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DishTV VIP622/VIP722K DVR

Red Rover, Red Rover, Send Tige Over
Last Changed 3/26/2012

Note:
The VIP722K has been replaced with a Hopper 2000 System.
We wanted a HDTV DVR.  The final cutover to totally digital broadcast TV has been delayed by Congress until 2008 or so, but the trend is to digital programming and HDTV (High Definition TV) is the best of digital format.

We choose DishTV for their HDTV programming and the cost of their HDTV DVR.  The DishTV HDTV DVR was the VIP622.

The DishTV VIP622 gave us some interesting problems when we went to use it on the road.

The VIP622 wants two inputs from the satellite dish.  When the DishTV technician installed the VIP622, he used a splitter from one of the tripod mounted DishPro 500 dish feeds and attached it to both VIP622 inputs.  That worked fine.

Then we went on the road and tried the VIP622 with our roof mounted Winegard AS-2003.  The AS-2003 has two coax feeds just like the tripod DishPro 500.  One of the coax feeds goes to the living room and the other to the bedroom.

I used the splitter from the DishPro 500 with the AS-2003 but it did not work.  It seems that the Winegard AS-2003 expects a voltage signal on the primary coax feed to control the satellite selection and the splitter does not pass that signal.

While the VIP622 wants two inputs, it will operate with just one in a severely limited mode.  One of the functions lost with just a signal feed is the ability to record a program while watching another.

While the AS-2003 dish has two coax feeds, one is in the bedroom.  If we had known this, we would have had some extra coax cabling installed to give us configuration flexibility.

Update

When we replaced the VIP622 with the VIP722K, we still had the issue with AS-2003. The signals from a true Dish Pro satellite dish can be used to drive the two inputs to a DVR but the coax feeds from the Winegard AS-2003 can't.
TV Aiming Tools We eventually solved the coax feed issue by installing a conduit from the bedroom to the living room under the trailer belly.  We can now route the bedroom signal to the VIP622 in the living room so the VIP622 has two feeds.

We used the same conduit to run the Cat-5 wiring for our WISP radio.
Cable Run
TV Aiming Tools The VIP622 can drive a second TV, each watching its own programs.  We took the second TV output of the VIP622 and ran that to a coax switch.  The other leg of the switch came from the antenna/cable connection for the bedroom TV.  Now the coax that used to carry antenna/cable to the bedroom can also carry the second TV output of the VIP622 depending on the switch position.

There is a provision to run the antenna/cable signal through the VIP622 but we choose not to do that for simplicity reasons.
Click on images to enlarge

While the VIP622 can drive different programming to two TVs, it can be limited by the Winegard AS-2003.  Both programs have to be off of the same satellite.

To allow the VIP622 to switch the satellite for recording purposes, we gave input channel 2 of the VIP622 to the primary coax feed of the Winegard AS-2003 since the VIP622 uses channel 2 as the main recording channel.  Input channel 2 is also the channel used to drive the second TV.  This caused a couple of issues.

When we are using the Winegard AS-2003, we have to use the second TV remote to cause satellite changes.  This means moving remote 2 between the living room and the bedroom.  A second remote would solve this but the remote 2 is a RF (radio frequency) unit, not the typical IR (Infrared) type.

The second problem is that the bedroom TV is subject to what is being recorded by the DVR.  If the bedroom TV viewer wants to watch something else, the recording needs to be stopped.  This could be solved by splitting the secondary Winegard AS-2003 feed and adding an additional satellite receiver.  But this would cost $5.00 a month and the conflict happens rarely as we take advantage of receiving broadcast TV from the East coast (Atlanta) and the West coast (San Francisco) to record when we are not watching and to record programs that occur in the same time slot.
TV Aiming Tools We carry a DPP 1000.2 dish mounted on a tripod.  This replaced the original DishPro 500.

When the VIP622 is connected to the DPP 1000.2 dish, we have full flexibility of programming.  We use the roof mounted AS-2003 for quick overnight stops where we do not want to spend the time to setup the tripod.  The tripod setup also gives us flexibility when we are parked in trees.  There is a chance that the tripod can be located clear of the trees.
Click on images to enlarge

To ease cabling, we installed two coax switches between the exterior feeds from the tripod DPP 1000.2 and the roof mounted AS-2003 dish.
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