TV, Satellite, Cable ETC:

We had Direct TV for years with local channels. When my oldest daughter left home I took the receiver from her room and put it in the camper. Bought a DTV dish off of Craigslist with 50 foot of cable for $20. Made a wooden base for it to set on. After setting it up and aiming it a few times I got the where I could do it in about ten minutes. Ditched DTV a couple years ago so now we just watch whatever over the air channels we can get.

OK thanks for the input. Will wait to see what I can get with antenna.
Oh and for the one who thinks it is obvious and just look at any RV park. We do not have any parks close by here, but thanks anyway.

We use a Dish account with a portable tripod mounted dish that we can equip for either the three Dish eastern arc satellites or the three western arc satellites. That gives us a lot of flexibility for getting a signal in almost any camp site. In the 4 years we've had the setup, we've yet to land on a site where I couldn't find a signal, although a couple of times it required running up to 150 feet of coax to find a usable hole in the trees.

azdryheat wrote:
We're not fulltimers but we use Directv.

on the road 4-6 mos each year. since the FCC allowed (but did not require) the cable companies to switch from open analog to encrypted digital cable we've found most of the parks we frequent have either dropped their cable altogether or vastly reduced the number of channels to the same OTA channels we could get with our roof antenna. so we added an automatic Winegard Trav'ler dish and went with a pay-as-you-go DISH network account.

The first question is how much is TV worth to you, for how long?

Can you do without and use a DVD player for a couple days, or are you going to be on the road for weeks at a time? Are you going to be in areas close to cities with over-the-air TV stations, or in remote campgrounds far from any TV signal.

A dish receive is the only way to ensure you have TV at most locations. It will limit your choice of campsites, because you need a clear view of the sky where the satellites are located. Forget about using those tucked away isolated shady camping spots.

If you have a S/B house, or other physical residence - I recommend you get Direct TV.

If you already have Dish or are not planning to keep a physical residence - get Dish Network.

Basically, Direct TV requires your primary receiver be in a 'home' location - you can temporarily take it in your RV, or take a second receiver in the RV.

Dish Network allows you to change your "service address" as much as you want as you travel around.

(We are full-timers and have Dish Network. Direct TV won't talk to us when we say we don't have a home address for the primary receiver.)

We're not fulltimers but we use Directv.

New over-the-air antenna
and
Directv, and tri-pod dish.

Satellite: Dish or DirecTV.

You can have TV anywhere as long as the antenna has no obstacles blocking the southern sky.

I would think that the answer to this would be fairly obvious......if one just looks around a bit in any sizable RV park.

If your are addicted to TV, then a portable satellite setup is about the only good option.

Othewise, take whatever you can get over the air and get the rest of your entertainment from "nature".