May 7 – To Brevard, North Carolina

We did the 1.5 hour drive to the Davidson River Campground of the Pisgah National Forest. Our site has power but no water or sewer so we must use our own tanks.

As usual when booking these forested sites I used a web site that plots the line of site to our TV satellite on a Google map. This site looked like it had the best chance but when I backed in there seemed to be a big tree in the way.

I have a App on my tablet that uses its GPS, compass and the camera to put crosshairs on the screen as you aim the camera at the sky. You move the tablet around until the cross hairs are in the middle of the circle and it turns green. I walked around on the driveway until I got this view.

After moving the RV a bit farther forward we gave the automatic dish on the roof a try. We got a marginal signal but it kept dropping out. While watching the signal strength graph on the TV I drove about 1 foot farther forward and got 75% strength. We’ll see how it lasts if there is a storm and the trees start to move.

I tried our cell phone, that is on the AT&T network, but there was no signal.

Next up was our broadband internet puck that is on the Verizon network. It showed a weak signal and the connection was pretty lousy. In preparation for this, at the first campground, I had ordered a signal booster from an online store. You get a high gain antenna for the roof and a cradle where you rest your phone or internet device.

I now have great signal strength and a strong internet connection.

Temporarily I tie wrapped the antenna to the top of the batwing TV antenna to get it up as high as possible. I ran the cable in through my driver side window for now.

Now that I know it works I will have to come up with a more permanent solution.

We will be here for a week checking out more waterfalls and hikes in the National Forest and along the Blue Ridge Parkway. The weather forecast does not look great though.