tigereyes 19 Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 Does anyone here take a sat. dish to tailgate? I have always taken a TV with ears but with the new digital signal I was thinking of upgrading to sat. and get ESPN. Does anyone have any tricks to share? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoAU 1,611 Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 I do a lot of camping and the new digital signal picture clarity is awesome - however (and I think this is where you are concerned) - you either have a picture, or you don't. No partial pictures, dealing with "snow" etc - crystal clear or nothing. I haven't noticed a difference as to how far the signals travel because usually while I'm camping I don't watch too much TV. However, I have sworn to myself the RV will go (with me in it!) to at least one home game this year. Although this sounds easy - I have 6 kids, and many participate in their own sports. Does anyone have experience with over the air signal strength in AU? What channels can be picked up? Satellite would be great, and I've really considered it, but keep dwelling on wasted money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tgr4lfe 220 Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 The satellite is the way to go!! If I remember correctly picking up channel 12 out of Montgomery is pretty strong as is Columbus, GA station, but don't remember their national affiliation. There have been more and more folks bringing the satellite dish and an HD flat panel TV to still be able to watch in HD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IndyTiger 3 Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 I do a lot of camping and the new digital signal picture clarity is awesome - however (and I think this is where you are concerned) - you either have a picture, or you don't. No partial pictures, dealing with "snow" etc - crystal clear or nothing. I haven't noticed a difference as to how far the signals travel because usually while I'm camping I don't watch too much TV. However, I have sworn to myself the RV will go (with me in it!) to at least one home game this year. Although this sounds easy - I have 6 kids, and many participate in their own sports. Does anyone have experience with over the air signal strength in AU? What channels can be picked up? Satellite would be great, and I've really considered it, but keep dwelling on wasted money. The digital signal is nowhere near as strong as the analog was(not yet at least, esp for the affiliate out of Columbus and Montgomery, they just don't have that great of technology yet). For Auburn even with a high powered digital antenna it would be unlikely to pick up any channels. You can check signal strength here AntennaWeb just input the address and you will see how many channel there are and how far away the signal is. I checked the house I live at in Auburn and it gets TBN (a Christian station) out of Montgomery that has a signal 1 mile away. In Indy we are able to pick up about 30 channels over the air just with our tv. I would say go with DirecTV if you want to be able to get more packages or DISH if you want something basic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tiger1 1 Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 Does anyone here take a sat. dish to tailgate? I have always taken a TV with ears but with the new digital signal I was thinking of upgrading to sat. and get ESPN. Does anyone have any tricks to share? All you need is a Direct TV satellite dish, a generator, and a digital TV along with the proper cords and it is easy to set up and watch. If you use a loud generator, place it so it doesn't disturb your tailgating neighbors. We have a portable stand and dish that we use. The biggest issue is making sure the dish stand is level keeping the satellite at the proper angle. You can also use an inverter and a battery for power instead of a generator, but if you are going to watch all day, you will probably need more than one battery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigereyes 19 Posted July 16, 2009 Author Share Posted July 16, 2009 Does anyone here take a sat. dish to tailgate? I have always taken a TV with ears but with the new digital signal I was thinking of upgrading to sat. and get ESPN. Does anyone have any tricks to share? All you need is a Direct TV satellite dish, a generator, and a digital TV along with the proper cords and it is easy to set up and watch. If you use a loud generator, place it so it doesn't disturb your tailgating neighbors. We have a portable stand and dish that we use. The biggest issue is making sure the dish stand is level keeping the satellite at the proper angle. You can also use an inverter and a battery for power instead of a generator, but if you are going to watch all day, you will probably need more than one battery. I do not have sat. at home I use cable. Can you set up the plan to pay by the day? I have heard people with RV's only pay for the days they use them. Also I live in a black out area for local channels is there a way to work around that? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tiger1 1 Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 Does anyone here take a sat. dish to tailgate? I have always taken a TV with ears but with the new digital signal I was thinking of upgrading to sat. and get ESPN. Does anyone have any tricks to share? All you need is a Direct TV satellite dish, a generator, and a digital TV along with the proper cords and it is easy to set up and watch. If you use a loud generator, place it so it doesn't disturb your tailgating neighbors. We have a portable stand and dish that we use. The biggest issue is making sure the dish stand is level keeping the satellite at the proper angle. You can also use an inverter and a battery for power instead of a generator, but if you are going to watch all day, you will probably need more than one battery. I do not have sat. at home I use cable. Can you set up the plan to pay by the day? I have heard people with RV's only pay for the days they use them. Also I live in a black out area for local channels is there a way to work around that? Thanks If you know someone that has direct TV, they can add a receiver to their account for $5 per month (unless it has gone up since last year). Used boxes and Direct TV dishes are normally pretty easy to find on Craigs list or ebay. I got my receiver and dish from someone who once had Direct TV, but switched back to cable. Another friend let us add the receiver to his account and I just paid him the $15 for the three months during football season. We are going to do it again this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeoneSM 0 Posted July 17, 2009 Share Posted July 17, 2009 It's very easy to set up a satellite dish. As stated, the key is to get your stand level. I modified one of the tripod stands so that the legs were adjustable. Then set the elevation and the skew and once those are set you can turn the dish until you get signal. You might have to adjust the elevation slightly to get a stronger signal but you'll be able to see it on the signal strength meter. If you don't have any equipment yet I would get an HD dish. The locals (if available in HD) come in on a different satellite than the non HD channels. These SD signals typically come through on a spot beam. What this means is that I still get local channels even if I'm out of my local area because it's on a satellite and not the spotbeam. I picked up Atlanta locals in Nashville last year because I use HD equipment. Note that an HD dish points to slightly different coordinates than SD. If you try to point to the coordinates of an SD dish with the HD you won't get it. And Dish Network won't give you the coordinates because HD equipment is supposed to be "professionally installed". I won't get started on that...a list of coordinates according to zip code will come with your dish. I use Dish Network and bought an extra satellite and also bought an HD receiver from Ebay. I use the reciever in my house after football season. An SD receiver is $5/month and HD is $7. I wouldn't recommend getting a DVR receiver if you end up buying one because they have hard drives like a computer and damage fairly easily. A dual tuner box is nice if you ever plan to use PIP or watch more than one TV because you can do it with that one box. I started out using an SD reciever and tube TV but now I use a 40" HD TV and HD satellite. It really is a whole lot nicer if you're going to be using it a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigereyes 19 Posted July 20, 2009 Author Share Posted July 20, 2009 Thanks everyone. These are great ideas. I just need to get started working on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duder 238 Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 Does anyone here take a sat. dish to tailgate? I have always taken a TV with ears but with the new digital signal I was thinking of upgrading to sat. and get ESPN. Does anyone have any tricks to share? All you need is a Direct TV satellite dish, a generator, and a digital TV along with the proper cords and it is easy to set up and watch. If you use a loud generator, place it so it doesn't disturb your tailgating neighbors. We have a portable stand and dish that we use. The biggest issue is making sure the dish stand is level keeping the satellite at the proper angle. You can also use an inverter and a battery for power instead of a generator, but if you are going to watch all day, you will probably need more than one battery. I do not have sat. at home I use cable. Can you set up the plan to pay by the day? I have heard people with RV's only pay for the days they use them. Also I live in a black out area for local channels is there a way to work around that? Thanks You could do as the other member stated and add it to someone's acct for $5/month (we increased from $4.99). Keep in mind all DIRECTV receivers are leased now and will add either an 18 month or 24 month (advanced product) programming agreement to the person's acct. Also, should the receiver be deactivated it would have to be returned to DIRECTV or account holder would get hit with a huge fee. As for the dish, unless your tech savvy I'd check out the Winegard dishes or something of the sort. They automatically find the signal for you. Although, if you know your way around a compass it would be just as easy to create a little portable mount for the dish to take with you, it would certainly save you a hell of a lot of money. There is no pay-per-day service with DIRECTV unless there is a local business somewhere renting our equipment out temporarily, which I'm sure we would've heard of. As for locals, you can apply for a DNS waiver to get locals from LA or New York, which would only help you if AU was the national game if we are on one of the networks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AU-Dave 7 Posted July 30, 2009 Share Posted July 30, 2009 So, I have been studying everything. This thread has been really helpful. I have a relative with Dish Network. I haven't contacted them yet about pricing etc. I'm looking at this satellite http://www.talcoelectronics.com/p-21-rd-9046-portable-satellite-system.aspx Could someone tell me if that will work with Dish Network? I have found many receivers on ebay for cheap. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeoneSM 0 Posted July 31, 2009 Share Posted July 31, 2009 This dish would work with Dish Network, but I believe it would only pick up one satellite at a time. Dish Network SD channels come in on the 110 and 119 satellites and some locals come through on the 110 spotbeam. HD programming comes in on the 129 satellite. All three are in the same line, so you point the dish in the same location. I'm pretty sure that because the LNB (the thing on the end of the arm) only has one orb that it will only get one satellite. This means that you would only get about 1/2 of the channels that you would have the potential to receive, and that if something was on the satellite you weren't tuned to, you would have to change the settings to pick up the other. I would call and ask before you take my word for it Again, I'm not an expert, but I've been setting up my own dish for 5 years now and I think that's how it works. Hope this helps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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