lets discuss Satellite dishes

[avalen]

Other posts prompted me to inquire about tv and satellite dishes.
Currently I have a convertor box that pulls in free tv over my antenna
on top of the fifthwheel. Question is....when I get to go camping
is that setup going to pull in the local channels for where ever I
am? Does the satellite dish give you extra channels or is that so
you can have tv period, cause when I hear satellite dish I think
cable tv with a whole slew of extra channels that I wouldn't even
watch. (Most everything I watch comes over CBS.) Guess if I have
to have a satellite, I'll have to put that on the budget before I hit
the road. (keeping in mind thats 3 years away yet)
However, it sounds like some of you have really had trouble getting
your satellites to work, and I hate that thought! Remember I'm the
one that likes "EASY"
Ok, your turn, share you info.

[Acadianmom]

To get satellite TV you have to have one of the satellite services like Directv or Dish. We have Direct and when I travel I just bring one of the receivers from home. My motor home has one of the Kingdome automatic domes and all I have to do is push a button and it finds the signal. Sometimes it takes a couple of tries but is easy if there are no trees. There are too many trees at the lake where my sister and I go so I have one of the Vu Qubes that is automatic and I can set it out on a cable away from the trees. It's a little bit harder than the Kingdome but much easier than the dishes that you have to aim yourself. I had one on a tripod that would make me lose my religion. We would not find a signal more often than we could.

If you are close to a city you can get the local over the air signals if there are any stations where you are by using the antenna on your RV. We get the local stations at home because we pay for them but that signal is beamed to a certain area and when I get out of our area I can't get the national stations like CBS, NBC or ABC. People that full-time can pay for the network channels from either the East or West coast but they won't let me get them unless I get another service for my RV. I find that more and more campgrounds have some kind of cable service. Usually not a bunch of stations but better than nothing. I have never been to a state park that had cable.

Martha

[BirdbyBird]

On that last note. I just came through GA this winter and in both state parks I used ( on the trip down and the one on the trip north) ....they had cable! Both parks were a few miles off the I-75 main drag...both were beautiful and from what I could tell, even the tent sites at the one looked like they had cable. Someone in marketing in GA figured out there is a new breed of camper out there.

[Bethers]

Where I am now, no tv without a satellite. I don't have one, and can live without tv. And, you realize, if you're someplace with good internet, you can watch some of those shows you just can't do without on your computer. That said, most of my trip down here I've been able to get some local channels. You never know which ones you'll pick up. I had several one week, but no abc. The next place I had abc, but no cbs. In Alabama at the state park and then over Christmas near town, I couldn't pick up NBC, but had all the other local stations. It all depends on where the stations antenna is in relation to where you are.

If you can't live without tv, you also won't want to do much (if any) boondocking - unless you get a lot of batteries and have a good inverter, and especially if you're out west, solar, also. So your costs for camping will also go up - as well as your need for satellite. If you need TV, you'll also not want to park in the lovely treed sites unless you get the ones mentioned that are portable and require more setting up. I like hearing that the vuQube is easier to set up - as if I ever went with cable, think that or similar is what I'd do.

You CAN get a satelite package, even traveling which will give you local stations.

[avalen]

good discussion
I CAN live without tv and many days don't even turn it on. I've heard of people
watching shows on their computer but have never done that and wondered if it
would eat up bandwith (?) not even sure if thats the right word but my gigbytes.
Suppose I'll put that to the test someday and just sit here and watch some tv
on my computer and see what happens to my gb usage.
I'm thinking the campgrounds that would have cable would probably be expensive
and more than likely, if expensive, I wouldn't stay there. But this is all good food
for thought. Thinking I would much rather invest my $$ into a solar panel and
make boondocking much easier. A lot can happen in 3 years, ya never know, I
could win the lottery too but only if I played

[Acadianmom]

Something I ran into at a couple of campgrounds that advertised wi-fi was that it was provided by some service and you could have 24 hours free and then you had to pay. Has anyone run into this? I am really leery of charging any kind of service on a credit card because these places can keep charging and it is a major issue to get it stopped. I have had to close a credit card and a checking account to get it stopped. You can tell the credit card and the bank and it will still go through and you have to call them every month to get it reversed.

Martha

[mitch5252]

Something I ran into at a couple of campgrounds that advertised wi-fi was that it was provided by some service and you could have 24 hours free and then you had to pay. Has anyone run into this? I am really leery of charging any kind of service on a credit card because these places can keep charging and it is a major issue to get it stopped. I have had to close a credit card and a checking account to get it stopped. You can tell the credit card and the bank and it will still go through and you have to call them every month to get it reversed.

Martha

Get a "Virtual Credit Card" - pretty much good only once and it's tied directly to your "real" credit card number, which remains unknown to all but you.

Ours is with our Citibank card. I have to believe the other major banks have a similar setup???

..

[Acadianmom]

Mitch, you are talking to someone that doesn't even have a debit or ATM card. I would have to hire you as my technical adviser.

Martha

[Bethers]

Something I ran into at a couple of campgrounds that advertised wi-fi was that it was provided by some service and you could have 24 hours free and then you had to pay. Has anyone run into this? I am really leery of charging any kind of service on a credit card because these places can keep charging and it is a major issue to get it stopped. I have had to close a credit card and a checking account to get it stopped. You can tell the credit card and the bank and it will still go through and you have to call them every month to get it reversed.

Martha

Many parks use Tengo - and they charge. I've used them several times and you only pay for the time period you want. Never have they charged me again. So, if it's Tengo, I wouldn't have a problem. Some parks now use Tengo and pay their costs themselves. But it is a charge service - by the hour, day, week or month. I also used to sometimes pay to use the service at Flying J's. Never had a problem with them charging again, either. I do recommend you do NOT use a check card, but only a real credit card online. In other words, not one associated with a bank account.

[kdmac]

Just recently I caught myself checking online daily to see the night's lineup for TLD, HIST, DISC, HGTV and the local Oregon Public Broadcast ...I had to slap myself for getting into that trap. I honestly don't want to be addicted to TV and I find that is easy to do. I love the English period dramas and have been gold mining with the boys in Alaska on the DISC channel (I heard that was the most watched show in the country) Look out Alaska, here they come...with gold at the price it is today I even thought about buying a "pan" and heading north. Anyway, I look forward to forced "rehab" when I am on the road again in April. I may watch a DVD via the generator but most of the time I will sit outside at night with a glass or two of wine and listen to the crickets, watch for satellites and shooting stars, enjoy the deer coming down the hillside, I could stare at stars for hours and often do. Then inside to a good book to fall asleep by...that's the plan...

[AlmostThere]

Just recently I caught myself checking online daily to see the night's lineup for TLD, HIST, DISC, HGTV and the local Oregon Public Broadcast ...I had to slap myself for getting into that trap. I honestly don't want to be addicted to TV and I find that is easy to do. I love the English period dramas and have been gold mining with the boys in Alaska on the DISC channel (I heard that was the most watched show in the country) Look out Alaska, here they come...with gold at the price it is today I even thought about buying a "pan" and heading north. Anyway, I look forward to forced "rehab" when I am on the road again in April. I may watch a DVD via the generator but most of the time I will sit outside at night with a glass or two of wine and listen to the crickets, watch for satellites and shooting stars, enjoy the deer coming down the hillside, I could stare at stars for hours and often do. Then inside to a good book to fall asleep by...that's the plan...

Hijack: KD I, too, love the English shows on PBS and have recently bought the boxed sets for As Time Goes By and My Family. I also watch the Candleford to Larkrise series.

[khenrie]

We are thinking of relying solely on internet TV - and of course, that would only be where we have access to free wireless. Anyone have experience with this?

[Forestgal]

If you're planning on using the wi-fi in campgrounds you might be getting knocks on your rig door asking you to quit. Watching any kind of video takes up incredible amounts of bandwidth and basically hogs whatever wi-fi a campground might have available to it's residents.

There's no good way to watch TV via internet unless you've got a satellite connection. Anything going through your computer using data is going to cost you, either in the amount of data being used or in $$.

Laura -- and Jed

[Acadianmom]

I feel lucky if I can get the pictures on the forums to load at most places with wi-fi and I can even get on-line. I don't travel much so maybe there are places with better internet but I haven't found them.

Martha

[JudyJB]

Interesting discussion on satellite TV. I have cable now, and i do watch a lot of TV, so I guess I would have to get a satellite--can't be too much more than I am paying now, after the initial expense, would it?

I am a "connected person" and I absolutely have to have my electronics. High-speed internet is a must if I want to continue teaching and do some ad-hoc work from time to time, so I suppose I'll havjust pay monthly, as I do now. But if you have a satellite, can you get internet that way??? I confess to be completely ignorant about satellite TV. I will ask some of my more-techy co-workers, I guess.

Just wondering. If a campground has cable TV, do you run a cable through a window or something?? How do you get the cable inside to your TV??

Thanks