Resolved TVs

[AbdRahim]

Anyone experience the rear TV not able to receive some of the cable channels present on the front TV?

Some channels come in but sketchy, only on rear (bedroom TV)

Anyone know where the splitter is in the Bay Stars?

 

[Jim]

Following and waiting for an answer. My Phaeton was the same way, never did figure it out.

 

[Old Bubblehead]

In our 2019 Canyon Star, the rear tv had it's own cable run. I had to run two direct tv boxes to get sat tv. I can't remember ever tying into shore connection for cable to see how that worked. Just don't use tv's much. Seem to remember cable splitters in mid coach bay overhead. Our shore power/ cable connection was in the rear most bay on the driver side, I'd start tracing wires from there.

 

[Neal]

Tip - Improving COAX cable connectivity in your RV or Motorhome

I was at a campground earlier this year and had issues with the cable TV as they are all digital cable. I struggled in my 2017 Newmar Ventana to get a good picture on all TV's and there number of channels being detected in the channel search was inconsistent. It was time to investigate. There...

rvforums.com

 

[Buly]

I gave up on the bedroom TV. Always needed a complicated reset after the smallest change in the living room. Bottom line, from 4 TV's we use one.
Rest of them are dead weight.

 

[Old-RV'er]

My outside satellite connection was wired backwards, that fixed that. Read/front TVs are Sony. Both works fine, although OTA with Winegard antenna is poor. Cable and or sat work fine, rear and front both get same stuff. Wish TVs were Samsung, but we do not watch much TV, so it's no big deal. Never was Sony fan, after having lots of their computer components fail two days after warranty went out.

Normally, if on OTA or cable, we use back TV so do not have to raise televator for front one unless we are getting a good selection of channels. Cable in parks is of the basic variety, so it's not worth it to get channels we don't watch. So, we really only turn on rear unit. Make sure the antenna booster is OFF is using cable or satellite TV for signal. Only use booster for OTA reception.

 

[AbdRahim]

Tip - Improving COAX cable connectivity in your RV or Motorhome

I was at a campground earlier this year and had issues with the cable TV as they are all digital cable. I struggled in my 2017 Newmar Ventana to get a good picture on all TV's and there number of channels being detected in the channel search was inconsistent. It was time to investigate. There...

rvforums.com

Thanks Neal. No terminators on my splitter in the electrical cabinet over the driver’s seat. I haven’t found a second one yet. Don’t remember seeing it under the sink where I did some mods. Will look around. Ordered terminators and a new splitter, just in case.

 

[AbdRahim]

Thanks - the terminators and new splitter solved the problem.

 

[AbdRahim]

Not resolved. Channels lost again. Only found one splitter.

 

[Just George]

@AbdRahim I don't recall which model Newmar you have but I'll offer my experience re splitter's and locations on my 2015 Ventana & 2022 Dutch Star. The Ventana had a splitter in the bay in front of the peg board bay on the passenger side. It was a 4 output model with only 2 outputs in use. I changed it to a 2 output 5-2500Mghz model and it helped my reception on the bedroom TV. The Dutch Star has a splitter on the back wall of under the kitchen sink. (lot's of fun to get too) It had no terminators but it does now. There is also a splitter behind the pegboard among the rats nest of wires. No terminators on it (yet). I don't recall if a less output splitter could be used in either of these locations but if I can reduce to a 2 output I will. Haven't had the Dutch Star long enough to evaluate TV reception so my splitter activity on it is a preemptive action. I did find some severely bent/crimped coax cables in the campground cable connection box which is in the electrical bay on my coach. The cables were bent to almost a right angle which is a no-no for coax. A good rule of thumb for coax bend radius is 10X the cable OD if you can get it. If less than 5X you will likely have signal degradation due to the bend.

 

[Neal]

There is also a splitter behind the pegboard among the rats nest of wires

I wasn't aware of this one. I'll have to check there when I have the desire to remove the pegboard panel again someday. My coax is far from perfect but improved, this may be the final one I need to pin down.

 

[Just George]

@Neal I'm not sure if you will have one behind the pegboard on the VentEssex. Was none there on my 15 Ventana, but there is one on my 22 Dutch Star. However the Dutch Star does NOT have one in the bay forward for the peg board bay.

 

[Neal]

@Neal I'm not sure if you will have one behind the pegboard on the VentEssex. Was none there on my 15 Ventana, but there is one on my 22 Dutch Star. However the Dutch Star does NOT have one in the bay forward for the peg board bay.

Ahh, it sounds like they moved it then. Saved me the mining effort. Thanks!

 

[AbdRahim]

Thanks.Mine is a BayStar 3626. I replaced and terminated the splitter in the AV cabinet over the driver seat. I did not see one under the sink or in the bays. I only have threeTV’s -one on the televator ,bedroom, and outside.

Initially after replacing the splitter and re-scanning the channels, Ithought they all showed up.Then when I turned it on last night, the channels in question said no signal. All of the other channels are crystal clear.

Also, this (bedroom TV) now has internet access, which it previously did not. A screen came up asking me to complete the install of windows on my device, but did not allow me to do anything. I could not execute the continue so I just went back to the menu and put it back on TV.

 

[AbdRahim]

Well, I replaced the one over the driver seat. It worked well for two days. Then picture got choppy and the living room tv lost halfof the channels. Rescanned numerous times. Reset the tv. Nothing worked.TV diagnostics show one bar of signal out of 10.

There is good signal at the pole. If I connect directly to the tv. I found the second splitter. One has to remove the couch to get to it. If I put the new splitter here there is no signal going through the splitter. If I remove the splitter and connect the tv to the local input wire that went into the splitter, the signal is seven, bars, or so, depending on the channel. Through the old splitter 1 bar on all channels. If I try to terminate te in used terminals the signal disappears altigether.

Prior to this week all worked well. I don’t know what happened.

Now I can only wait for the park cable guy. After an entire day of experimentation, my conclusion is that the park cable signal is great, if it does not go through a splitter. Signal diminishes through a splitter (tried three different ones), and diminishes to only one bar going through two splitters.

 

[AbdRahim]

Anyone have any experience with a cable tv signal booster or amplifier?

I wonder if this would work;
Amazon.com

 

[Old-RV'er]

For satellite and cable to work correctly, the OTA amplifier built in needs to be off. I have OTA at home, and it has a booster, but it does not work all that well. Clear skies and digitizes really bad. Rainey and they all seem to work well. We are about 90 miles from ATL. I have another antenna, which I am going to test higher up in elevation to see if this improves, but WX for next week is marginal, aint going to freeze to death for TV. I do not get great OTA TV in our coach. Yes, I could go through and find and change all the splitters to high quality ones, or even straight line the connection, but not that important to me.

 

[AbdRahim]

For satellite and cable to work correctly, the OTA amplifier built in needs to be off. I have OTA at home, and it has a booster, but it does not work all that well. Clear skies and digitizes really bad. Rainey and they all seem to work well. We are about 90 miles from ATL. I have another antenna, which I am going to test higher up in elevation to see if this improves, but WX for next week is marginal, aint going to freeze to death for TV. I do not get great OTA TV in our coach. Yes, I could go through and find and change all the splitters to high quality ones, or even straight line the connection, but not that important to me.

Yes the OTA is off. But one bar out of ten works much of the time on cable, but recently lost signal altogether. So, I need to boost the cable signal, inside the coach.

I tried one of the GE ones recommended by Neal. It does not seem to be compatible with the old one in the BayStar. I will order another and try the two, in order to see if I can reduce signal degradation. An effective booster seems to e the best solution, if it would work.

 

[Just George]

@AbdRahim If you have 7 bars on the cable going into the splitter and one bar if the splitter is in the line then it seems the loss can only be one of 2 things. A) the splitter, or B) the cable between the splitter and the TV. I'm not sure what upper frequency the cable signal may be but if you are using a splitter with a upper freq rating of 2300 - 2500 Mhz then I would think that would not be the issue since the upper end of TV broadcast is ~1000 Mhz. You also mention you tried a number of different splitters with no luck. Given your test results I would say the cable between the splitter and the TV is the primary suspect.

 

[AbdRahim]

@AbdRahim If you have 7 bars on the cable going into the splitter and one bar if the splitter is in the line then it seems the loss can only be one of 2 things. A) the splitter, or B) the cable between the splitter and the TV. I'm not sure what upper frequency the cable signal may be but if you are using a splitter with a upper freq rating of 2300 - 2500 Mhz then I would think that would not be the issue since the upper end of TV broadcast is ~1000 Mhz. You also mention you tried a number of different splitters with no luck. Given your test results I would say the cable between the splitter and the TV is the primary suspect.

Thanks. 1-3 bars on 2 differentTV’s on so different wires. ill see what happens with the 2 matching new splitters. I did not order the amp, but Iam tempted.