Thanks to all for your responses and information. Prior to this our only experience was with our home cable service. We knew nothing about satellite systems (and I think we've proven this). Every receiver we ever used for the past several years has had decent DVR capability built in. We never thought to even ask about this at CW. Clearly we were not 'informed consumers'.
The VIP211K is packaged with the ability to start and stop your contract on a monthly basis, advertised as ideal for RV's. You can also call them up and change your physical address to get local channels wherever you are. The box indicated you could have DVR capability with the addition of an external drive. This didn't bother me since I've known people to graft in large external drives to get more tv storage on their cable systems, so it didn't seem unusual. The only (but huge} disappointment is the inability to do more than one thing at a time.
Based on all your very helpful input, we're going to take the following steps:
-Call DISH and find out how to get a more powerful receiver/DVR added to our present 'RV' contract. It sounds like we want the VIP612.
-Try to return the VIP311K to CW, once we acquire a better receiver.
-If we can't return it, use it for our 2nd tv. Our dish will handle up to 3 and right now we are using just 1.
-Keep our external hard drive ($89 at Best Buy)since we plan to download movies and tv's from a computer service we have acquired.
I will post the outcome as there may be interest out there for others. I've learned a lot from the forum, so I don't mind looking like a dumb*ss for the greater good of mankind. It may be a while since we are several states away from home and have been picking campsites with little to no reception, i.e. not even cellphone. We've got internet here but need to move on Thursday.
Further comments on our plans are welcome. Thanks Again Folks!!