Internet & satellite tv for full time 5er

[Cptnvideo]

We're still thinking it over, but we might sell our house & trade in our Class C on a 5er and full time.
We would add at least 1000 watts of solar to the roof and plan on boondocking at least 50% of the time (we like elbow room).
Looking for suggestions for internet, we have Verizon mifi which slows WAY down after 15 GBs of data usage. Anything else out there?
For satellite tv, we assume we would need to purchase a Wineguard (or equivalent) motorized dish and have it mounted on the roof. Pros and cons on Dish or DirecTV. Receiving the Big 3 networks and/or local channels?

[LouLawrence]

Never meant to say you could not record with a Wally. However, you can only record 1 channel at a time and even if you had 2 Wally's recording, both channels being recorded would have to be being broadcast from the same satellite. Recording failures are more common with this setup.
The Hopper and a full sized antenna (like the Winegard) is still the "bee knees" if you full time or plan many months of travel and like to watch TV.

[Community Alumni]

LouLawrence wrote:

gemsworld wrote:

Cptnvideo wrote:
The Playmaker looks like a good idea if you sometimes encounter tree issues with where the RV is parked since it is portable.
We currently have the Hopper 3 and 2 "Joey" receivers. The trav'ler looks like a better option for us as it will pick up 3 satellites simultaneously and would be compatible with our current house system.

The Playmaker can also be installed on the roof.. The cost of having an activated Wally receiver is only $5/mo if you have a Dish residential account. As you probably already know, the Playmaker can only tune to one satellite at a time. For us this isn't a hindrance since we only watch satellite TV on one TV.

As long as you use a Wally and a dome you are pretty good. However, I prefer to record what I plan to watch and watch it on my time schedule and without all the commercials. For that you need a Hopper and a Hopper needs a full size open face antenna, either manually setup on a tripod or a roof mounted automatic.

You can record with Wally and VIP 211 receivers by using an external hard drive. You pay a one time fee of $40 to turn on the feature on all Dish receivers you own and there is no monthly fee. We paid the $40 fee many years ago and had the feature turned on on several receivers throughout the years. We currently use a Western Digital hard drive to record.

[LouLawrence]

gemsworld wrote:

Cptnvideo wrote:
The Playmaker looks like a good idea if you sometimes encounter tree issues with where the RV is parked since it is portable.
We currently have the Hopper 3 and 2 "Joey" receivers. The trav'ler looks like a better option for us as it will pick up 3 satellites simultaneously and would be compatible with our current house system.

The Playmaker can also be installed on the roof.. The cost of having an activated Wally receiver is only $5/mo if you have a Dish residential account. As you probably already know, the Playmaker can only tune to one satellite at a time. For us this isn't a hindrance since we only watch satellite TV on one TV.

As long as you use a Wally and a dome you are pretty good. However, I prefer to record what I plan to watch and watch it on my time schedule and without all the commercials. For that you need a Hopper and a Hopper needs a full size open face antenna, either manually setup on a tripod or a roof mounted automatic.

[austinjenna]

We just use our phones that are unlimited. No issues

[TechWriter]

Cptnvideo wrote:
Looking for suggestions for internet, we have Verizon mifi which slows WAY down after 15 GBs of data usage. Anything else out there?

We use the Verizon "Pro" plan (100 GB/mon). For a non-Verizon customer, it's $90/mon. Since we already had a Verizon unlimited plan, it only cost us $60/mon.

I'd also look into a similar AT&T data plan.

Here's the Verizon poop . . .

[1492]

Cptnvideo wrote:

bgum wrote:
Visible for internet and use phones as Hotspot. Verizon towers 5g unlimited but they say throttled during congestion but have never seen it. $25 per month with party pay.

Looks like Visible would work. I'm not familiar with "party pay".

You basically join a Visible Party Pay group that has at least 4 members, and pay only $25. month for unlimited 4G/5G mobile data, phone, texts. Last I checked, my Party Pay group had 104 members. You can find a number of Visible Party Pay groups to join on Reddit.

There is no need to do anything else once you join a group. Verizon handles all the billing directly, same as if you were a regular user paying $40 month.

Hotspot only allows connecting one device at a time, and has consistent 5Mbps down/up. More than adequate for streaming services and for virtual meetings (Zoom, Teams, etc.).

[bgum]

Verizon Visible Party Pay

[Cptnvideo]

Michelle.S wrote:
We had the 15 Gig Verizon and upped it to 30 Gig for a few more dollars.
We've had a Trav'ler Dish on the roof for DirecTV on three 5ers over the past 12 years and generally can get signal.

Good to know that Verizon has a 30 Gig plan.

[Cptnvideo]

bgum wrote:
Visible for internet and use phones as Hotspot. Verizon towers 5g unlimited but they say throttled during congestion but have never seen it. $25 per month with party pay.

Looks like Visible would work. I'm not familiar with "party pay".

[Cptnvideo]

LouLawrence wrote:
I like DirecTV and the Trav'ler for my service (full time for over 20 years). However, I can only get locals via the OTA TV antenna. With DISH you can sign up for some kind of mobile account and they will move your locals as you move around. I believe you can still use the DISH app to do this as well. We have a grandfathered AT&T plan and get unlimited 4G for $23/month so we haven't tried any of the others. We can use our phones as hotspots as well when in good T-Mobile service areas. Each phone has 15GB of service but that could be bumped up for cheap if necessary.

I was hoping to have a simple way to get locals as we move around. Looks like Dish gets it.

[Land_Yachters]

We use Dish since it goes month to month and it works well, including local stations. Good point about roof mount or portable. We use dish on roof and have had it blocked more than once in campground. We also use YouTube TV for streaming at home and on the road. Cheapest, best streaming service we could find. Even with the OTA, streaming and satellite, we have been without a TV signal in many places. And that's ok too.

[Michelle_S]

We had the 15 Gig Verizon and upped it to 30 Gig for a few more dollars.
We've had a Trav'ler Dish on the roof for DirecTV on three 5ers over the past 12 years and generally can get signal.

[Community Alumni]

Cptnvideo wrote:
The Playmaker looks like a good idea if you sometimes encounter tree issues with where the RV is parked since it is portable.
We currently have the Hopper 3 and 2 "Joey" receivers. The trav'ler looks like a better option for us as it will pick up 3 satellites simultaneously and would be compatible with our current house system.

The Playmaker can also be installed on the roof.. The cost of having an activated Wally receiver is only $5/mo if you have a Dish residential account. As you probably already know, the Playmaker can only tune to one satellite at a time. For us this isn't a hindrance since we only watch satellite TV on one TV.

[bgum]

Visible for internet and use phones as Hotspot. Verizon towers 5g unlimited but they say throttled during congestion but have never seen it. $25 per month with party pay.