Americans are in love with the television. Now, with the advent of satellite television, it is possible to recieve television programming wherever you are in North America. The great thing about recieving television from a satellite is that it requires no physical land connections, unlike cable television, making satellite programming easy to take with you wherever you go.

Another great thing about satellite TV is that it can be very inexpensive for a college student. For instance, my parents subscribe to Dish Network , one of two major satellite tv content providers in the United States. Since they subscribe at home, they can order additional satellite recievers from Dish Network to be put on their account for $5.00 a month per reciever. My parents have 1 reciever at their home, and pay $5.00 additional for the reciever I have in my trailer. So, for $5.00 a month, I am able to recieve over 200 channels wherever I park the trailer. Even the most cash poor college student can afford to have satellite TV at prices like this.

As you can see in the pictures above and at left, my satellite dish and mount were very inexpensive. The satellite dish itself was given to me by someone at an RV park who no longer needed it. The bricks and boards used to mount it were scrap pieces at the same RV park. The total cost to me of the satellite dish and mount was $0. That's right, it cost me nothing.

This system has survived 65 mph wind gusts while remaining rock solid. Others who choose to mount their satellite dishes on costly tripods usually do not fare as well when the wind gets that forceful.

There is one small modification that you will have to make to your RV so that you can hook up a reciever inside your RV to a satellite dish outside. This is shown by the picture at right. Basically, you cannot pass the signal from the satellite reciever to the satellite dish through a typical RV's over-the-air TV booster. This means that you will have to disconnect the cable that runs to your antenna booster. (you have to unscrew the second wallplate shown in the picture, then remove the cable that goes outside from it) Then, purchase a wallplate and run the cable you disconnected through it. This takes the antenna booster out from in the middle of your satellite tv wiring, allowing your satellite reciever to pass signals to and from your satellite dish.

The topic of satellite tv is very involved, and I have only laid out the basics of it. For more information, the forums at SatelliteGuys.US and DBSTalk.com are very useful.

For any specific questions, feel free to email me.