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Stuart Sweet
Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU! Pub Member / Supporter Cutting Edge
· posted in The Solid Signal Blog
With RV season in full swing, you're probably reading this article from somewhere on the road. (Hopefully someone else is driving.) You might be doing the endless scroll on your phone, and as strange as it seems, sometimes it feels like a chore. Sometimes you just want to sit back and let the entertainment come to you in real time. Folks of all ages are discovering what older folks have known for a long time: sometimes you just want to "veg out" in front of the TV.

But in your RV, is that even possible? Yes, it absolutely is. Live TV from an antenna is off the table because it won't work if you're going more than about 15mph. Obviously cable TV isn't an option. But satellite TV for RVs is as strong as ever, with hundreds of thousands of folks enjoying live TV wherever they are. Both DIRECTV and DISH have hardware that works for RVs, and installation is easy.

What isn't so easy


Sometimes getting that satellite TV service activated isn't so easy. You have options. If you have satellite TV at home, you can often add a secondary receiver to your current plan and just use it in the RV. This works for some DIRECTV customers but not all, but it's available to all DISH customers. But, it means you're paying for that receiver year-round. Sure, you could activate it and deactivate it, but every time you do, your two-year commitment starts over again. That's not exactly ideal.

On the other hand, DISH has a month-to-month, pre-paid plan available that's perfect for RVers. You pay for the months you want, and don't pay for the months you don't. There's even a neat little app as part of the DISH outdoors package that lets you change your local channels so you can watch them wherever you are. Without that, you'll get no locals at all unless you're in the same area as your billing address.

Is this pre-paid plan the best option for you?


Of course that is going to depend on who you are. But in many cases, it sounds like a good idea but it's not always the best choice. The pre-paid plans from DISH can be more expensive than the plan you already have. Being pre-paid and month-to-month, there's no opportunity for the kind of giveaways and discounts you may be enjoying now with your home satellite plan. You could end up saving money by paying for a receiver year-round as opposed to paying month-to-month, even if you don't have satellite TV at home.

But, it's hard to lay all that out here on a web page. First of all, being a DISH dealer, the won't let me quote prices and packages on this page without a ton of disclaimers. You can get the latest prices by going to this page, if you're curious. But really you're going to want to talk to someone who can lay out all the options for you. You're going to want to talk to an expert.

No one does more satellite TV activations for RVs than Signal Connect.


Signal Connect's experts have spent over 20 years working with RVers just like you. We have a whole team of RV experts who are ready to answer all your questions. When you call other dealers, or even DISH's own call center, you might get someone who has done an RV installation once or twice. We do them every day. We can help you choose the right equipment, the right packages, and get it all ready for you. We can even ship equipment to you wherever you plan to be, and help you find someone local if you need installation help.

Call the experts now! When you call 888-233-7563, you'll get an RV specialist in our Novi, Michigan offices. We don't believe in overseas call centers and neither should you. We believe in real customer service. Call us, or if you'd rather work over email, fill out the form below. We'll get right back to you!


The post Should you choose DISH's month-to-month plan for your RV? appeared first on The Solid Signal Blog.

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Scott Greczkowski
Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU! Cutting Edge
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
Sometimes a thread gets so many posts in it that is can cause issues for the server so that why today we introduce The Song Name Game Part 3!

So let the game continue!

The last song was added by Bobby who posted...

One Meat Ball - Andrews Sisters

CONTINUE ON AND HAVE FUN! WELCOME HOME TO SATELLITEGUYS.US!

Here are the original rules for the game as posted by WebbyDude back in 2006. http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/68645-Song-Name-Game

Just name a song title and the band who performed it. The next person does the same thing, but needs to list a song title or band name which includes a word from the previous entry. Pick songs from any genre.

Example:

Long Live Rock and Roll -- Rainbow

Rainbow in the Dark -- Dio

Another example:

Ride the Lightning -- Metallica

Lightning Strikes -- Ozzy Osbourne


Get it?


An additional note: we all know that song titles, sometimes, use profane words. Because this is a family friendly website it is advised that you clean up that title up a bit. This is accomplished by using something like sh!t instead of the real word. Thanks....
68658 Replies · 2680205 views
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dishstaller
I Wanna Talk About Me - Toby Keith
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Bobby
98.6 - Keith
harshness
I'm Easy - Keith Carridine
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gms49ers
It's Easy - Boston
RaiderPower
Take It Easy On Me - Little River Band
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R
Last reply · posted in Computers and Gadgets
Lately my eight year old Dell laptop has been shutting off even when I have a full battery. I have had to keep it plugged up all the time to keep this from happening. Any idea what is causing this? I replaced the battery about three years ago.
2 Replies · 45 views
arlo
A recalibration might be needed. Even if it shows full, the individual cells may have become unbalaced. And the BMS chip in the battery reports false information to the pc.
Try this. Start it up in the bios/uefi and leave it there until the battery dies and it shuts off.
It might just keep running longer than in Windows. Or run for a short while and shut off.
If it's the first case. Probably just needs a balancing. If the latter, the pack might just be dead.
Not throwing stones but perhaps just a cheaply constructed battery with substandard cells. Could be.

Patience. Keep restarting it in bios/uefi until it won't fire up anymore.
Then plug the charger in and let it complete a full charge. And see what happens. If it's better.
Do the same thing one more time. Run it until it dies dead-dead. Then just let it charge, pc shut off.
When charged, it might be better. It might not be.

There are bench jigs that read the actual BMS and override it to let a tech manually monitor and charge the separate packs. They can also reset any "time bombs" in it that cause an otherwise good pack to show bad.
Maybe Santa will be good to me some year.

You might just need a new battery. Maybe the PC power management chip is going. A Dell common thing.
Leaving a laptop plugged in with a full battery is known to reduce the life. Asus for one recommends that you don't leave the charger plugged in all of the time even when shut down. And setting Windows to charge the battery to 85% instead of 100% increases life.
That's all I got.
dishstaller
That's all I got.
That was quite enough....I definitely learned something from your post. Thanks
TRG
TRG
Pub Member / Supporter
Last reply · posted in Computers and Gadgets
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
5 Replies · 283 views
b4pjoe
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
If you can't get into the router to reserve an IP address just don't use DHCP on the device that needs connected and assign it to a specific IP address in the network settings.
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HipKat
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
They are not. Your best bet is to set up a third-party router, attached to the Starlink for your server, that you can get into, like a Linksys, etc
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Foxbat
…it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.
The Starlink V5 Install Kit I just got comes with the Mini Router. It is pretty limited in what it can do. For example, it can provide only one IP subnet at a time, no Guest Network, but it does support the pass-thru to a third-party Router. You can also split the Wi-Fi into separate 5 GHz & 2.4 GHz SSIDs to help some IoT devices that don't support 5 GHz bands to work.

The larger Starlink Router that still comes with the V4 Kit does support a Guest Network with separate IPv4 Subnet, but it's $120 from Starlink. And it still won't do DHCP Reservations.
harshness
If you can restrict the DHCP address space to assign addresses to one end of the subnet (i.e. x.x.x.50+), you can manually assign the IP address on pretty much any operating system. This is a default behavior on several popular routers. As the Router Mini only supports 235 devices, I expect that's already done.

Another option is to use a router that supports PoE to power the antenna. This article discusses that option (under PoE Power heading):

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Foxbat
Now that I've had the v5 kit with the Mini Router, it's not as bad as I first thought. Yes, no DHCP reservations, but you can set up multiple SSIDs that have separate IPv4 subnets, and like the big brother, you can select from 192.168.x.0/24 or 10.x.0.0/16 (where "x" is 1-4).

You can also split a subnet and have different SSIDs for the 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz channels to handle some IoT devices. I haven't discovered what subnet the 2nd NIC on the router assigns, I'm guessing it's the first subnet.
dishstaller
Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
2 Replies · 50 views
dishstaller
Sorry for posting the wrong link. Just corrected it.
dishstaller
Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
Terrible tragedy. You would think that they would have safe guards in place that would prevent something like this from happening. I guess if you are going to ride in a passenger train it might be best to get a car near the rear.

2 Replies · 55 views
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Jimbo
Terrible tragedy. You would think that they would have safe guards in place that would prevent something like this from happening. I guess if you are going to ride in a passenger train it might be best to get a car near the rear.

They will have to look at the switching sections to determine WHY 2 trains were on the same track ... at the same time.
dishstaller
Thought this article might be of interest to some of you who might travel via train.