Marine Satellite TV for $250 and no monthly fee

[jrirvine1]

Did this get your attention?

Rather than try to explain how this was done, I thought a drawing would be much better.

The only issue here is that I will not have one of those way cool satellite domes on my hard top. Maybe Jim can get me just the dome only and I can mount it for aesthetics.

 

[SCORPIO]

From where are you getting the cable or Sat. feed? I'd assume you have a dish on the dock or cable at your slip?

 

[jrirvine1]

From where are you getting the cable or Sat. feed? I'd assume you have a dish on the dock or cable at your slip?

The sat feed, which in my case is Direct TV, comes from my home unit via the slingbox unit. The slingbox sends the signal via the internet to the laptop computer on the boat. (or wherever you happen to be)

 

[Daniel P Thomas]

Have been using Slingbox for a number of applications for the past 4 years.
Works especially well if you have cable at your dock as we had a few years ago.

Going to be trying it with Clear this coming season.
Because we do not currently have cable in Hammond.

Dan

 

[HUMPH]

The only problem is you don't have true satellite connection so if you are without cell service or wifi you get no signal. If you boat in areas that have cell signal this set up works very well.

 

[Hellman Huddle]

Sounds like a lot of trouble to watch TV on the boat. I installed the digital convertor on mine and there seems to be more than enough channels to watch if needed. For the record, I don't watch much TV on the boat, you can do that at home. I enjoy the anchorages, sites and the fellowship with other boaters and TV is not a high priority. :smt101

 

[tdschafer]

That "No monthly fee" stated is not totally accurate. You need to include the cost of your 3G card in there at some capacity or your cell phone bill if you are utilizing it as a "wifi hotspot". Also as previously stated you need to be near a cell tower to function. I love my dish and after the initial outlay it costs only $5.00 a month for the season! That's about $30.00 a year in these parts! Also, Hellman- You obviously are not boating with small children or are otherwise on Prozac because with 3 kids 6 y/o and under TV is a necessity on my boat!! :smt038

 

[jrirvine1]

The “No monthly fee” is accurate in my case, as I am using my existing Direct TV subscription and Wireless Card that we have for the feed and reception. Perhaps the drawing specs should be amended to say “No additional monthly fee” - in some cases, or maybe just “your mileage may vary”.

Regarding the service, everywhere we travel to our regular destinations on the Chesapeake Bay, we have acceptable reception for the wireless card. There may be one or two secluded anchorages where this is not the case, which is why I wanted the system to play DVD’s, (Netflix) and any other stored media on the laptop.

No wait, strike that last paragraph, when we cross over into Virginia waters, one enters a dead twilight zone where the only sounds are the faint plucking of banjo’s somewhere behind the shore tree line.

 

[Searaybio270]

The “No monthly fee” is accurate in my case, as I am using my existing Direct TV subscription and Wireless Card that we have for the feed and reception. Perhaps the drawing specs should be amended to say “No additional monthly fee” - in some cases, or maybe just “your mileage may vary”.

Regarding the service, everywhere we travel to our regular destinations on the Chesapeake Bay, we have acceptable reception for the wireless card. There may be one or two secluded anchorages where this is not the case, which is why I wanted the system to play DVD’s, (Netflix) and any other stored media on the laptop.

No wait, strike that last paragraph, when we cross over into Virginia waters, one enters a dead twilight zone where the only sounds are the faint plucking of banjo’s somewhere behind the shore tree line.

Ok, I too am boating on the Chesapeake Bay so this summer I have to see this. I don't have small kids unless my granddaughter is visiting (but she lives in the water) but I do have a 16 year old step-son and he watches TV.
Plus, the drawing is good but for the weak minded I may need a face to face explanation. :thumbsup:

 

[Hellman Huddle]

That "No monthly fee" stated is not totally accurate. You need to include the cost of your 3G card in there at some capacity or your cell phone bill if you are utilizing it as a "wifi hotspot". Also as previously stated you need to be near a cell tower to function. I love my dish and after the initial outlay it costs only $5.00 a month for the season! That's about $30.00 a year in these parts! Also, Hellman- You obviously are not boating with small children or are otherwise on Prozac because with 3 kids 6 y/o and under TV is a necessity on my boat!! :smt038

Your absolutely correct! We tried boating with four people but the 260 is a two person boat for overnighting. I told my admiral if you want to bring friends or my teenage children we gotta get a bigger boat. Well..... I am still working on it, maybe in the near future, then I'll worry about the TV.

Wish me luck! :smt043

 

[Four Suns]

No wait, strike that last paragraph, when we cross over into Virginia waters, one enters a dead twilight zone where the only sounds are the faint plucking of banjo’s somewhere behind the shore tree line.

That's because the "Chesapeake Bay" is wider than 1 mile once you get into Virginia...

I bet your video quality matches your crabcake quality.

 

[jrirvine1]

I bet your video quality matches your crabcake quality.

I hope so, as this will then mean both are exceptional.

 

[Turtlesboat]

we have SAT TV, if it was more than $5/month I wouldn't watch it. I plug my ipad into the TV and stream netflix most of the time or watch a DVD. Hell, I don't even have TV at home. TV is so 2007.

 

[JimG]

No wait, strike that last paragraph, when we cross over into Virginia waters, one enters a dead twilight zone where the only sounds are the faint plucking of banjo’s somewhere behind the shore tree line.

Hang on... I may resemble that remark. I don't play the banjo but I do play the guitar part... and we don't take too kindly of them northern Virginians down here in southern West-by-god Virginia! :grin:

 

[rcmafgny]

i do the slingbox gig also
works great

 

[tdschafer]

No wait, strike that last paragraph, when we cross over into Virginia waters, one enters a dead twilight zone where the only sounds are the faint plucking of banjo’s somewhere behind the shore tree line.

:lol::smt043:lol:

 

[tdschafer]

Your absolutely correct! We tried boating with four people but the 260 is a two person boat for overnighting. I told my admiral if you want to bring friends or my teenage children we gotta get a bigger boat. Well..... I am still working on it, maybe in the near future, then I'll worry about the TV.

Wish me luck! :smt043

Best of Luck to You!! :thumbsup:

 

[jrirvine1]

we have SAT TV, if it was more than $5/month I wouldn't watch it. I plug my ipad into the TV and stream netflix most of the time or watch a DVD. Hell, I don't even have TV at home. TV is so 2007.

Good point Mike. This is what started me considering how to use a notebook computer to provide and control all video / audio media to all onboard systems. I am still in the tweaking stages here and the final hook up will be slightly different than the design. One onboard monitor is now connected with a signal that is quite acceptable and certainly leaps and bounds better than what was obtainable through the Glomax and digital converter.

Traditional television has entered a dynamic phase. It is morphing into, well we will have to wait and see exactly where it is headed. If you go to any major retailer today, they will try to sell you either Google TV or an internet connectable TV while insisting that this is the next generation.

By the way, the Pandora sounds awesome when it is piped through the sound system, definitely time dump XM / Sirius. (OMG, did I just say awesome?)

Now, if I only knew how to get in touch with the worlds self-proclaimed smart$$$ boater, I’ll bet he could help.

 

[Nehalennia]

I wish there was a way to simply record what I have saved on my DirecTV DVR to a DVD in the same quality that it's on the DVR. When we burn it to DVD now it's degraded to a $h*tty quality.
This idea is pretty good, I don't have a TV installed yet. So far with twin 8year olds we have been lucky that they're into doing boating related activities like I did when I was young, like waking the docks with a dip net catching what ever is under the docks, rowing around in a dinghy and hanging with the other kids on the dock.

In the 260DA it's not the ideal "media room" for sure, but it would be nice for these fall/winter/early spring days when it's wet and dark, but we still want to be out there on the water.

 

[Turtlesboat]

being heavy into streaming and the whole wireless thing, i'm finding that throughput is my biggest issue. cellular "broadband" is a joke. I don't even know how they get away with calling it broadband. If I combined all of my wireless devices "potential", it would still suck. The bottleneck is bandwidth and it's getting worse by the month. I don't think this is an easy fix, at least not here in the tri-state area. It would require HUGE upgrades to the network. If verizon gets the iphone/ipad in the first quarter like it's predicted, then that network will become useless too. We'll all have a bunch of connectivity with no bandwidth. Just look at NYC and San Fran. at 9am and 5pm you might as well just shut off your wireless devices because they are useless. It will get this bad throughout the rest of the country as bandwidth hungry gadgets hit the market.