Television?

[Wagonmaster]

I was wondering how many people take a dish with them for satelite tv or do you just use the campground cable? We have tivo and I don't know how much trouble it would be to take it along.. Jack

[Parrothead]

Jack
We take ours unless we are going to a campground where we know how good the cable is. With DirecTV we have HBO and Ed is a huge boxing fan so if there is a boxing event coming up we take the dish. Many of the CGs have limited cable. We were in one last fall that didn't even have the 3 major channels.
Happy trails.............................

[Glass Guy]

I always take mine along, mainly because most of the places we stay are state parks and I don't know of ant that offer cable. It only takes about 5 minutes to set up with a good compass so may as well use it. Roman

[tweir]

Yup---the dish, cables, sat-finder & tripod are stowed in the coach. Just grab the receiver from the house, load the fridge with goodies and we're off. Like Roman said, it only takes 5 minutes to set up.

[firetrucker]

Absolutely. If we're close enough to home, we even get our local channels. Everything but the receiver is in the trailer or on the truck. And it does only take 5 minutes to set up...well, maybe after you've done it a few times.

Bob

[JH Sechelt]

Always take our dish, don't always use it. Some campsites have too many trees.
With Star choice we can travel all around North America and still watch Our local channels ( Vanvcouver BC ) News etc...
I made this Satellite mount so I could put the dish up on top of the trailer. with out spending thousands of $$$.
still use a tripod for over nighters.

[richfaa]

Been using Direct Tv on a tripod in our camper for a long time.Easy to set up. can only think of one time when we could not use it because we were surrounded by large trees.

[tweir]

Hey JH---I took the same "gooseneck" as shown in your picture and built two adapters for it: (1) the baseplate with the 4 holes in it bolts to a mating plate I made for a tripod. I did this because sometimes trees block the signal "window" and I can move it to a location that will give us the best alignment; (2) using the same "gooseneck", I fabricated two clamps that bolt to the baseplate then fit on the vertical ladder handrails on the back of the coach. I use this method mostly when we're in the desert as sometimes the high winds out there "mess" with the tripod set-up. In either case, it only takes minutes to set this up as all of the mounting hardware is interchangeable.

[bobgay]

We always take the dish, although we don't usually set it up for one-nighters. I can't set mine up in five minutes (it takes that long for the receiver to boot up), but I can usually be up and running in 15 minutes.
JH, that's a pretty neat looking ladder mount. Keeps people from bumping into it. I've been using the Bullseye mount for a couple of years. Works very well.
Bob

[Gonfishin]

I use the bullseye too. What gets me is it takes me 10 to 15 mins to get my Bullseye set up and get a signal. Later while walking or riding our bikes through the camp ground I always see someone who has their dish mounted to a board or block or something odd, just thrown on the ground and I guess they are getting a signal. I don't know what happened to the mount must be level and vertical and everything else. One of these days I am gonna have to stop and ask how well that works, cause if it does I must be going about it the hard way.
Rick.

[JH Sechelt]

Thanks Bob,

If you take a close look at the mount, you will see I spring mounted the right side
of the gooseneck with 1" exhaust springs & ny-lock nuts. I just take a 7/16" deep socket
& my little magnetic torpedo level up and and can level the gooseneck side to side and
back to front in a couple of minutes. drop the Dish on and tap it a couple of times sideways
to find the Satellite. Best of all now its out of the way.
J & D

[bobgay]

JH, I noticed your leveling mechanism. I'm sure those springs are stout enough to keep the weight of the dish from knocking your pole out of plumb. Very innovative. That's what I like about this forum.
Bob

[virgil47]

Couldn't figure out how to use the bullseye level in my set up but I did find a "Post & Pipe" level at Home Depot for about $7. After I rubberbanded that to the shaft the dish is mounted to, slid it into the tripod and got it leveled, the satellite finder did the rest. What had been taking me an hour, if at all, now took 10 minutes max. Then to keep it stable, I filled a gallon jug with water and hung it from the tripod with a small bungee cord, so far so good. After struggling for the first 4 weeks of traveling when setting up the dish. The level and satellite finder gizmo really made the process a breeze.

[Ishler]

Always have a system in the rig. I have a spare reciever I bought on ebay and the Bullseye mount. I have Dish turn on the system in the spring before the first outing and turn it off after the last. The Bullseye mount makes the aiming easy especially if you have a dual or triple LNB dish.

[Lstierw]

We have the kingdome and Direct TV, but it is nice when we get cable at the parks too. Hooked up a singal splitter so we can which back and forth between cable and Direct TV...

[bob n pam]

We travel with a dish and use it all the time. We are one of the one with the dish on a board thrown on the ground. It works just fine. Ours is screwed on a 2 x 6 about 2 feet long with holes in each corner. Bob pounds tent stakes through the holes to hold it down. Sometimes if we're in a windy place (think RGV) he puts a gallon water container on it. This set up takes up very little room. We like being able to move it around when needed.