Satellite Reception at Yellowstone National Park

2freelife wrote:
I'm going to work at Yellowstone for the summer. I'll be at Grant Village. Does anyone know if a satellite can be spotted from this location? I'd like to have t.v. reception if possible.

2freelife, you didn't mention who you were going to work for or what type of RV you have. DW and I worked at Grant for Delaware North in the summers of 2007 and 2008. That has been some time back but as far as TV goes, I doubt that much has changed. No OTA. Satellite works well there as long as you don't have any trees blocking you. One reason for asking who you would be working for is that controls where you will be living. There are three employee campgrounds in Grant. Two of these are shared by Delaware North and Xanterra. A third one is used by the Yellowstone Association and others. If you are going to be a campground host, you will be living in the campground. Living in the campground will probably be the toughest place to get TV. All of the other employee campgrounds have spots that are open enough to get satellite OK. I had Direct then and had no problems either summer. But, I had 100' of cable with me and used nearly all of it both summers. If you happened to have a Motorhome with a mounted dish, you could still likely find a parking spot where the dish will pick up OK.
Good luck and have fun. We loved our two summers there.

Below is an image from Google Earth showing Grant Village. A portion of the main Park visitor campground is in the top left corner and is marked with a green dot. No RVs show as white dots in this campground, as the satellite image was taken before the campground opened for the season.

I'm pretty sure the workcamper area is in the center lower portion of the picture. Zooming in with Google Earth shows the white dots to be RVs. The other buildings in the same area are likely to be housing for Park personnel. There is a path through the trees between the General Store and this area, another indication that this area is for workcampers and other personnel.

Zooming in shows two other areas where RVs are parked. One is in the top right edge and the other is a circular area near center on the left edge.

Why are we wandering off to OTA TV reception. The OP could care less. He just wants to be able to receive SAT TV and has concerns about the trees.

According to the TV Fool antenna pointing site, there's a low power repeater about 42 miles from Grant Village. Other than that, the next closest TV tower appears to be 110 miles away.

Grant Village is nearly tree free so that area should not be a problem but I could not locate an RV park using Google Earth nearby. Mammoth Hot Spring RV park (dry camp I believe) is near there but you will want to find out exactly where the park is located and ask them about trees in the area.

Grainy analog tv signal does not translate into a digital signal. I was in Yosemite Valley and able to pick up a descent channel from San Francisco in 2009 on the last night before analog was turned off. The next day when everything went digital only, I got nothing.

There are towns not terribly far away with TV signals. Back in the day of antennas, an especially tall one (probably with some kind of booster) was able to pull in a grainy picture from a channel in Idaho Falls. That was 1969 - watched the moon landing on that TV, located at Lake.

Hope the OP is able to find out the answer - and that it's positive for at least satellite reception.

RoyB wrote:
Don't rule out using the OTA BATWING antenna for picking up the NATL BROADCAST digital TV from local towns for free... Might be good backup method for you... Local HDTV just might be transmitting to you from a mtn site.

Roy Ken

Sounds like you have never been to Yellowstone?:)

There are no towns anywhere near that would have a TV station.

Since you will be working in the Park, there is probably a specific camping area for workcampers, probably not a part of the Grant Village campground. A call to the company you are working for should get factual info on exactly where you will be sited and whether satellite reception will be possible.

A quick look with Google Earth shows two locations to the southeast of the Visitor Center area where a number of RVs are parked. Since the main campground was closed when the satellite image was taken on 6/8/13, these RVs probably belong to the workcampers.

No issues as long as you have a clear sight line to the south. Have fun working at Yellowstone!!!