TV on the road

We do what Old-Biscuit does.Sometimes we get 30+ channels.

At home we have Directv, but on the road we get along fine with OTA and or cable if the the CC has it ! Maybe if we were spending months on the road I would consider satellite TV !

I have a slightly different take on TV on the road.

For years I used to have Dish but later changed to DircTV because of the NFL. We used to travel 2 months at a time. In 2015 we spent the winter in Key West. In 2016 we traveled for 8 months hitting most of the states. Towards the end I cancelled DirecTV and found over the air and cable offered by the RV Park had all the information I needed.

Really, unless you are a full timer why do you need satellite TV? We are supposed to be traveling and enjoying our surroundings, not being a couch potato.

At home we have cable, can't get any over-the-air or else I might go that direction.

We've recently cut the cable/dish/direct at the sticks & bricks. Procured a Fire TV box. So we'll be packing that along with using the OTA antenna, SensarPro, & Fire TV to veg out on a rainy day. We've probably watched all of 100 hours of TV while camping over the past 4 years (4-5 month trips). There is so much to see and precious little time left to see & share.

Note: Your results will vary with campgrounds and possibly from site to site within the campground.. EXAMPLE: where I am currently parked I get two stations strong. both Canadian.. A different site I get like 20 stations, DETROIT, same campground not 300 yards different.. Thanks to dual DVR's I'm not worried about running out of TV to watch I have like 500 hours on the hard drive already. :).

What I use to get TV.. A Winegard Sensar III with added wingman and the Sensar Pro switch module inside (Read on)

What I recommend.. IF YOU HAVE a Sensar II or III add the wingman, IF NOT get the Sensar IV (WIngman included)

Replace the wall switch (This is the wall plate with the 12 volt acc outlet, a Switch, LED and antenna connection) inside the RV with the Sensar Pro.

FORGET the jack,

Now as I said your results will vary. If you are in a deep fringe area like my parent's last house.. Well HEIGHT IS MIGHT (Per a TV engineer we were in a "NO COVERAGE" area with that house but 100' up in the air (plus a bit) sat Channel Master's #2 antenna as I recall (May have been #1) with a mast head amplifer (I installed.. I'm an acro-phobe but I climbed that tower (With a safety harness) and installed the pre-amp) and we got lots of TV up to 100 miles plus away)

My Sensar is good for about 50 miles 60 on occasion.

ducksquasher wrote:

Is my best option to buy a dish and activate when I need it, etc.?

It depends on what your camping habits ARE......and how addicted to the tube that you ARE.

I get by with commercial campgrounds with cable (KOA usually) and a roof top antenna the other times.

And yes some of those "other times" gives me little or nothing But I think a few days away from commercial TV is good for you.

I have both the roof dome and portable dome that each find the satellites automatically. If you had to choose one I would buy the portable one. Too often the satellite is blocked by a tree for the roof dome. A good option is a compass to determine the direction of the satellite if one is parked between two trees, for example.

There's very very little that interests us on broadcast TV. "Just crank up the antenna" gets us approximately zero. We need sat. at home and on the road for specialty channels.

Old-Biscuit wrote:
Crank up the roof top antenna..aim it towards transponder towers...turn booster on...set TV input to 'antenna' and auto scan for channels

We typically get 10 PLUS channels and FREE
Major networks and some local.....enough TV while camping

X2 ^^
Never spent enough time in the RV to get a Dish. Only tuned into local channels for News and Weather. If it was raining threw in a DVD and watched a movie like "RV" with Robin Williams.

Since you have cable and plan to keep it I will assume that your RV travels are just from time to time and not long term making it necessary to pay for cable and satellite TV. If that's the case and your camping is not way out in the boonies then the best option for you might simply to watch TV using your free OTA TV antenna. You should get all the major Networks plus some sub channels in SD which might accommodate most of your needs. You could also bring along some DVD's for those times when "there's nothing on TV".
If you want to go satellite TV then I recommend Dish Network as they have a Pay-as-you-go plan where you just pay in advance for a month at a time and at the end of the month the service simply stops. You will need to buy a receiver and a satellite TV antenna (automatic dome or an inexpensive open face antenna that you must point yourself). You will be out $300-$600 for the setup but after than the ongoing cost should be around $50/month for the TV service. Higher cost service is available depending upon the programming you like.