Questions about TV

RUskoolietailgater · 11-22-2009, 07:29 PM

Hey guys, I've read this site for a while because I have a vision of having a skoolie at Rutgers football games (hence the user name). While my project won't be started for at least a year or two, I am trying to come up with the perfect plan and then get enough friends to split the costs with me. (Pictures will be provided down the road) Anyway, I have a question about TV setups. I saw that you can get a Direct TV LCD 17" portable setup and basically you get Satelitte TV on the go and a portable folding TV that looks like a laptop, but the cost is $1040 to own this. Are there ways that you guys watch TV on the road or at a game that are a cheaper alternative than this? I basically just need the TV for ESPN on gameday and I guess a few channels to entertain if we're on the road for an away game. I also realized that if I have this thing I can't hookup a DVD player or a PS3. Any recommendations would be appreciated. GO RU.

GoneCamping · 11-22-2009, 09:04 PM

You can sign up for basic Direct TV service, buy or find an old dish (they are plentiful), and a tripod, and long section of cable. Monthy fee's for Direct vary according to what you sign up for, have it installed in your home and you can take one (or more) receivers with you, then all you do is set the dish up on a tripod and tune it in, cost nothing extra because you are already paying for it as your home service!! You don't even have to tell them about it, just do it!!

Sojakai · 11-23-2009, 01:00 AM

I like this dish holder...

Full page: http://rvnow.rvtravel.com/2007/06/rv...side-down.html

RUskoolietailgater · 11-23-2009, 07:59 PM

So what you guys are saying basically: If I have a subscription to any Sat. TV, just find a spare dish laying around, point it south, hook up the necessary cables to a bigger TV and I'm good to go? Would I have to program the TV? I don't understand how I'd be able to get my Sat. TV package on my bus many miles away just because I subscribe to Direct TV.

sportyrick · 11-24-2009, 08:28 PM

for a few xtra bucks your sat company will activate another dish to use in your RV and just grab the box out of the bedroom and use it when traveling. I bought a 15.6" 12V flat screen TV with DVD player for $250 so I can run it on 12V (Ebay). the box is 110V though. sportyrick

Redbear · 11-24-2009, 10:30 PM

Quote:

for a few xtra bucks your sat company will activate another dish to use in your RV and just grab the box out of the bedroom and use it when traveling.

I would like more details on this.

I know It is the indoor receiver box(es), not the dish antenna, that you buy service for. Having a spare antenna for the bus so you can leave the primary dish bolted to the house when you grab the box is the idea. The one issue may be not having a phone line plugged in. My boss has a residential account, and told me last week the provider uses the phone line to insure the receiver owner hasn't moved the box to a sports bar or some other commercial use.

I can only speak with experience on commercial accounts which require no phone line. I've played with about a dozen boxes on three accounts. If the dish and box stay on and aimed, there is no problem. If the mobile has been parked for weeks with the units off, the box might miss its periodic re-validation messages streaming from the satellite. The channel authorization in the box will time out, and the box will go back to the welcome channel only. Leave the system on, whip out your cell phone, and give the service rep the serial number of the access card inserted in the box. If your account is in good standing they will "hit" the box with a fresh validation, and you are back on. It takes longer to get the rep on the line and read all the numbers than it does to "hit" the box and get all your channels back.

The same applies to commercial accounts at fixed locations. Trust me, you don't want a commercial account. You pay more, get some news channels, and not much else. Forget about HBO or Showtime.

After last week chatting with the boss, I realized taking a home unit out for an extended time (without its phone line) may cause it to go to sleep. I hadn't thought of that.

There are RV accounts available. The BBS threads Smitty posted the link for have lots of data. What I got from them a while ago was that if you are full-time, you send a copy of your RV registration and get a no-phone line account. If I remember correctly, depending on who you order from, you get either Atlanta or San Francisco local channels, with no choice in the matter.

Sportyrick: Do you pay extra for a second box to use when mobile, a second access card to use when the only box is mobile, or a second charge to allow the box to be "un-tethered" from the land line?

GoneCamping · 11-25-2009, 09:05 PM

I used to be a direct tv installer... for starters, they like to tell you that you need a phone line, but that is bull... no phone is required, they would like you to have it so that you will get suckered into ordering a bunch of pay per view stuff. I have direct tv in my home, and the only phone I have is a cell phone, and that is NOT connected to the receiver.

Here is how it works, when you subscribe to direct tv (and I assume Dish works the same way), you sign up for a certain package of programs, direct sends a signal over one of their private data channels and your receiver picks it up, this tells your receiver what channels you can get, what you can't get, and they can turn on and off your service while you stand there and look at your tv.

Now, as long as your receiver is plugged in, turned on, and connected to the dish, each month it'll receive the updated data signal... If you unplug your receiver and take it with you in the camper along with a SPARE dish, then set that up at the campground... it'll work just like it does at home, the data is already down loaded into the receiver, and when you set-up at the campground the only thing it'll reload is the guide data. As far as the receiver box is concerned, it thinks it's still at home, the box has no idea you've moved it and using a different dish.

The only thing that MAY NOT work when camping is your local channels. The local channels are spot beamed down, and cover a "footprint" area of approx 250 sq miles... you go outside this spot beam's "footprint" and you won't get the local channels, but you will still get the 100-250 channels that you subscribe to...

On direct tv the set-up is simple, you go to the menu and select set-up, punch in the zip code for where you are at, and it'll display the proper azimuth, elevation and skew angle to set your dish at. Normally you will never mess with the skew angle once it's set... next you switch the menu to "signal meter' and set the dish out on a tri-pod that has a view of the sky to the SSW and using a compass you try to aim the dish appropriately...turn the TV up loud so you can hear the signal meter beeping...

The aiming is not as easy as it sounds, but it is not difficult either, with practice it gets pretty simple. If you set the tri-pod up properly so that the center pole is perfectly level, you should not have to fuss with the elevation or skew angle, just the azimuth (direction)...and you already know it basically goes to the SSW... you just have to zero in on the birdie...

One last thing to consider. Whether you go with direct tv or dish network is a matter of personal choice. If you listen to Clark Howard at all he'll tell you Dish net has the worst customer service record in the industry...I have never subscribed to them so I don't know other than what I hear. What I do know for a fact, that the Dish Sat's are lower in the sky than Direct's...and when you've got a tree line you're trying to work around, the higher satellite is easier to find.

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