TV and WiFi Solutions

[golden13]

Originally Posted by bigb

Trying to figure out what to do. Currently have the old crank up TV antenna and the manual satellite dish. There is no way we are buying a satellite package for the RV, we are not full timing, regular TV and DVDs are all we need for our short trips. WiFi would be nice but we already have the network on our phones so not a huge deal. I saw this on Amazon and I am no whiz when it comes to this stuff so I thought I'd ask what people are doing for regular broadcast. This unit would allow me to clean up my roof (the present units are in need of work) and will get over the air TV with no cranking or rotating, and can be used with an optional (and expensive) router should we ever desire better internet.

All advice welcome, here is the unit I am looking at: https://www.amazon.com/Winegard-Ampl...5577942&sr=8-4

I could be wrong, but I suspect this would be little to no improvement over your hand crank antenna. The router requires you to have a data plan already. Nomad Internet has TRUE unlimited plans (no throttling, ever!) and SpaceX puts LTE and 5g everywhere, affordably. They still need to launch a few hundred more satellites, but they are already available in the middle of oceans and forests! Elon Musk does it again!

[Van]

I have a cell phone with unlimited data . It can be a hotspot. I bought a Roku that plugs into a HDMI port on the tv. Roku has over 3000 channels . Many are free. I joined hulu, Netflix and CBS access. This has served me well.

[bigb]

Originally Posted by golden13

I could be wrong, but I suspect this would be little to no improvement over your hand crank antenna. The router requires you to have a data plan already. Nomad Internet has TRUE unlimited plans (no throttling, ever!) and SpaceX puts LTE and 5g everywhere, affordably. They still need to launch a few hundred more satellites, but they are already available in the middle of oceans and forests! Elon Musk does it again!

I have decided to just rewire the existing units and go with that. We can get cable hookups at campsites and use Verizon if we want, and DVDs.

[n9wdq]

If you have decent wifi or internet connection, why not consider having DISh with Sling at home. Using this you can access your DVR remotely, program/record/watch what is available from your home DISH, all with DISH Anywhere. No antenna or special receiver need in your camper

[NeilV]

The crank-up Wineguard Sensar with the Amplifier is still the best RV antenna for Digital reception and at best you may have to add the little Wingman Yagi from Wineguard to better attenuate the UHF Digital Channels.

I went really cheap and picked up the free Digital Tuners when they were available so I still have the 100+ lb Glass Tube TV that came with my 2001 Adventurer.



https://winegard.com/industry/recrea...an-uhf-booster

[Grapehound]

You may get your best reception with an old fashioned, amplified crank up antenna. Some of these new low-profile, fixed antennas have terrible reception.

Years ago I bought a second-hand satellite dish on Ebay and took it with us camping. We had Direct TV at home at the time and I just took my home receiver with me along with the manually positioned second hand dish. I also bought a satellite finder gadget which, when connected to your dish on one end and your receiver on the other, beeps when you lock in on the satellite signal. By using satellite finder info on the internet and a compass I could get pretty close to where the satellite was located in the sky and use the satellite finder beeper from there.

It takes some patience to find the signal but once you do, you have "free" RV satellite service out in the boonies based on your home subscription.

I heard recently that Direct TV now charges you to do that, that they know if you are using your receiver away from home, but since I gave up Direct TV several years ago I don't know if this is true. The monthly charges for Direct TV just kept going up and up and the thick trees in the forest around our house kept making satellite reception at home worse and worse, so we gave up Direct TV.

We have considered going with Dish TV for mobile, which has a month to month plan available, but our new-to-us Class A has a Direct TV satellite finder and I doubt the two systems are compatible.

[Rick 99037]

One of the things mentioned in passing in the string is the path of the coax deriving from the boost switch. As you contemplate how to fix the bad coax, keep in mind that the actual signal amplifier is in the antenna, and it is powered through the coax cable. Placing the amp at the antenna is so the amp boosts the signal at the strongest, and least contaminated point.
As an aside, an omnidirectional antenna is inferior to a directional one, and so best for fairly near the signal's service area. On the other hand, directional antennas are rated for how many decibels of signal gain they achieve. Like a parabolic dish concentrates sound, a directional concentrates the RF signal.
In the days of analog TV, it was very easy to am the directional antenna. Just point till the snow went away. But in our digital signal world, the binary on off signal can mask how weak the signal is, until it starts skipping chunks of the picture. Now we need a direction locator to help aim the thing.
Here is one such computer based tool. Notice there's also an App on the page for your Cell Phone. Like everything else, I'm sure if you go to your App Store, there are multiples available there too.

https://www.antennasdirect.com/transmitter-locator.html

[MadMaxWinny]

We're not much for monthly fees/services (I haven't had cable TV for 30 years). These days, if you've got a cell signal, you've got anything you want (as Van pointed out). Both of our rooftop antennas got mangled last week in a wind storm and are coming down. We'll do hotspot when we need it, a simple little black box antenna for local stuff, and the movie collection when we're in the sticks. This works well on the boat in remote regions, and will work well in the RV.

[SmilingSimon]

(** I refer to a small manual up/down/rotate winegard single sat dish in this discussion)


You can replace the smaller dish w/ a larger 3 sat dish and the 3LNB (smaller LNB - SLM3, 99/101/103 sats-NOT the big 5sat LNB!!) on your roof top mount !


but of course you need to get a larger 3 sat dish (either beg/buy), and 3LNB and then use some skill to correctly mount the larger dish such that you can use normal 'angle' settings on inside, and may have to pull additional cabling thru roof-worse part of it all really.


I did this for a 2LNB dishnetwork setup, but had to aim x degrees, but that was easy once you got the sats correctly - a fixed amount from compass reading.


worked well.

[SmilingSimon]

there surely are place you will never get the bandwidth 'when' you want it viz cell phone, have issues even making a simple phone call, tourist hogging the bandwidth doing selfies or something !!


but this was on oregon coast and small town, if not in rural area maybe not an issue - but i do not camp in urban areas, so always can be an issue - some places ZERO cell phone service at campsites OR it is the 'other' carrier not mine (att-LTE).


whereas a sat setup is up to you to be able to see the sats, independence has its costs !