TV, Who Needs It? WE DO!

Sometimes we'd like to think we're above the lure of television. Reading is good, playing cards is good, crafts are good....but when we get right down to it.....I WANT SOME TELEVISION. Our satellite dish went kablooey several weeks ago while we were on the road from Iowa to Washington. We made an appointment down at Uhlmann RV to get it checked out when we had our slide-top awning replaced.

Our extended warranty insurance policy was supposed to cover repairs/replacement of satellite dishes. As it happens with all technology, our 2 year old dish was obsolete and could not be replaced with exactly the same type. The only choice was to buy what is currently on the market that comes closest to what we have. No dice the warranty company said...that constitutes an "upgrade". No matter that we can't get the same type anyplace on the planet they would not cover a full replacement. What they did approve was a payment of $1,347.00 toward the purchase of the new dish. This amount is what they said would be the cost (if they could do it) of the old dish.

Uhlmann RV wanted almost $2,500.00, which included tax, to put the new dish on the motorhome. Whoa there! We've had to lay out some serious cash this year for other repairs and upgrades and we weren't looking forward to adding another $1,300 to the replacement of a dish. We decided to think about it. We went home and attached the cable TV service to the RV again. Yippee, we got the 3 main networks and about 8 home shopping channels and 2 religious networks. We thought about it again and decided to call Camping World and get a quote. The price they gave us for the same dish was about $800.00 cheaper. No brainer there. We set up an appointment for installation.

Yesterday morning at O-dark-thirty, we drove the RV north to the Camping World store in Fife, which is about 30 miles from us. Traffic going north toward Seattle can be a real drag on weekdays so we wanted to get on the road early. We got there and Bruce checked in with the service department at 8:00. While the motorhome was in the service bay, we had plenty of time to shop in the Camping World store. Annie got to ride in the stroller so she could rest. She wasn't real sure if this was a good thing or not.

It took several hours for the installation, but it was finally finished and the service tech took us to the motorhome to look things over. He mounted the control box, for turning the power on to the dish, in a great place. He stuck it up under our systems monitor panel which was dead space anyway. It is very small compared to our old control box which takes up half a cabinet over the dash area.

LOOK! We have television again. Lots of channels again! We're happy again!

What better picture than a man with his remote? Yeah, Bruce was fairly upset last week when he couldn't get to see the USC football game on TV because we couldn't get the channel for it. Did he care that I couldn't watch Top Chef on Bravo? No. Did he care that I couldn't watch the Food Network? No.

Here is our new dish mounted up on the roof of the motorhome. The extended warranty company paid Camping World directly in the amount of $1,347.00 which was what they promised, and we paid the balance. You can't fight city hall.

We can still enjoy reading, playing cards and doing crafts. At least we have a zillion TV channels to view when we tire of those activities.

Until next time.....so long for now!