TV or Not TV?

That is the question.

What else is there to do at night when you’re on the road?  Campfire?  S’mores, Dog walking? Meeting the fellow campers?  Swatting mosquitoes?

But, who wins American Idol?  The Voice?  Can I answer the final Jeopardy question?

Hard decision – but we decided that being able to watch the tele is pretty important.  Now  how to do it?  I would need a very long cable to stay with Xfinity – not an option.  The Busse Bus is equipped with an antenna and a dish so receiving local channels on air might work if situated correctly but you could only watch what is currently being aired – not a very good option.  Satellite – that’s the ticket.

Ordered DirecTV.  Got a great deal on the most basic package offered.  Set up a time for installation between 8-12 on May 10th.  The installer called me about 10:30 stating that he would be by about 1:30 as he was running late due to the rain.  I looked up – totaling sunny skies with no clouds in sight.  Asked him where he was, “On the corner of xxx and yyy (doesn’t matter)” I asked him what state – he said “Florida”.  I informed him that he was going to be later than 1:30 as he had about 1200 miles to drive.  You see he was going to install DirecTV at my mother-in-laws’ house as we are using her address for our mail.  Rescheduled for 3:00pm in Illinois.  No show.  Day one of DirecTV installation.

Day two of DirecTV installation – scheduled new installation for May 11th and the installer came and hooked me up but it didn’t work.  The only way was to leave me with a dish receiver, a tripod and eight CMU’s to hold it.  I’m not going to carry all that in the Busse Bus when I already own a roof mounted dish.  Called Camping World to set up a 4G and WiFi Enhancer on the roof and also to check the cabling between the dish and the receiver.  DirecTV installer left the receiver and also gave me additional connections that might be needed.  Nice guy!

After eight hours at Camping World on May 16th I had the Enhancer installed and the cabling looked at.  They stated that the DirecTV receiver couldn’t work with the equipment already in the Busse Bus and that I would have to get a “dumber” set.  Day three of the DirecTV installation.

After researching all components myself (I was in IT after all) I found the problem.  Rescheduled another day at Camping World to find the second cable that should have been coming from the dish to the receiver.  May 17th – not counting this day as I did the work.

Day four of the DirecTV installation was back at Camping World for another six hours.  They couldn’t find the termination of the second cable so they cut a hole in the roof of the Busse Bus and ran a second one themselves.  Didn’t charge me for redundant work.  Hope it doesn’t leak!  Drove back to Fish Lake Beach Campground where I had WiFi and called my now personal friend, Ron of DirecTV installers who was able to activate and lo and behold – TV.  No HD, not DVR – but pixels floating on the screen.

During the DirecTV process, Katrina and I lost faith.  We purchased Apple TV since our phones and laptops are Apple products and also got it working.  Not great because the Busse Bus standard componentry is Sony and the two don’t play well together.

Vinny to the rescue!  Our friend Vinny Jiuditta, came by on Sunday May 20th with an Amazon Firestick and configured it with Katrina’s account.  Works great!  Cost – $35 bucks.  Thanks Vinny!!!

So to answer the question:  TV

But not just one method of assessing, we have five just to be sure:

1. Antenna on roof
2. Cable available at some campground
3. DirecTV
4. Apple TV
5. Fire Stick

So much for toasting marshmallows at the fire.  BTW: Maddie won.