Satellite TV and Radio Reception

[Trainman]

Having a 2019 Elite II we did not order any of the extra electronic features that Oliver offers. Our problem has become that we find ourselves at times not being able to get TV and Radio reception and I'm not talking out in the middle of nowhere either, many times just 50/75 miles from the DFW area. Oliver built our trailer without a Smart TV, wondering why a 2019 model did not come with one, but that's another story now. At home we have Spectrum Internet only and no TV, but we do have the WIFI and use the Roku for all out TV needs, so that's pretty much covered at home. Now for the trailer, I see many camping using a portable satellite and I suppose they are hooked up with some satellite provider to get the service. I guess my question is which would be the best way to go to get satellite TV and yes we do not have satellite at home so we would have to subscribe to to a system like Direct or some other system. Just wanting to know which way to go and what seems to work the best, we do have Hotbox on the iPhone, but our last campout we had no cell reception, so depending on that way is pretty much a no go for us. I assume that we need to replace our Oliver TV with a Smart TV if we go the satellite way just to have everything work together much better, is that correct. Just get me started in the right direction form here and what equipment seems to work the best for you. One other note, our radio reception with that Oliver antenna is pretty useless, do you upgrade your radio antenna, or just get your radio through WIFI, or some other means. Any help and guidelines will get us going in the right direction, thanks, trainman

[Dave and Kimberly]

Following this thread.   Our "drop dead" date for changes is late February... and I'm not at all sure, technology wise... what is worth it.   I do know that it seems in most of the country... internet, cell phone signals, etc... are pretty dismal.   

[Ray Kimsey]

We have a 2020 and similar to the 2019 we don't have a smart tv either. I did buy an amazon fire stick and added to the tv via the hdmi port. If by chance, we have decent wireless or cell reception then we can stream with that. Most of the time we don't have good service. We usually don't watch too much, so it is not a big issue, but we also carry along some dvds and resort to that on occasions.

[Mike and Carol]

We found that satellite TV for the trailer would be a bit expensive for how much we watch.  When we have a good cell signal or wifi we stream some TV that we want to watch through an iPhone.  Several years ago I installed a Sirius/XM receiver and connected it to the Furrion so we get the sound from all the speakers.  It gives us all the news/weather/sports that we would watch at home, just with no picture.  When tied in with the truck Sirius/XM contract it is much more affordable.  Actually, we haven’t watched TV in the trailer in well over a year, so our solution may not be for everyone.  Mike

[fairmontrvpark]

I see you do not have a service at your residence so this may not help but I use Dish and can add my RV to my existing account for $5.00 a month. This requires a dish compatible portable Satellite of course so there is that initial investment but once its all set up I can view anything on the road I would normally watch from my home as long as I have all the necessary signals available to my Trailer. 

I am told other services offer similar programs but am not familiar with any of them. 

btw thanks for the reminder I pick up Hull # 928 soon and I had forgotten all about getting this set up.

Dan

[dewdev]

We have both the Furrino TV and Furrino radio. Not sure if the TV is a smart TV or just a standard TV. We get radio reception ok in the Ollie, similiar to the reception in the RAM truck.

As far as TV reception, we have to turn on the booster switch that is in the attic (and get the TV to scan forchannels) in order to get any TV reception.

We usually watch DVD's movies and have a Amazon Firestick but of course need internet services to be able to use the firestick.

[ChrisMI]

I’m thinking an Apple TV connected and screen mirroring off a device w/ saved movies/series via Netflix might work pretty well.  Wished they had an external transformer on that unit that could easily be swapped for a 12 volt one. 

[GraniteStaters]

We have a 2019 LEII and we found that the antenna for radio wasn’t connected.  Once that was done, reception was better.  We have the Omni antenna and it works really well although we don’t really use it much.  I have scanned channels in many places to see what are available and have found the quality of the image from the over the air signal to be excellent.