the problem. Well, the problem for me was on the inside where the antenna/cable meet behind the outlet and merge into one coax to connect the TV. I had to disconnect the antenna wire and directly wire the cable inlet to the coax. That solved my problem. The splitter can cause issues with satellite signal.

[Bill_Satellite]

The very fact that it works when wired directly and does not when wired through the coach should be all the information you need. No one can be sure what is or what is not causing the issue and there are so many variations of wiring and wiring types even RV to RV by the same manufacturer.
I would suggest finding a new route into the coach where you can run high quality coax from point to point.

[gmg]

I guess then in order for the system to work, the RV would have to be re-wired with this 3 plus Gigahertz coax.

[DFord]

The latest coax for satellite antennas is rated at 3+Ghz. The signal from the receiver back to the dish telling the antenna to switch from 110-119-129 uses a sideband that uses higher frequencies.

[gmg]

I did try connecting direct and it did work but why would the trailer wiring work on the Carryout dish but not on the Play Maker? Could it have something to do with the Play Maker requiring power through the coax?

[Dutch_12078]

Try running a coax directly from the Playmaker to the receiver to see if the problem goes away.