wifi

People streaming video: NetFlix, YouTube, etc., are some of the primary reasons that campground WiFi networks choke. Even the good ones

As said, park WiFi is usually "iffy" at best. We have an AT&T Homebase Internet/phone device installed in our coach with a 250GB $60/mo all 4G/LTE plan, plus other more limited plans with other carriers, but your mailing address must be in specific areas to qualify for the AT&T plan. There are several new unlimited plans available from the major carriers, but most limit the high speed 4G/LTE data to 20-22GB, dropping speeds way down once that's used up. The high speed data limits are seldom enough to support much streaming.

We have had pretty good success with our Hawking Industries dish. Works like a satellite dish. Very directional so you need to figure out where the source of the WIFI router is.

thanks to all for the info, will not get roku

My take. park Wi-Fi is a variable. Where I'm at is one of the best Park Wi-Fi's I have seen and still.. It strugles to keep up with demand.

And folks who buy Rouku's or other streaming devices.. DO NOT HELP ONE BIT.

Most parks it sucks even if you are the only user!!!! though some parks

Well one park I know of has at least 3 Cable accounts, the fastest possible speed and it is STILL not enough, even with nanny gates so not all devices connect it's not enough...

So do not rely on it.. Many parks (Public parks, city, county, state, federal) do not have any.

In the last two years of summer traveling, staying at 15 to 20 campgrounds per summer, only had two campgrounds with worthless internet, with the use of our Alfa Network Antenna.

As for the TV antenna just use the one that came with the trailer. if we didn't get anything didn't care. We don't watch much TV anymore.

Although we should be able to assume by now that everybody knows this rule, I will repeat:

Do not EVER transmit sensitive data over a CG wifi system!

That means Banking, Bill Paying, Medical or other personal identifying material (even your home address). Assume everything you transmit is being recorded (by bad people).

We also have been at some campgrounds that had great wifi and cable. Some charge extra, but the ones we found it was included in the rate. We use only our antenna for television unless the campground has included cable. Many areas we have had as many as 20 channels. We even had a large selection of over the air channels out in the forest 24 miles from a small town in AL where we hosted. Depends on location, trees and signal strength. Where we host in the summer, we only get FOX network after the leaves pop out on the trees, so just depends. We do have our own mobile jetpack thru verizon that we use when campgrounds do not have wifi, or it's a useless wifi .

I also agree that many times it's someone in the park streaming movies, video or tv programs that uses the available bandwidth and ruins the wifi for the other campers not even allowing them to get to their e-mail. It's very selfish as far as I am concerned. We do not stream - ever- except without own mifi.

We've been to campgrounds with good and really good WiFi, but they seem to be few and far between. Fortunately, our seasonal campground has very good WiFi. I have a 4 GB/month plan on Verizon with my smartphone that is used as a Hot Spot when campground WiFi is not available or isn't reliable. We don't usually stream video when camping, even seasonally. The WiFi at our seasonal site has enough bandwidth and is reliable enough to stream video, but we usually don't. We use about 6 GB/Month without streaming.

Streaming video at 720p resolution will use about 4GB of data for a 13 episode, 30 minute show. Watching the occasional show on Netflix might be okay, but if you try to use it often, most likely you will not be satisfied. We've been to campgrounds where they actively monitor usage. At parks like this, you would probably be blocked from accessing their WiFi after watching a few shows.

We don't expect good WiFi when we are camping and we don't expect to stream video reliably. Someone mentioned getting a Cell Provider that offers free video streaming, I think AT&T and T-Mobile offer it. Going with Unlimited Data from say AT&T or Verizon will only get you so far. Both companies claim they throttle speeds after using 22 GB/month.

-Michael

For anyone interested in Broadcast TV while RVing, I found two sites.

This one will tell you what direction you need to point your antenna in your current location -
https://www.antennasdirect.com/transmitter-locator.html

This one will tell you the scheduled programming for your location -
http://www.tvtv.us