Do most RV'ers use Satellite TV?

[bruceisla]

Originally Posted by mel s

Does anybody really NEED HD??

Well .... that depends. We certainly don't NEED TV at all.

But, watching any HD programming is far more pleasurable than watching SD.

[B Bob]

We used to use Direct TV at home and on the road. We had two converter boxes. About two years ago we just started using the internet for TV. For us it has been far better than fooling around with all the sat TV issues. I have a cell phone I use as a hotspot with Verizon. And we have an Apple TV box and a Sony DVD + internet player.

Direct TV for me worked just fine at home. On the road PIA. Sometimes trees block signal. Hard to get / impossible local channels. If dry camping you had to be careful if charging batteries and generator times off. No power for the time it takes to switch to the inverter meant DTV recorder box would go off and have to be reset. Plus DTV kept raising prices constantly. Starting price good, but went up steeply after that. So we have an unused HD sat dish on top of our coach.

I keep a Wilson sleek in the coach in case we are in a hard to get Verizon area. Usually no problem without Wilson. Once in a great while cell reception too weak. So we use the TV antenna or play a DVD. Or read a book.

I am never going back to cable or sat TV. Once you get used to picking your own shows when you want to watch them the old style system seems quaint. Not in a good way.

[TechWriter]

Originally Posted by mel s

Does anybody really NEED HD??

Apparently not for a lot of DirecTV users.

[Scatterbrain]

Originally Posted by TechWriter

Apparently not for a lot of DirecTV users.

It's a tradeoff, you can have HD while in motion if you go with Dish, or you can get the channels you want while in motion via DirectTV. If you want HD while parked there are always Bluray disks and Netflix/Amazon.

[Slolane]

Originally Posted by B Bob

We used to use Direct TV at home and on the road. We had two converter boxes. About two years ago we just started using the internet for TV. For us it has been far better than fooling around with all the sat TV issues. I have a cell phone I use as a hotspot with Verizon. And we have an Apple TV box and a Sony DVD + internet player.

Direct TV for me worked just fine at home. On the road PIA. Sometimes trees block signal. Hard to get / impossible local channels. If dry camping you had to be careful if charging batteries and generator times off. No power for the time it takes to switch to the inverter meant DTV recorder box would go off and have to be reset. Plus DTV kept raising prices constantly. Starting price good, but went up steeply after that. So we have an unused HD sat dish on top of our coach.

I keep a Wilson sleek in the coach in case we are in a hard to get Verizon area. Usually no problem without Wilson. Once in a great while cell reception too weak. So we use the TV antenna or play a DVD. Or read a book.

I am never going back to cable or sat TV. Once you get used to picking your own shows when you want to watch them the old style system seems quaint. Not in a good way.

I'm curious how much time you spend on the road? It seems like you would burn through a LOT of data using cellular.

What data plan do you have?

[docj]

Originally Posted by TechWriter

Apparently not for a lot of DirecTV users.

It's not so much that we have to have HD, but we do "have to have" a receiver/DVR capable of simultaneously recording multiple channels. With DirecTV this could be accomplished using a single LNB and a single round dish pointing at the 101 satellite. However, IMO there's little point to owning a 40" TV without being able to fill its screen with a decent HD picture. So we own an automatic Winegard Trav'ler.

We do watch SD when we can't get HD (like in the Canadian Maritime provinces where we currently are staying) but, when it's available, HD beats SD everytime IMO. Watching a women's World Cup game the other day in SD made me long to have an HD signal.

[JMonroe]

For years before we went full time we had a fixed sat dish on the house and a separate RV appropriate sat dish for the weekend/vacation use. I simply would carry the receiver from the house to the RV and plug it in. Service is linked to the receiver, not the dish. There were no phone calls to make. We would lose our "locals" whenever we traveled outside the spot beam that provided them (typically about a 200 mile radius from the TV station, that will vary) but were usually able to pick up those local to wherever we were with the over the air antenna.

When an earlier post referred to the RV dish "whirring" as it switched from one satellite to another, that is only true of the dome types. The actual dish is too small to lock onto all the satellites at once. Our Winegard Traveler never moves once locked in. The dome type is limited in terms of how many HD channels you would be capable of getting, the larger elliptical dishes will give you access to everything.

[docj]

Originally Posted by JMonroe

When an earlier post referred to the RV dish "whirring" as it switched from one satellite to another, that is only true of the dome types. The actual dish is too small to lock onto all the satellites at once. Our Winegard Traveler never moves once locked in. The dome type is limited in terms of how many HD channels you would be capable of getting, the larger elliptical dishes will give you access to everything.

The ability of the dish to lock onto multiple satellites at the same time has very little to do with its size, but, rather, to the fact that it has multiple LNBs positioned so they are at the focal points of the dish for each of the satellites being used. In other words, the elliptical reflector will focus the signal from each satellite at a slightly different spot; the LNB "holder" has been fabricated so that the LNBs are held in place at the appropriate "spots". A larger dish without the necessary LNBs would get a stronger signal from one satellite but would still be unable to receive signals from any of the others.

This is true of both DirecTV and Dish, except for DirecTV the issue is compounded by the fact that different frequency bands are used for the SD and HD signals. The dome type systems cannot receive any DirecTV HD not because of their size, but because they are only capable of receiving Ku band signals and not Ka.

[TechWriter]

Originally Posted by Scatterbrain

It's a tradeoff, you can have HD while in motion if you go with Dish, or you can get the channels you want while in motion via DirectTV.

???

[TechWriter]

Originally Posted by docj

It's not so much that we have to have HD, but we do "have to have" a receiver/DVR capable of simultaneously recording multiple channels.

Yep, that's the main diff between the two services -- HD (DISH) or DVR (DirecTV) . . . unless you're popping for a Travler or open-faced dish.

I also opted for a Travler (+ open-faced dish) because I want both services.

[docj]

Originally Posted by TechWriter

Yep, that's the main diff between the two services -- HD (DISH) or DVR (DirecTV) . . . unless you're popping for a Travler or open-faced dish.

For the sake of clarity for those who aren't as technically inclined, you can use a simple dome or round dish on DirecTV with a single LNB to record multiple channels while watching another.

As long as the LNB has two outputs it can be used with a SWM8 and a power inserter to provide up to 8 individual outputs which is more than are needed to use the full capabilities of a Genie. Just point the dish at the 101 satellite and you'll get SD versions of all almost all channels with the exception of some smaller market local channels.

[B Bob]

Slolane - Last year we spent about 3-4 months on the road. This year, not so much. Maybe 2-3 months.

We have just recently removed cable TV from our house too. We get high speed internet at home and that is all we need.

I have an unlimited data plan from Verizon. I used to have three but only kept one. Usually if we go on the road and use Verizon to watch TV our data usage goes up to 40-60 gb. When we are not traveling my use is about 1 gb. Verizon seems happy with that and I am too.

In the past I have also done other things to watch TV on the road. You can buy shows from Apple iTunes and download them to your computer. Since they are on your computer you don't need internet. You just plug your computer into the TV with an hdmi cable and watch. And I have bought DVD's from ebay. After I watched them I resold them. If you are staying in one place for a while you can get Netflix to send disks to you.

[twinboat]

Originally Posted by B Bob

Slolane - Last year we spent about 3-4 months on the road. This year, not so much. Maybe 2-3 months.

I have an unlimited data plan from Verizon. I used to have three but only kept one. Usually if we go on the road and use Verizon to watch TV our data usage goes up to 40-60 gb. When we are not traveling my use is about 1 gb. Verizon seems happy with that and I am too. .

It may be worth it to mention that, that plan in no longer available.

The cost of 50 GB of data, over a few months, will buy a nice Sat. TV setup. I pay $110 for 15 GB, per month.

[Scatterbrain]

Originally Posted by TechWriter

???

Well, it's the question of whether or not you value having HD capability over having certain programing. There are certain channels on Direct TV that Dish doesn't carry. Dish also has fewer HD channels in general. I have two little girls whose favorite channels aren't available on Dish. I also use an in motion dish. The compromise for us was between the better programming of DirectTv or the HD programing of Dish.

Meanwhile we use my phone as a hotspot so when we are all sitting together we can stream a movie via Amazon or Netflix or we can just pop in a bluray. I use two PS3s for blurays and streaming movies. Therefore, we still have HD when we want it and yet our kids still get the channels they like.

For us, the decision was a compromise to be sure. We wanted to replace our old, stationary King Dome with an in motion disk. We wanted HD, sure; but we also wanted for our daughters to be able to watch their preferred channels while we drive. Meanwhile we didn't want to be dealing with two different TV providers. With Dish you can have your HD while in motion, but they don't have the programming we want. Meanwhile, DirectTv has more HD programming in general, so it's still our preferred option at home. If not having HD in the bus becomes that much of an issue tripod units are cheap, or I'll just add a Winegard traveler for when we're parked.