Community Forums

Kdsgone2dogs · 07-29-2013, 12:37 PM

We have travelled over 4000mi on our current trip. Alot of it, we have had very limited TV...most on antenna were there is always multiple channels of the same channel. We have a '13 Winnebago Aspect and every thing is prewired for satellite. Is it worth the $$ and monthly bill? I understand from some RV'ers that you only have to pay for the months you use it...right or wrong??
For those of you who have it...do you like it and do you get great reception?
We don't watch alot of TV, however, during bad weather or just a day to play catch up with laundry, cleaning, etc, I do find missing my news and a (very) few programs.
Pros and Cons please...
Thanks for your input.
Andi

patmsp · 07-29-2013, 12:47 PM

Andi:

You are the only one who can say "is it worth it". We have Dish. My wife and I ONLY watch shows that have been previously recorded because we cannot stand commercials. We have Dish at home and a Wineguard Dish 1000 on our rig. It allows us to record two channels at a time and we bring a receiver from our home out to the rig when we travel. As I understand, Dish does have an RV pkg that allows you to turn on and turn off your service on a monthly basis. Our antenna was around $1,300 installed. But, you can get a traveler (hand held that you set outside your rig). Much cheaper but can't record 2 channels at a time.

We love it because we can pull into a Wal-Mart at night, watch a pre-recorded movie...hit the sack and watch Fox News in the morning without commercials before heading out on the road.

That's my 2 cents... hope it helps.

Pat

RickO · 07-29-2013, 12:58 PM

Pat is right that only you can decide if it's worth the cost or not.

We went whole hog... but we were full time and traveled a LOT. We do watch a good bit of TV but (like Pat) only recorded programs. We have a DirecTv HD DVR and the Winegard 3005 Slimline HD dish feeding all three TVs in the coach.

There's never been a problem with our set up except you're always faced with the trade off of taking a nice site back in the shade trees... or somewhere you can get a clear view of the southern sky to pick up the sat signals. Portable dishes can help with this but many have HD limitations and having to carry out the dish is more of a hassle than just pushing a button on the roof top dish.

If you have a DVR at home... maybe you should just record a lot of programs before hitting the road and take the DVR with you to play them. This won't help with getting the morning news though.

Good luck

Rick

Grimesy · 07-29-2013, 01:00 PM

We have DirecTV for about a hundred bucks a month. Have 2 receivers in the house and one in the motorhome. We get our local chans for a couple hundred miles and then they go away. Although we don't get things like HBO etc our package does give us both the eastcoast and westcoast networks, a lot of sports, how to and other nice to have chans. We have a simple crank up antenna and no HD. With a little tweeking have been able to watch US chans in Canada and Mexico.
To have cable at home and sat. on the road I feel is a little wasteful. You will get a lot of opinionshere.

Don G.

RickO · 07-29-2013, 01:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grimesy

We have DirecTV for about a hundred bucks a month. Have 2 receivers in the house and one in the motorhome. We get our local chans for a couple hundred miles and then they go away. Although we don't get things like HBO etc our package does give us both the eastcoast and westcoast networks, a lot of sports, how to and other nice to have chans. We have a simple crank up antenna and no HD. With a little tweeking have been able to watch US chans in Canada and Mexico.
To have cable at home and sat. on the road I feel is a little wasteful. You will get a lot of opinionshere.

Don G.

Good point about local/network channels going away once you travel a few hundred miles from home.

To get network feeds from both east and west coast you must have had the DNS package for at least a few years. We too have it but I think we're grandfathered in with coverage from both coasts. I don't believe they offer that any longer. Your billing address determines whether or not you receive east or west feeds.

Rick

PyrateSilly · 07-29-2013, 02:51 PM

I know DirecTV does have an RV/mobile department that when you set up all you have to do is do a channel set up and we are still good to go for local channels no matter where we are. I watch several more news channels than Thom does but we also like to watch the history channels, military, discovery and others like those. We don't watch "nite time soaps" so we never try to keep up with any shows.

**TonyDi** · 07-29-2013, 03:26 PM

I have a KVH dome on my rig and I have mixed feelings about it. I subscribe to Dish Network because of it's HD channels. You can suspend the service when you are not using the service. Now about the service itself...it depends on where I am...sometimes I get great reception and sometimes not, especially if I am in the upper part of the country. There have been many times in NH, Maine etc when reception is poor. When I call the folks at Dish they have a thousand reasons why I am getting poor reception. Bottom line is that I rely a lot on cable service in RV parks, plus I carry a large assortment of movies to keep us happy if we happen to be in a bad area. The theory of satellite receivers is great. It's the application that's not.

CampDaven · 07-29-2013, 03:51 PM

I represent the other side of the TV spectrum. No offense intended here!

A bit of morning news and weather, maybe again in the evening. Maybe hit a RedBox if the weather is lousy or we are sore from the latest hike. But the rest of the time we are on one adventure after another. Has always been that way while camping, but now it is full time!

That said, you can understand why I have trouble following character development and such in a drama series.

We figure we will have enough kick-back time when we become mobility-challenged. Then, it will be the best technology available. An evening campfire will always win over TV.

Everybody rolls a bit differently.

Dave

FRR2EYW · 07-29-2013, 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grimesy

We have DirecTV for about a hundred bucks a month. Have 2 receivers in the house and one in the motorhome. We get our local chans for a couple hundred miles and then they go away. Although we don't get things like HBO etc our package does give us both the eastcoast and westcoast networks, a lot of sports, how to and other nice to have chans.

Don G.

Don,

Am I to understand that you have your house and RV receivers on the same account and get East/west network feeds on the RV units and local channels. When I called direct to get the MH units on east/west coast feeds they told me I would have to get a separate account for the MH to get the feeds. Let me know how you do it.

1ciderdog · 07-29-2013, 06:13 PM

I'm like Dave - we don't have sat and don't need it. We carry several dvds (I've watched African Queen numerous times and still like it). We just returned from a 10500 mile trip and only on a couple of nights we were in a location that had no over the air TV signal. We do like to watch the morning news but survived real well missing a few mornings. So do what meets your needs as mentioned above.

kjburns · 07-29-2013, 10:19 PM

We have Dish with three receivers in the house and two in the motorhome. For us, it is worth the cost. We have the Winegard Trav'ler antenna, so setup is simply a matter of pushing a button.

To get locals with Dish, you just call and change your service address. Then, change it back to the house when you get home. A DNS package is not necessary.

Another thing we like about Dish is the ability to use an external USB hard drive to keep recordings. If you use the DVR a lot, it gives you a lot more space, plus the ability to take it from receiver to receiver so you can watch recordings in the RV.

edit Note - adding a receiver to an existing account, like one for the house, is cheap. In our case, it's $7.00/month per receiver.

MSHappyCampers · 07-30-2013, 12:35 PM

Pat, as others have said, only you can decide it it's worth it. We use DirectTV at home and pay $5 or so per month for the second receiver that we keep in the RV. We rarely ever watch anything live but record what we want for later watching. For us it's the only way to go, but as they say, to each his own!

Good luck, happy trails, and God bless!

Kdsgone2dogs · 07-30-2013, 05:41 PM

Thanks everyone, for replying...more to think about....
Andi

Scarab0088 · 07-30-2013, 06:22 PM

I didn't have to ask the original question of this thread...I knew I wanted cable style TV in HD and knew free OTA TV and gratis (cheap) campground cable just would not pass muster.

Since the OP is asking, then I recommend that you just skip it - for now.

Your trial period with only the batwing, some DVD's and/or Redbox rentals and campground cable will show you what you really want.

After a while, (maybe at 4001 miles - maybe a year from now?), if you find you are missing something, you can always get the gear at that time.

Lots of people just don't care for or use organized TV anymore...they use the internet for all their entertainment needs.
- Now - High Speed internet on the road...That's a whole different thread.

Safe travels

BTW: Dish is BEST for your RV.

DISHForMyRV: DISH Mobile Satellite Systems & Pay-As-You-Go TV for RV, Tailgating, & the Great Outdoors
Let the Direct TV / Dish food fight commence