Life Without Television
When I first moved into my fifth wheel I was parked in an RV park just outside of Des Moines. Using an antenna I could get the major three network television stations and it felt like home. My television ritual of watching CBS This Morning, the noon news, the national evening news, and then a few evening programs was not disrupted. I believe access to the television help acclimate me to living in an RV.
At the first few places I parked after starting to travel, I found I was able to get some stations, and if it wasn’t my preferred CBS, then at least I could have some background noise and watch the 10 o’clock news to at least get the weather forecast.
Then I hit Sedalia, MO. I pulled into Missouri State Fair Campgrounds on Monday, May 23rd, a week before Memorial Day. After setting up and doing some odds and ends, I turned on the television and tried scanning for stations in the area…I got three, all Missouri PBS stations. Now, I do not want to disparage the PBS network, they have some very good programming, but they don’t carry local or national news which is I had developed an almost addiction to. But you can’t watch what you can’t receive, and so for the eight days in Sedalia I didn’t watch any television. I did miss the season finale of “All Rise,” which I dearly missed, but I told myself I would eventually get to watch it on Paramount Plus, which I finally did about two weeks after it aired.
I looked forward to my next stop right outside of St. Louis. I got set up and when I found time I scanned for television stations in the area…received 0, that’s right I was far enough outside of the city and down in a valley that I received absolutely no stations. Add six more days with no tv. From St. Louis to Branson, you guessed it, no stations. Three more days. And now I am in southeaster Kansas, at a beautiful state park, and guess what, I get no stations here either. I am almost at three weeks without seeing a television program, and I’m getting used to it.
Now, I can hear some of you saying, “you’re camping you shouldn’t be watching television.” To which I answer, I am not camping. I am living in an RV, and there is a difference. I have yet to build a campfire, I rarely sit outside in a lawn chair and watch what is going on, now a lot of that could be attributed to the unkind weather I have been experiencing. At my next spot, I may or may not scan to see if I can get any channels. A local news show would be nice.
A bigger problem than not having television reception is having very limited WiFi. Some campgrounds, especially the expensive ones, will offer WiFi, but they usually have very limited bandwidth with a lot of people trying to access the internet through them. I have a jetpack which gives me a wireless hotspot and I can use my phone and iPad. However, I have now experienced two places where I either had no cell service or only one bar, which basically is no reception.
Again, some might consider being cut off from the internet as a blessing. But, I use it to facilitate my travel planning, making campground reservations, purchasing advanced tickets to different places I want to visit, and trying to keep this website updated, not to mention keeping up with social media, my lifeline to friends all over the country. I get very frustrated with no WiFi. I have found myself taking my iPad into nearby towns and sitting in parking lots where I have good cell receptions to get answers to questions I have.
This issue is not exclusive to me, almost every YouTube channel I follow has talked about it at one time or another. Those channels have dealt with the issue in various ways, there are signal boosters, some purchase two different cell providers hoping that if one doesn’t work the other will, and then there’s satellite. I may have to consider doing something else if I have this problem too often. I’ll let you know how it is going.