This blog is to discuss my experiences and travels with my new Winnebago Fuse 23A motorhome. Think of it as a long term review of the Fuse and a compilation of our travels in our new coach. Since I am new to RVs, I am sure I will be somewhat confused and amused by what happens as we go down this path.
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Do I Need Satellite TV?
I am still wondering if I need to install satellite TV in the Fuse? As we were searching for the motorhome we kept thinking that this would be one first things we would need add to the coach. I am not so sure now. The Fuse is pre-wired for satellite so we can add it if we ever want to.
On our first night staying a LazyDays in Tampa we had no cable tv but could get 40 channels using just the over the air antenna. Sitting in the driveway here in Tallahassee I can pick up 12 or more channels using the built in antenna. Here in the Eastern part of the country maybe there is no reason to have satellite if all I want is some entertainment at night. I am not so sure in the wide open spaces out West if this will hold true.
One thing I really want is CNN and Fox News to stay up to date. Sirius/XM has these two channels albeit audio only. Since I really like the satellite radio while driving I will have Sirius/XM anyhow. If I could just route the audio to the speakers in the back I would be much happier. But I am at least set for the news.
At most of the nicer campgrounds it seems like cable TV is included just like electricity. Why pay for satellite if you are already paying for cable. I guess if you are really addicted to a particular show but in our case, the TV is just something we watch to unwind. We do have some shows we like to watch, but we just record them and watch at our leisure.
I keep looking at streaming services since wifi seems to be popular in most campgrounds and rest stops. Streaming services from Sling and now Vue give you cable TV channels over the Internet. $20/month for 20 channels on Sling and $30/month for 55 channels on Vue. Maybe this is an option. Streaming Video and live TV is available if you have Xfinity from Comcast or a similar service from your local cable company. They are running hard to stop loosing customers to these new startup services.
There is also the old dependable services such as Netflix and AppleTV/iTunes. Download some movies where you have decent network connections and play later.
You can do some more research if you google cordcutting. There are more options coming every day.
I may relent after we do some more traveling. We will see.
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Do you have any ideas on the amount of bandwidth you are using? I am curious if the wifi at a rv park would have enough bandwidth to let you do it well or how much of your monthly cellular data plan would be consumed. Sorry to ask the dumb question but you are the first person I have talked with who is using sling for real. I have talked with folks who are playing with it but not a real user.
ReplyDeleteI have completely cut cable at the house and stream with sling, Netflix, Hulu, etc. at the house, we have unlimited internet obviously so it's not a concern. Mom is retired and tend to have something on all day. I surf and post and stream from several devices as well as work from home. So we are bandwidth hogs!
ReplyDelete500 gigs a month on average - we will obviously need to reduce that on vacations- we don't watch tv that much on vacation, I'm thinking I can download some things to a portable external drive and keep it internet free, then use phones and outa channels to keep up on the news?
You are probably right. Between the wifi you can find in campgrounds and cellular data plans that are becoming bigger you can probably get by. I wish the streaming services (directtvnow/amazon/sling/vue) would have a low bandwidth selection in the menus that would just update the video 1 frame per second or so but continue with the audio. With an option like that it would match my watching habits. (I am listening most of the time and looking at computer or something else)
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