I have Direct TV and a Tripod Satellite for my bus, but it's hit or miss that it will actually work when we are camping. It's taking WAY too long to get a signal and just shouldn't be this difficult. What do you recommend?
We had Dish when we used to fulltime but finally gave up because same reason you gave. We finally just get the cable the park has if we get a good phone signal we just stream through our phones to our TV or computers. Hulu or amazon Prime etc.
Dave5Cs
Dish Network with Motion Winegard. Works good and 10 bucks a month added to home bill.
I have directv with motosat which as since gone out of business,but I love the push one button and be watching tv.I am looking to change to wingard to get H.D. tv.We also travel fulltime and like the convenience of an auto dish.When I had a house I had a geni from directv and that's my goal for the bus.
Don
We carried a tripod and dish for years and a lot of the time it worked well. "A lot of the time" doesn't mean always. When it didn't work it was always near to a marriage ender. When it did work - which was most of the time - I pointed it, turned on the TV and we started watching TV. Recently I bought us a Winegard carryout - we call it R2D2. Its this one (http://www.winegard.com/carryout-shaw-direct) because we're on Shaw but they have other flavours for other satellite providers.
The Winegard system isn't perfect but its way easier and it works. We had a bit of a struggle getting it onto our contract because we have a hi-def contract and the carryout needs to be on a low def contract, whatever the hell that means. I went back and forth between Winegard and Shaw support with each side insisting it wasn't their problem until I figured out what the problem really was. We finally just told Shaw that we had to have low def service on the Winegard contract. They insisted that whatever they were going to change wouldn't make any difference but it did and we have had TV service ever since.
What I have found with R2D2 is that he doesn't always find the satellite on the first try. Most of the time he does but sometimes he gets confused. If you listen carefully you can hear the little stepper motors trying to aim the dish inside the dome. If it works that noise should only last for maybe a minute but sometimes it goes on and on. When that happens the best thing to do is to just unplug the dish, wait a while and plug it in again.
SlingTV for me, cheap, and thus far, seems to be flawless, of course to view, data access is required. If you use your phone, you can stream to the tv with Amazon Fire, ChromeCast, or ATV, all three work equally as well.
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Eric_De_K5FLI
77 MCI/TMC MC8, 8V71
12kw Kabota, 4kw Inverter
I have a winegard carry out which works great, I also have a High def Dish on the roof of the bus that I can aim from inside, I purchased an app for my phone that shows where the sat's are located, that really helps, I only use the carry out when trees are blocking the roof dish.>>>> John.
Winegard lTrac'lr works and sees thru most trees, but slow about 4-5 min setup or stowing.