Satellite for Cdn's

[Charli]

I purchased a manual satellite dish with tripod to get satellite reception in our 5er. After much fiddling I finally got it working in my driveway but have had limited success in campgrounds. I have totally worn out mypatience. I,m in Minneapolis and they have the Winegard Carryout, GM1518 on sale for $600. At CW. I know it's over $1,000 at home in Winnipeg. It's supposed to work with Bell Expressview but before I shell out $600. bucks I'd like to hear from some fellow Canuks if it works as good as advertised. We have Bell at the house so we already have a receiver. Before we left on this trip I phoned Bell to set up the "Flip Flop" service where they turn off the receivers in the house.
We do most of our camping in western Canada and US but may venture down to Arizona in a few years when retirement kicks in.
Thanks for your thoughts.

[Johnnyfry]

Bear in mid that these satellite services use spot beam coverage from the satellites to cover their normal coverage area. Outside of these areas the coverage falls off. For example, I had XM-Sirious service on my Truck radio. It became unreliable and ceased altogether north of Whitehorse, YT.

Two things come into play here, the spot coverage and the height of the satellite above the horizon. All of the geosynchronous satellites are parked in a ring at a latitude near 22° North and as you go north they get closer to the horizon. At some point they disappear or become occluded by intervening hills.

The spot coverage for services like DirectTV and Echo favor the continental United States and falls off rapidly as you go outside those limits. Canadian satellite services favor Canada and probably fall off toward the southern United States.

John

[Loui]

I'm using the same setup you were using with Bell.
I have a home made ladder mount dish and a tripod for when trees are in the way. I does take some practice to find 91 and 82 but I can usually be up and running in about 15 min.

You should be able to pick up Bell Nimiq 91 in most of the States as far south as Florida and as far west as San Francisco for a few more months then not at all. Bell is changing their Nimiq 91 and the new foot print will be the same as Nimiq 82 so only just a little south of the border.

Bell 82 is pointed further north so I have only had luck if I am only 200 miles south of the border or less. So no HD and soon no Bell satellite south of the 39th parallel by the end of 2012

I would hold off on the Wineguard set up for Bell just yet you may need to switch to Shaw to get Canadian Satellite service south of the border. I dont think the Wineguard set up for Bell can be switched to Shaw (different LNB) They do make a specific Wineguard carry out for Shaw but they cannot be switched from bell to Shaw

Link to new Nimiq 6 Bell 91 footprint

http://www.satbeams.com/satellites?norad=38342

Good luck

[Charli]

Thanks Loui. I think you may have just saved me $600. I will phone
Bell when I get home and see what they have to say. I find Bells website very frustrating and talking to them on the phone, when you can finally get a live body is equally frustrating. Think i will put my money towards an "add a room".

[deanrw]

Charli- I would not phone Bell and tell them you are planning to use there service in the US. We used to have Bell, and they will cut your service off right away if they find out you are using there service in the US.

We switched to Shaw, they have a home away from home program. They send you a dish. If you ever are having trouble, or need information, you can phone them and they will try and help you as best they can.

I would like to get the Shaw Direct Winegard Carry out, but according to the box it says it will only work in Canada. I dont know if this is true or not.
I am also retireing in a couple years, and plan to spend my winters in Arizona. I hope the Shaw Direct Winegard carryout will work down in Arizona, other wise I will either have to just use the dish, which sometimes is a pain, or spend about $2000 + for the roof top dish.

[planecrazy]

My brother-in-law is in the military; stationed down south for the last 3 yrs.

A couple of weeks ago he & fellow Canadians stationed down there suddenly " lost " their Bell programming which always worked down south before. Apparently they have just put up a new sattellite which only transmittes to a few miles south of the USA & Canadaian border. I would not depend on getting Bell down there. We had not heard of the flip flop service; can you elaborate on that?

[Charli]

[QUOTE. We had not heard of the flip flop service; can you elaborate on that?[/QUOTE]

Basically Bell deactivates the receivers in your house and activates the receiver in your trailer. They don't want yougetting reception in two different locations unless you
pay extra. This works for us as no one is at the house when we are on the road, only problem is I do have some programs set up to record when we are away and now theyaren't recorded.
Not sure what we are going to do when we winter in Arizona in a few years. Would be nice to get some local news and programming when we are away. Got a few years to figure this out. Perhaps the Internet is the solution

[concours]

The Shaw Home from Home program has now been cancelled and the receivers blocked too bad it was a great program

[Jables]

I wish bell had a bird west of 91 degrees. In southern BC it's the hardest provider to find because the elevation is so low. Dishnetwork and directv are way easier. Too bad I hate shaw even more than bell.