TV in the Oil Patch

Receiving and sending a clear signal to your television can be a challenge in a recreational vehicle. My coach had top notch technology when it was built in 1996. Now the “over the air” antenna is useless without a signal decoder and the satellite dome only has one LNB which limits the channels you can receive. To receive a satellite signal with high definition and local channels you need a dish with three LNB’s. Your dish will also either have a built in switch or you’ll have to add an inline switch so that the correct LNB transmits the signal to the television. In other words, most locals come in on one LNB, high definition on another and the remainder on yet another. Read Andy’s blog at www.myoldrv.com for everything you want to know about receiving satellite. Basically you will need the aforementioned dish, an HD receiver and a HD television to receive high definition television. These days it is MUCH easier to get Dish or Direct to come out to an RV and to establish an RV account. Dealing with RV’s is still fairly new to them, so you may have to be persistent. If you feel confident, money can be saved by purchasing the equipment through E Bay, Amazon or other sources. Remember when you purchase used equipment-every receiver has a card identifying it and you need to check that number out with your satellite provider to make sure the account is not owed any money. You will need to order the receiver, the dish and the tripod to hold it. You will also need the co-axial cable to connect to the dish and short lengths to go between the receiver and the television. You can also connect the television and receiver using an HDMI cable on later equipment. Our dilemma, once everything was up and working was how to record conflicting programs. There are several solutions. You can go through an outside provider and purchase a channel package with east, west and central time zone programming. Dish network also has a Hopper option that has an ungodly amount of recording capacity.  We added a second receiver to record conflicting programming. If your partner is like mine, he or she will have their shows and this will eventually become an issue-trust me. Better to nip it in the bud while planning your installation.