Dish Tailgater

[wncrasher]

I got a Dish Tailgater to use in the warm months.

This is a portable satellite dish and decoder box kit you can buy from Dish or on Amazon.

You set the dish out in the open (it's in a 1 cu ft plastic cube, weighs about 5 lbs) with exposure to the southern sky. Run the coaxial cable to the decoder box and then to your TV via HDMI cable.

It took 5 to 10 mins for it to go thru diagnostic and acquire the satellite. Then bingo - HD tv. The cool thing about this kit is that there is no contract required - you can go month to month, so many people actually use this to watch sports when they're tailgating at football games. It's cool for RV's because it's fairly compact, doesn't require manually aiming a satellite dish or worse yet, drilling holes in your trailer to mount an automatic dish.

I got the 200 channel package for $75 a month, including HD. Seems to work as advertised and the picture is great. I like it.

[time2play]

Thanks for the info.

I'm curious...is this what you purchased?
Portable Satellite TV Antenna - TV Outdoors For Tailgater | DISH

And what do you mean by "decoder box"? Is that the receiver mentioned on the website?

So is the total cost to purchase is $500, then $75/month?

[wncrasher]

Yes I mean receiver.


I got mine on amazon for around$430. You can find deals if you look. Since you buy the equipment, there is no contract. So if you only want to turn it on for a few months and then idle it over the winter, you are free to do that.

[Lumatic]

Originally Posted by time2play

Thanks for the info.

I'm curious...is this what you purchased?
Portable Satellite TV Antenna - TV Outdoors For Tailgater | DISH

And what do you mean by "decoder box"? Is that the receiver mentioned on the website?

So is the total cost to purchase is $500, then $75/month?

If I can jump in on this the "decoder box" must be the receiver. You have to have a Dish accoount and use a specific Dish receiver with the Tailgater, but you can also use it in your home. You can take your home receiver with you or pay an extra fee for an extra receiver. If you own your extra receiver it is $7/ month for subscription which you can have turned on and off.

[jcanavera]

Just to clarify, there are two methods to this. If you are a Dish customer already at home, other than the initial cost for the receiver and Tailgater, the cost is $7 monthly. You are allowed to activate and deactivate the receiver as needed and the cost per month is prorated. Your viewing package is the same as what you get at home.

The other method if you don't have Dish at home is to pay for a service package and the $7 per month for the receiver activation. In this mode, I'm not sure whether Dish will allow you to activate and deactivate the receiver.

[rtaylor537]

Originally Posted by jcanavera

Just to clarify, there are two methods to this. If you are a Dish customer already at home, other than the initial cost for the receiver and Tailgater, the cost is $7 monthly. You are allowed to activate and deactivate the receiver as needed and the cost per month is prorated. Your viewing package is the same as what you get at home.

The other method if you don't have Dish at home is to pay for a service package and the $7 per month for the receiver activation. In this mode, I'm not sure whether Dish will allow you to activate and deactivate the receiver.

I talked to a Dish representative recently regarding adding the Tailgater to our account and what I have read here matches her explanation. Without an account you pay for time used but you must call to open or cancel your subscription for each period used. The packages are the same as those offered to account holders. The only draw back as I understand is the phone time spent to pause or start the service which is no big deal for snowbirds.

[wncrasher]

Originally Posted by rtaylor537

I talked to a Dish representative recently regarding adding the Tailgater to our account and what I have read here matches her explanation. Without an account you pay for time used but you must call to open or cancel your subscription for each period used. The packages are the same as those offered to account holders. The only draw back as I understand is the phone time spent to pause or start the service which is no big deal for snowbirds.

It was explained to me that you have several options on renewal each month - autopay that charges your card each month until you make a call to cancel or suspend, monthly paper billing where if you don't pay it auto cancels, or you can call each month and pay to renew.