To dish or not to dish –  that is the question.

If you like cable television, most campgrounds have cable hook-up now.  That’s a great bonus for those of us who like to get our daily dose of cable news, sports, or entertainment.  Ten years ago, most campgrounds just supplied the essentials and you were on “Air Antenna” TV.  You just lived with whatever local channels you could pick up with your roof mounted antenna.

Today you can usually get cable at your chain campgrounds.  However “Cable” seems to have taken on a strange meaning.  It may mean you will receive 7 channels or it may mean 107, it just depends on the campground.  In one case we stayed in a campground that boasted it had cable hookups, but what they didn’t say is that you would need to go to the office and request a cable box and then set it up in your trailer.  That might be fine if you are staying there for a week, but not for a night or two.

Now if you happen to camp in a state park, county park, or do primitive camping you will only have your antenna available for whatever might be floating across the airways.

Beyond “Campground Cable” or “Air Antenna TV” there are more options available; but you really need to decide of its worth it to spend the money.  In our case we are already DIRECTV customers at home.  So adding another receiver to our subscription is only $7.00 more per month.  Where it gets expensive is in the equipment.   After a bit of research we decided on the Winegard G2+ satellite Antenna.  While this unit usually sells for around $600.00, you can find sales occasionally.  Sometimes there are discount coupons that might apply to anything you buy at a particular camping store.

You can certainly go with a less expensive dish (about half that price);  but you may need to manually find the satellites by moving the dish around until it connects.  This will probably require two folks to set up the dish, with one in the trailer and one moving the dish.  This is why we settled on the Winegard G2+, it automatically finds the satellites.  Should you decide on one that requires manual intervention there are iPhone Aps that allow you to find the satellites easier.

If we were only camping a couple weeks a year, this would not be an investment worth making.  However,  when you sit in one spot for over four weeks at a time, its worth considering.  There are some things to think about before you decide this might be right for you:

  1.  Are you willing to extend your DIRECTV agreement by two years?  Once they activate your new receiver, you are committed to a new two year contract period.  I can not speak to how the other providers operate so you should do your research if you decide on Dish Network or another provider.
  2. You will need to pay for an additional receiver, anywhere from 99.00 to 199.00 depending on if you want to record programs or not.  Again, there are specials that are available from time to time that may allow you to get a receiver for next to nothing.
  3. The TV provider will probably need to come to your trailer to do the install and activation.  Threfore you will need to have your travel trailer handy.
  4. You will need to decide where you are going to mount it.  We decided not to do a permanent mount after talking to several RV stores.  We decided to buy a tripod made for the G2.  This gives us the flexibility of moving it around at our campsite in case there is heavy tree cover.  It also protects it from standing water and high winds.  If you decide to have it mounted on the roof of your RV,  based on my research, it will be expensive.  There is also a ladder mount available; but again that will make things difficult if there is a large canopy of tree branches overhead.  In my opinion I don’t want to attach anything to my ladder that I may trip on while moving up or down the ladder.
  5. Don’t be afraid to wheel and deal with your providers to get the best value for your money.

We are heading to Tyler State Park soon and I am looking forward to trying the system out before our big trip in about six weeks.

For more information about the Winegard G2+ dish, click here.