TV Dish Tripods
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TV Dish Tripods

Red Rover, Red Rover, Come Over
Last changes 3/9/2008

There is an array of ways to mount a satellite dish when on the road.  There are those available for purchase and an array of home built versions.  This is a sampling of the available mounts.

Our main criteria for evaluating tripods was; can the mounting mast be leveled on unlevel ground.  That criteria made H&G tripods our choice.

Bird-On-a-Wire (BOW)

Bird-On-a-Wire You will sometimes see an older DirecWay satellite Internet dish that is also receiving satellite TV signals.  This extra hardware is referred to as Bird-On-a-Wire (BOW).  This hardware is not in production anymore but can sometimes be found for sale.  The BOW hardware only worked with the older DirecWay dishes, the fiberglass ones or the DataStorm automatic roof units.

BOW doesn't always work.  It depends on your TV service, DishTV (satellites 110, 119, 129) or DirecTV (satellites 99, 101, 103, 110, 119), and which HughesNet (nee DirecWay) satellite  (83, 87, 91, 95, 99, 117, 127) you are assigned to.  There is a limit on how far off the TV satellites can be from the HughesNet satellite.

BOW does not receive the new DirecTV satellites for HDTV.

If you can live with HDTV limitation, and are on a useable HughesNet satellite, the BOW  has the advantage of a single tripod solution.

Winegard TR-2000 Tripod

TV Dish Tripod The Winegard TR-2000 is a small simple tripod.  A plastic body receives the three legs and the shaft for the dish.  We haven’t used this tripod but the fixed length legs indicate that this tripod would only be good on level ground.

Winegard TR-3500 Tripod

TV Dish Tripod The Winegard TR-3500 is a simple tripod.  A metal body has the three legs and the shaft for the dish attached.  The TR-3500 comes with a carrying bag.

We had this tripod.  We found the fixed length legs made it near impossible to level this tripod on unlevel ground

TruPoint Tripod

TV Dish Tripod The TruPoint tripod is a very strong high end tripod.  This tripod is the base for the tripod we use for our satellite internet setup.  We choose against this tripod because of the fixed length legs which make it difficult to get the mounting shaft vertical on un-level ground.  A TV dish needs to start with a very vertical mounting shaft.  The HughesNet satellite internet dish does not require a vertical mounting shaft.

Bullseye Mount

TV Dish Tripod The Bullseye mount is an interesting setup.  It is based upon an adjustable clamp that can be attached to a stake, tabletop, RV ladder, and other items.

We were looking for a mount that did not need ground penetration.

SideKick Multi-purpose Mount

TV Dish Tripod The SideKick is an interesting mount.  It can be used as a tripod but also has several other modes.  Check out the website for the other uses.

Modified roof mount tripods

TV Dish Tripod Check eBay you will find several version of tripods that are basically roof mount tripods.  Then are generally lower cost that “made for RVing” tripods.  All of them have fixed length legs making un-level ground usage difficult if not impossible.

H&G Enterprises Tripod

TV Dish Tripod We found this tripod on eBay.  While the price was a little higher than the Winegard tripods, this turned out to be a very good tripod.

The H&G tripods can be found at TV4RV.com.
TV Dish Tripod The main feature we liked about the H&G tripod was the adjustable length legs.  This made is very easy to get a vertical mounting shaft.
TV Dish Tripod In addition to a very useful tripod, H&G also offered some modifications for the dish that made alignment adjustments a lot easier.
click on images to enlarge

H&G Enterprises Heavy Duty Tripod

Our original H&G Tripod served us fine as long as we had the Dish 500 dish (dual head).  When we bought a Dish 1000 dish (triple head), the weight of the dish head on the arm was a little too much for the H&S tripod. We use water bucket biasing to compensate for the arm load of the dish.

H&G came out with a new Heavy Duty Tripod designed for the Dish 1000 and the five headed DirecTV dish.

The H&G HD Tripod is a very good package but I made a few modifications to fit how we will use the tripod.

HG HD Tripod This is the H&G Heavy Duty Tripod as it comes in the package.
HG HD Tripod This is the main feature of the H&G HD Tripod, the custom manufactured mast adapter that can hold the 2" DirecTV five headed dish of the 1-5/8" mast used by Dish TV dishes.
click on images to enlarge
HG HD Tripod We felt the anchor attachment point looked a little on the weak side since we will hang some pretty heavy water filled buckets from it.

The normal adapter for a surveyors tripod (the basis of the H&G Tripod) has a 5/8"-11 tread.  We purchased a 5/8"-11 eyebolt, a 3" round heavy fender 5/8" washer, and a 5/8"-11 self-locking nut.

We had to file a small notch in the edge of the fender washer.  Note the notch in near the nut in the photo.
HG HD Tripod The notch was needed to clear the post that is used for the normal attachment screw (where the smaller washer is).  The 3" round washer just fits between the legs.

We had hoped the smaller washer might hold the fender washer in place but it doesn't always hold.  For the time being, that is okay.  The washer is held in place when it is needed, when the eyebolt is screwed in the mast adapter.  The tripod head is locked between the fender washer and the mast adapter.
click on images to enlarge
HG HD Tripod A surveyors tripod doesn't have leg restraints as they normally use the sharp leg ends to stick into the ground.  Since we often set up on pavement, we needed a restraint system.

We made these chain connected blocks out of PVC building trim.
HG HD Tripod A hole is drilled through a block and a second block was glue to the bottom.

The blocks serve two purposes.  One as part of the leg restraints.  The second purpose is to act  as ground pads to keep the tripod legs from sinking into soggy wet ground.
click on images to enlarge
HG HD Tripod Here is the tripod with the leg restraint system and the eyebolt attachment.
HG HD Tripod Here is the tripod with a Dish 1000 mounted and a ballast bucket hanging from the eyebolt.
click on images to enlarge

Disclaimer: The information in this site is a collection of data we derived from the vendors and from our personal experiences.  This information is meant as a learning guide for you to  make your own decisions  Best practices and code should always be followed.  The recommendations we make are from our personal experiences and we do not receive any compensation for those recommendations.