I love portable dishes. I have to tell you folks, this is one of the coolest technologies ever. The idea that you can put this gumdrop shaped thing down and 2 minutes later, you’re watching live TV, that’s amazing to me. As someone who has spent a decent amount of time aiming satellite dishes, I have to bow down to a computer that can do it better and faster than I can.
Today’s portable dishes give you options. Most of them will work with one satellite at a time, which is a limitation, but all that means is slower channel changes. When it comes to DIRECTV, most portable dishes will only receive signals from the 101 location. This is because the other satellite locations use signals in a different range. Adding that capability to such a small dish would end up making it too expensive for people to buy. However, that doesn’t mean you’re locked out of having multiple receivers.
Genie with a portable dish?
Let’s get this out of the way. While it’s possible to use a Genie with a portable dish, it’s a real compromise and I don’t recommend it. Setting up the Genie has to be done in such a way that you’re guaranteed to have “signal loss” messages because the Genie is always going to try to look at multiple satellites. While it’s possible to get past these messages, it can get awfully annoying. For that reason, I only recommend using regular receivers like the H24 or H25 with portable dishes. These receivers will set up properly and you can select either 18″ round or 3-LNB 18×20 as your satellite dish type, depending on the manufacturer instructions. However, the H25 is a SWM-only receiver so you’ll need to put in an intermediate piece of equipment for it to work. That equipment is a SWM-30 multiswitch.
How to do it
You’ll need a portable dish with two outputs like a KING One Pro. If your portable dish only has one output, this isn’t going to work. Just connect the two cables to the first two ports of a SWM multiswitch, and power the multiswitch. Here’s a diagram that applies to most portable dishes with two outputs.
Dome-DSWM30Obviously, adding a little more equipment makes the installation just a little less slick, but it’s not really a big deal. The multiswitch can be right near the receiver and you could even build the entire thing into a small shelf if you wanted to so it was always ready to go.
Need more advice?
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