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GeoPowers · 04-08-2009, 22:05

I've put off a serious problem for long enough...

We live aboard, and have a flatscreen TV we use for movies. We don't watch any broadcast TV anymore....BUT football season is coming up and we're not "seasoned" enough to give that up. We can't go to the bar since we have 2 little ones, and don't want to just watch the play-by-plays on the internet. We do have a wireless 3G connection and TV but no cable on the pier. We can't slingbox it since we don't have a place ashore (in WA anyway). Any recommendations? We see a good amount of direct TV/dish network dishes on the pilings, but we're near all metal pilings so we can't mount on them, either. We usually get underway at least every other weekend, usually in and about Puget Sound. If there's something for while at anchor, that'd be perfect, but I'm guessing pricey?

Surely there's some liveaboards out there who have figured out how to watch the game on Sunday!!

Frank

TaoJones · 04-08-2009, 22:52

I think this is going to be a good season to save your money, George, if it's your local Washington teams that you're rooting for. The current odds don't paint a rosy picture of the upcoming season, with the Seahawks picked in the bottom third of all the NFL teams to reach the Superbowl, and Washington and Washington State picked ninth and tenth in the Pac10. I just checked one site and it shows that if you put $100 on Washington to win the Pac10, and they manage to do it, the bet will pay out $10,000. For Wazoo, it's $11,000! Or, in other words the Huskies are 100-1, and the Cougs are 110-1.

For USC (I just thought you'd like to know

), you'd have to put up $225 just to win $100, or odds of 1-2.25. And who could blame a person for figuring SC couldn't possibly win the Pac10 again this season, just because they've won it the last seven straight years!

OK, sorry, just having a little fun. If you're like me, you'll watch football even if it's not a compelling match-up. You never know when the next Appalachian State is going to humble a Michigan, or Boise State is going to embarrass an Oklahoma.

Have you checked the other liveaboards nearby? Surely, someone has already figured it out for your specific area. Who knows, if you find the right person who already has a great system installed, and who loves football, becoming his new best friend may be just the ticket for the upcoming season.

Good luck!

TaoJones

**GordMay** · 05-08-2009, 04:41

You should be able to drill & tap metal pilings, leaving a discrete truss head bolt when your dish is eventually removed.

cal40john · 05-08-2009, 06:02

There's a couple of threads here that say this works fairly well. 10% of a 3D tracking system, but when the boats rolls too heavily it stops working. Probably not a problem in any Puget Sound anchorage.

Marine Satellite TV Tracking

John

Homespun · 06-08-2009, 06:35

If you're talking about college football there are a lot of ways to watch the games online, even in HD. CBS broadcasts all of its college football games online in HD for free, which means you get the SEC games of the week. ESPN 360 will allow you to do the same with, I think, all of their games, but it might just be some of them. Since you're on the west coast, you'll likely want Pac 10 games? If so, I'm not positive, but I think you can get most of those on ESPN 360, too, but I'd have to check. Yahoo also has a game of the week that you can view for free, plus just about every game's audio. I'm sure there are others.

You can hook up your laptop to your television and you should have decent viewing for free. That would only help you while you were in your slip not anchored out, obviously.

As for NFL, I don't know. I don't really follow NFL, but you can probably find streams of all of the games on Justin.tv or any of the other streaming sports sites for free. It won't be great quality, though.

Endojoe · 06-08-2009, 06:50

Here's another possible solution. Available from lots of vendors and a few different manufacturers, I just linked the first one that came up in a search as an example of the concept.

speciald@ocens. · 06-08-2009, 07:13

Find a friend on land with cable and a high-speed internet, buy a Slingbox, attach it to your friend's cable and router (buy them one if needed), get a wifi connection to your boat and you have the local games. I have a condo (where we store our furniture) and have set up this system for less per year than it cost for one game ticket. I added slingcatcher this year so that I could watch the games on the big screen.

Bash · 06-08-2009, 07:19

When Stanford built its new stadium I let the Alumni Association convince me I should purchase season tickets. Sheesh. I went to four or five games, never once staying past halftime, and every time we walked out we'd agree that we should have gone sailing.

So, root for Stanford, and it will turn you into one of the most dedicated weekend sailors in the sound.

**bstreep** · 06-08-2009, 07:28

This product works VERY well. Friends have one, and we had one on our boat when we bought it - but don't have satellite:

Marine Satellite TV Tracking

We are going the Wi-Fi / slingbox route. Mamma just HAS to have her College Football. We spent a fortune at the bar last year...

Cheechako · 06-08-2009, 10:25

A friend of mine mounted his direct TV dish on the stern pulpit. If you're not swining at anchor that shouldwork......?
and Tao.... those are fightin' words! :>)

TaoJones · 06-08-2009, 10:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cheechako

. . . and Tao.... those are fightin' words! :>)

Heh.

TaoJones

**David M** · 06-08-2009, 12:05

You cant get regular over the air reception in your area?

If not, go borrow a metal banding machine and put a few metal bands through your satellite dish mount and around the metal pilings. No holes to drill and no damage to anything.

GeoPowers · 06-08-2009, 13:22

Well, thanks for the replies! I think the Track It TV is neat, but I only really wanna watch football, and I'm afraid we'd get sucked in to watching a lot of TV if we got a dish. We watch NFL mostly since our college teams are those that brings down other teams' BCS rankings if they don't beat us by a wide enough margin. That, of course, doesn't stop me from vomiting a little in my mouth at the mere mention of USC. (Sorry Tao, I'm sure you're otherwise a great guy).

I'm leaning torward trying a streaming site with my computer hooked to the TV to see if that works. If the clarity is too poor I'll probably give one of our friends in town a slingbox as an early christmas gift...or the track it tv...

GeoPowers · 19-09-2009, 22:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by TaoJones

I think this is going to be a good season to save your money, George, if it's your local Washington teams that you're rooting for. The current odds don't paint a rosy picture of the upcoming season, with the Seahawks picked in the bottom third of all the NFL teams to reach the Superbowl, and Washington and Washington State picked ninth and tenth in the Pac10. I just checked one site and it shows that if you put $100 on Washington to win the Pac10, and they manage to do it, the bet will pay out $10,000. For Wazoo, it's $11,000! Or, in other words the Huskies are 100-1, and the Cougs are 110-1.

For USC (I just thought you'd like to know

), you'd have to put up $225 just to win $100, or odds of 1-2.25. And who could blame a person for figuring SC couldn't possibly win the Pac10 again this season, just because they've won it the last seven straight years!

OK, sorry, just having a little fun. If you're like me, you'll watch football even if it's not a compelling match-up. You never know when the next Appalachian State is going to humble a Michigan, or Boise State is going to embarrass an Oklahoma.
....

TaoJones

Or a 100-1 Huskies finding the achiellies heel of the 1-2.25 Trojans??