Beth:
This will not at all answer your questions (did I ever let that stop me?)
, but here goes anyway.
The first question you should ask yourself is not "Dish or Directv" but rather "Am I willing to pay $40.00 per month
just to watch commercials?" That's right. Read on.
I originally had Dish, then a few years later switched to DirecTv, which I liked better than Dish. A few years after that, I "cut the cord" (cancelled DirecTv) and went to 100% streaming my television watching over the internet using a $99.00 Roku box (not a subscription - you pay for the device just once):
http://www.roku.com.
The Roku is dead easy to set up, in about five or ten minutes you are streaming.
However, I do realize that you full-timers can't get the bandwidth one needs to stream television from most (all?) campground WiFi.
I cut the cord about 5 years ago now, and don't miss that $80.00 per month
at all. Another bonus of streaming television, is that
there is more on there, in greater variety, that is commercial-free, than one can possibly watch.
One of the main contributing factors to my cord cutting decision is the fact (at that time, 5 years ago - much worse now) that for every one hour of tv watching there is only about 1/2 hour of actual programming, and about 1/2 hour of commercials.
Trust me on this: just for fun (yes, I have an odd idea of "fun") for several weeks I sat in front of my tv with a pen, a pad of paper, and a watch - I timed the programming and commercial breaks on random channels. Everywhere I went, the ratio was basically the same.
So, in effect, one is paying $40 a month for actual programming, and $40 a month to watch commercials.
Let me state this another way:
Anyone subscribing to Directv is paying Directv a mind-numbing $40 per month for the privilege of
just watching commercials.
Taking the long view:
$480 per year just to watch commercials!!!. I can take a real nice trip in my van for that kind of dough.
The math did it for me: I was done with satellite tv. No regrets, never looked back.
Anne