Dry camping with satellite TV possible?
Update/Edit: It seems some people were confused by my original post, and I have some new discoveries. Looking into getting Dish Network's Tailgater and VIP 211K receiver. Or anything, really. ...
Forum Discussion
Can't speak for Dish network although we have had them in our stick house a number of years ago. Our current set-up if for Directv in HD and we use it all the time when camping without hook-ups. We opted to purchase the same dish we had on our home's roof off of Ebay and mount to self-made tripod as the only other choice is a roof-mounted automatic sat dish that is about $1800 plus installation.
Our HD sat. receiver takes about 10 minutes to boot-up which is no biggie as we just turn on 300 watt PSW inverter (installed in entertainment center) a few minutes prior to watching. I have lots of experience pointing the dish as I started out with the SD dish 10 years ago.
I heard prior to going HD that it was difficult to aim, in our experience I found that to be untrue. Simply set dish settings as indicated for your current zipcode and point to sat 101 just as we did for Directv SD content, everything we get at home is now available when camping and the whole routine takes 10-15 minutes.
For the few times a year we actually stay in a RV park that offers cable, we still set-up our HD sat as there is simply no-comparison and the process takes very little effort. We carry three 50' strands of cable for acquisition of sat signal when camping among tree cover which is another reason we decided against a roof-mounted unit. Practice setting up dish at home if you go with a satellite mounted on a tripod, we've never had a problem getting a 90% plus signal with an open view of the southern sky.
Our HD sat. receiver takes about 10 minutes to boot-up which is no biggie as we just turn on 300 watt PSW inverter (installed in entertainment center) a few minutes prior to watching. I have lots of experience pointing the dish as I started out with the SD dish 10 years ago.
I heard prior to going HD that it was difficult to aim, in our experience I found that to be untrue. Simply set dish settings as indicated for your current zipcode and point to sat 101 just as we did for Directv SD content, everything we get at home is now available when camping and the whole routine takes 10-15 minutes.
For the few times a year we actually stay in a RV park that offers cable, we still set-up our HD sat as there is simply no-comparison and the process takes very little effort. We carry three 50' strands of cable for acquisition of sat signal when camping among tree cover which is another reason we decided against a roof-mounted unit. Practice setting up dish at home if you go with a satellite mounted on a tripod, we've never had a problem getting a 90% plus signal with an open view of the southern sky.
