What I’m really asking; is there a cheap way to do it without buying some adapter box? My brother wants to take his DirectTV satellite with him to Yosemite. Yeah I know what you’re thinking, but it’s a two week trip.

Anyway, he can’t find his old 9” TV and is too cheap to buy one, so he wants to use his, or my, laptop computer as a monitor. Anybody have any low cost suggestions for an older brother that is so cheap he embarrasses me when he orders the happy meal at McDonald’s? 

Are you telling me he’s going to dismount his dish, reposition it in Yosemite, connect it to his directv cable box and is too cheap to buy a 60 TV?  He’d be better off buying something with rabbit ears.

http://www.ati.com/products/tvwonderusb20/

Really though… whats the point of going on vacation to Yosemite if you’re just going to sit in front of the TV?  Stay home and save yourself the money then.  Thats just my $.02.

Yeah I know it’s weird to setup a satellite system in a campground; that’s why I mentioned he’d be there for 2 weeks. After 5 days on the valley floor you start running out of stuff to do at night. I asked him more and he said his main motivation is to see if he can make it work.

I don’t think the rabbit ears are going to work due to the high rock walls around the valley floor and the lack of anything transmitting nearby.

His dish is mounted in his patio using clamps (apartment doesn’t allow permanently attached dishes) so moving it is easy. I think he does have a DV camcorder and I’ll pass along the suggestion of trying it as a bridge. Really he’d be better off getting a cheap Costco TV, but that’s just my opinion.  :|

I think he has one of those large 12v power supplies. Between that an inverter for the car I think he can run the two things at once.

[quote author=“Low Bat”]:lol:

Yeah I know it’s weird to setup a satellite system in a campground; that’s why I mentioned he’d be there for 2 weeks. After 5 days on the valley floor you start running out of stuff to do at night. I asked him more and he said his main motivation is to see if he can make it work.

I don’t think the rabbit ears are going to work due to the high rock walls around the valley floor and the lack of anything transmitting nearby.

His dish is mounted in his patio using clamps (apartment doesn’t allow permanently attached dishes) so moving it is easy. I think he does have a DV camcorder and I’ll pass along the suggestion of trying it as a bridge. Really he’d be better off getting a cheap Costco TV, but that’s just my opinion.  :|

Yeah.. and tell him to grab a DVD movie or two while he gets it at Costco..  hehe.. and be sure to tell him to call his dish satellite provider about the transponder settings in that area and where the dish has to point to and what satellite to use..  that’ll be a day setup for him.. except if he works with the satellite company and knows the know hows..

Good point Archival. Now my brother is asking me to research WiFi in Yosemite. Believe it or not it’s now there too. Here’s some interesting reading I found:

http://www.yosemitepark.com/press.cfm?pressReleaseID=97

http://www.dailywireless.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=403

http://www.storageforum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=58451

http://www.techdirt.com/news/wireless/article/4317

If he wasn’t so cheap he could buy the Sony “Location Free TV” that VAIOfreak reviewed:

http://www.siliconpopculture.com/sonytr/viewtopic.php?t=1350&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

I can just see him sitting back in his camp chair by the fire watching on a Sony Location Free TV screen that’s hooked to a directional WiFi antenna that’s aimed at some wireless access point on the valley floor; which in turn is getting TV signals from his home via the internet, and his home is getting it’s TV signals from a satellite dish in his patio, and the satellite is getting it’s signals from a ground source…. etc. etc. etc…...

Also if anyone’s interested, California State Parks are adding WiFi too.

http://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/712/files/011905.pdf

Well, tell him entartainment is not going to be cheap in remote areas.. and if he can book at Ahwahnee, there’s a wireless internet there he can use.. and bring his laptop or yours to let him surf the net and watch DVD as well.. that’s the cheapest he can get for a 2 weeks vacation…  hehe just a thought..