QUESTIONS from a TECHNOLOGY CHALLENGED GUY!

[Jabber Jaw]

I have a "DISH" satellite on the coach, & am a Dish "Pay as You go" customer. Works pretty well 98% of the time. Obstructions & weather do affect the signal. We use "RV Park Cable" sometimes, & OTA sometimes. There are 3 Samsung "Smart" TV's, 2 inside & 1 outside. There are two "Wally's", one for each inside TV. I seem to have some difficulty (challenged) downloading/uploading the cable stations, & sometimes the OTA digital stations. As you can readily see....I need some training in technology, and seem to have a battle understanding it, but yet my 12 & 14 year old grandkids can "do it in a minute", so to speak.

Thinking about other alternatives, but am very "technology" challenged! This could prove to be dangerous!!

STREAMING....Can someone explain more about it. There are all kinds of "things", "sticks", "plug-ins", etc, but how does one know about the channels & programming available? Or is it one price for everything? I watch a lot of baseball games, college basketball, NASCAR, GOLF, & an occasional college football game. I am not a "Movie" guy (too much blood, guts, & gore for me), but DW loves old 40's,50's, & some 60's movies, & old TV shows; like Perry Mason, etc. And when traveling, I like to get "local" channels. I don't do "PPV"!
So do I get just one "THING" or do I have to have several? Any ideas about pricing? Are each of these special streaming/ programming?

STARLINK....Would something like this be feasible for me, or more challenging than I'm capable of comprehending? Would it provide a streaming capability? I currently have a "hot-spot" (Yep, I can get it to work), use RV provided "wi-fi", or my phone for online stuff.

What kind of monthly expense could I expect to incur?
What other options would/could you recommend?
Or, should I just forget it, & continue to use what I've got?

HELP an "OL' Man" out!!
Thanks,

Allan

PS: You're not gonna hurt my feelings about my lack of "techno" knowledge! I'm the first to admit, I do not know, nor understand it! It's way beyond my almost 77 years!!

 

[DennisT]

Here is the problem with streaming from our point of view……

We had Hulu at our house when we got rid of dish and it was great.

When you travel for an amount of time they turn off your streaming until you login from your primary location.

There are not any services that you can get local channels and change each time you move when traveling. If I recall correctly Hulu would let you change twice a year.

We had Roku boxes in the current coach and gave streaming a good shot for about 7 months.

With all the things we like to watch we had about 6 subscriptions adding up to about $70 a month. Was also a hassle remembering which app we needed for which show etc.

We recently went to the dish pay as you go service with a hopper 3 and two wireless joeys.

Just our opinion but much easier and we can get locals whenever we move locations.

Our internet is through FMCA and truly unlimited.

There are others that streaming works just fine for depending on what you like to watch.

 

[mjeds]

Here is the problem with streaming from our point of view……

We had Hulu at our house when we got rid of dish and it was great.

When you travel for an amount of time they turn off your streaming until you login from your primary location.

There are not any services that you can get local channels and change each time you move when traveling. If I recall correctly Hulu would let you change twice a year.

We had Roku boxes in the current coach and gave streaming a good shot for about 7 months.

With all the things we like to watch we had about 6 subscriptions adding up to about $70 a month. Was also a hassle remembering which app we needed for which show etc.

We recently went to the dish pay as you go service with a hopper 3 and two wireless joeys.

Just our opinion but much easier and we can get locals whenever we move locations.

Our internet is through FMCA and truly unlimited.

There are others that streaming works just fine for depending on what you like to watch.

for the Hulu thing, the easiest way to avoid the "login from primary location" is to make the primary location your mobile device on your 5g or LTE plan (turn off wi-fi). I've done this for several years. Hulu/Disney/ESPN have the same issue but doing it this way I have never had an issue using them when traveling.

PlutoTv is a good (and 100% free as it has adverts) streaming service, it appears to pickup local news/weather if you have location services activated, I use it on my appleTV in CA and my daughter on hers in CO and we each get different "Live" channels, and they have a host of OnDemand channels. Again I have the first/primary login as my phone so I don't have issues with needing to log in from my primary device when not at home.


Sling is also a good service for streaming, sadly the slingbox is gone (which used to allow you to stream your home sat/cable via the internet to a remote box in your RV or vacation home) but sling.com has monthly plans that are as low as $20 for basic "cable" networks.

I use my Verizon hot-spot service with the SIM chip in a peplink, and I have never had an issue with service traveling CA, AZ, NM, WY, TX, and through to TN. but I typically stay in the southwest area of the US, which has far better 5G and 4GLTE than the Midwest and northern states in my experience.

I get Disney/ESPN/Hulu free through my Verizon Cell plan, and I use PlutoTV for everything else (which is also free). my RV does have an antenna for locals, but I can't even recall the last time I watched anything "off air" or sat/cable.

I am not much of a TV person, so this works for me. rarely watch anything but movies.

 

[FLSteve]

Following this ... so please keep the info coming. We have Direct TV at the house so also use it in the coach when traveling. For streaming we have YouTube TV and Disney (actually am using the spare slots from our son's subscriptions) and all that works fairly well. Would love to get rid of Direct TV due to the rising expense but need to feel better about going to 100% streaming before doing that as we watch lots of Perry Masons as well.

FLSteve

 

[Kevin D Pem]

My experience says, if you're willing to pay, someone will set you up to play!

If you're tech savvy, then many things are an option, but more difficult. You can stream to the boob tube using a smart TV. I am not a boob, so I no longer have a tube in the house, but Saundra had it all figured out, and she was not a techy. I'm more of a techy type, but Saundra had to show me how to use the remote!!!

To answer the question, I do everything on starlink, that includes TV when Saundra was here.

 

[sheridany]

I’d take the direct tv dish off and remove the boxes out of my bus as we hardly use it anymore. We have gone to 100% streaming by deploying a pepwave router positioned in the back closet. Then you have two carriers to provide internet coverage. The setup is pretty seamless and the hardest part is explaining to the store personnel what you want. The same thing applies to starlink which is also an option whether you mount it permanently on the roof or set it up outside. Most content has gone to streaming so we have Apple TV which has Netflix and YouTube tv. That is all we watch whether I’m in the bus or at home. I am betting satellite will be obsolete before five years is up. You can also go down the road of firestick etc that plugs into your tv and get the content that way. I have not tried it but it also requires that your tv be pretty modern in order to accept the plug. There’s a lot of options. We dropped direct tv setup in the sticks and bricks and we haven’t missed it at all.

 

[Wemustrv]

I have a "DISH" satellite on the coach, & am a Dish "Pay as You go" customer. Works pretty well 98% of the time. Obstructions & weather do affect the signal. We use "RV Park Cable" sometimes, & OTA sometimes. There are 3 Samsung "Smart" TV's, 2 inside & 1 outside. There are two "Wally's", one for each inside TV. I seem to have some difficulty (challenged) downloading/uploading the cable stations, & sometimes the OTA digital stations. As you can readily see....I need some training in technology, and seem to have a battle understanding it, but yet my 12 & 14 year old grandkids can "do it in a minute", so to speak.

Thinking about other alternatives, but am very "technology" challenged! This could prove to be dangerous!!

STREAMING....Can someone explain more about it. There are all kinds of "things", "sticks", "plug-ins", etc, but how does one know about the channels & programming available? Or is it one price for everything? I watch a lot of baseball games, college basketball, NASCAR, GOLF, & an occasional college football game. I am not a "Movie" guy (too much blood, guts, & gore for me), but DW loves old 40's,50's, & some 60's movies, & old TV shows; like Perry Mason, etc. And when traveling, I like to get "local" channels. I don't do "PPV"!
So do I get just one "THING" or do I have to have several? Any ideas about pricing? Are each of these special streaming/ programming?

STARLINK....Would something like this be feasible for me, or more challenging than I'm capable of comprehending? Would it provide a streaming capability? I currently have a "hot-spot" (Yep, I can get it to work), use RV provided "wi-fi", or my phone for online stuff.

What kind of monthly expense could I expect to incur?
What other options would/could you recommend?
Or, should I just forget it, & continue to use what I've got?

HELP an "OL' Man" out!!
Thanks,

Allan

PS: You're not gonna hurt my feelings about my lack of "techno" knowledge! I'm the first to admit, I do not know, nor understand it! It's way beyond my almost 77 years!!

We dumped dish seven years ago for streaming and have never looked back. We have 8 ROKU devices between our B&M and our Coach. We pay for You Tube TV, and Philo, We have Amazon Video through our Amazon Prime account, Also use free Pluto and ROKU channel. Truly You Tube TV has been growing and has the majority of what we used to have on Dish. Philo compliments You Tube TV for a complete run. When in the coach we stream through our T-Mobile phones. (We have not had any issues with signing on in various locations. We camp in campgrounds and BLM lands not RV parks) We stream as if we are at home so we get our local channels on the road. With ROKU you can have three devices running at one time all having full selectivity.

 

[Neal]

@Jabber Jaw the beauty of streaming is you can try and most with minimal risk as they offer free trial periods. See what you like but it is different, you will have to adjust to the different providers. You don't have to let go of what you have to try what's new and see how it works for you.

 

[Wemustrv]

@Jabber Jaw the beauty of streaming is you can try and and all and most with minimal risk as they offer free trial periods. See what you like but it is different, you will have to adjust to the different providers. You don't have to let go of what you have to try what's new and see how it works for you.

Neal, So true, we ran Dish and streaming for several months before we did the full disconnect. A couple months we paid for both services. This gave us the confidence in how to run the streaming networks and feeling comfortable with our choice.