Need help setting up TV at tailgate

Submitted by Wolverine Devotee on

I know people use generators to get power, but how do people get the signal for TVs at their tailgates to watch other games after our game is over?

I'm considering bringing one and setting it up for after the games. 

Anyone have experience with this?

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rob f

September 12th, 2016 at 7:27 PM ^

don't forget to bring a roll of tinfoil.  Attach a piece of foil to the top of each rabbit ear, 

...then use the remaining foil to make foil hats for yourself and your friends/family. Your tailgate will surely stand out among others as long as you follow ALL of the above advice.

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marti221

September 12th, 2016 at 3:50 PM ^

An iPhone to HDMI adapter is what I use. Stream from the phone, connect to the TV (although I'm not sure you'll have service while tailgating so that may not work).



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goblueram

September 12th, 2016 at 9:43 PM ^

I actually streamed the entire season last year from South Africa.  The internet there was pre-paid by GB just like we have with cell service, and I was churning through like 4+ GB per Michigan game and 2.5 GB per Wings game.  It was bad.  Thankfully not paid out of pocket though!

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SJ Steve

September 12th, 2016 at 3:57 PM ^

Dish is the easiest way. Been doing it for years.

Invest in a semi-professional dish pointing device ($100 or so) - it'll save you a ton of time and frustration when setting up and gets you to the fun part of tailgating quicker.



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Jim Harbaugh

September 12th, 2016 at 4:10 PM ^

Look into the "Tailgater" by Dish... I see quite a few of the people watching tv's on the golf course using them. Will probably come with a couple hundred dollar price tag.

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NILGOBLUEFAN

September 12th, 2016 at 4:14 PM ^

LIfelong fan finally making his first trip this weekend. There are 4 of us and we need tailgating advice. Any recommendations on where to tailgate? We will not be driving to the game, we are looking for a group/area who is willing to host as we will pay $ to be a part of a real Michigan Tailgate. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Go Blue!

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yooper_blue

September 12th, 2016 at 5:04 PM ^

I also have a quick question about tailgating. A couple friends and I will be heading to the penn state game in a couple weeks. I have been to several games but have never done all that much tailgating. I was wondering which is the best spot if you want to tailgating post game as well? And is there anywhere that you can leave your vehicle parked overnight?



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Tuebor

September 12th, 2016 at 4:21 PM ^

Just get a cheap digital TV antenna off of amazon. 

 

That gets you the broadcast TV signal for networks like FOX, NBC, ABC, and CBS. 

Noon is pretty sparse as only ABC runs college football (FSU @ Louisville) in that time slot.  If you are into MLB or EPL they will be on FOX and NBC respectively at noon.

 

But the late night games should be good for the post-game tailgate.

 

OSU @ OU is on FOX at 7:30PM

MSU @ ND is on NBC at 7:30PM

USC @ Stanford is on ABC at 8:00PM

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Quail2theVict0r

September 12th, 2016 at 5:42 PM ^

For a while we used the Dish tailgater but had a horrible experience with it. Probably wouldn't work 1/3 of the time. And since we didn't have the actual Dish service at home, we had to drive it to some store in Detroit to get it updated. So we just gave up on it. A cell phone could work if you get a decent signal. 

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crystalakeblue

September 12th, 2016 at 8:06 PM ^

Streaming will work pretty well now that Verizon and AT&T bring in COWS (cellular on wheels) to all home games. I've been using a slingbox and streaming for 4 years now. Everyone is correct about getting an antenna for the over-the-air games, you should be able to get every network except Detroit CBS is very weak. You do not need a "digital" antenna, I use rabbit ears from 1991 and get high def perfectly. For power, I use a deep cycle marine/rv battery with a 400W inverter. Will last 12+ hours running a 42 inch TV plus charging lots of iphones. New TVs are very efficient, about 100-140 watts for a large lcd/led. Old small tubes used twice that.

Forgot to mention, you will get nothing during halftime. Everything is shot then no matter how much extra capacity they bring in.

 

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GoBlueBill

September 12th, 2016 at 9:21 PM ^

Would a firestick from Amazon work? They can add programs to them to get all of the channels . PPV movies etc . I dont have one or know how they work . Im sure there is at least one person here who has one . The program to load to it is called Kodi .

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crystalakeblue

September 12th, 2016 at 9:31 PM ^

A firestick would work for getting apps similar to an apple tv. You can stream espn, btn, nbc, etc if you login with your cable/sat user info. You still need to connect it to a internet source like wifi or tethering to a cell/tablet. I find that the streaming on the these apps set the picture quality too high so there tends to be more buffering. A slingbox allows you to force the bit rate lower to keep it going smoothly, but suffer a lttle quality.

 

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