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Tip Improving COAX cable connectivity in your RV or Motorhome

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Neal

Staff member
RVF Administrator
Joined
Jul 27, 2019
Messages
11,477
Location
Midlothian, VA
RV Year
2017
RV Make
Newmar
RV Model
Ventana 4037
RV Length
40' 10"
Chassis
Freightliner XCR
Engine
Cummins 400 HP
TOW/TOAD
2017 Chevy Colorado
Fulltimer
No
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 were a couple of issues going on and I'll keep this post brief as this is a very simple situation. First thing is to find your coax splitters if you have any. In my coach there is a 1 in 4 out splitter in the bay just forward of the pegboard. There is a 1 in 2 out under the kitchen sink on the back wall.

Issue 1: Unused ports were not terminated. I bought terminators from Amazon to terminate the unused ports

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000AAN76Y/?tag=rvf01-20

Issue 2: The coax splitters used had a narrower frequency band that likely did not play well with digital coax and 4K signals. I swapped both splitters out

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0077QMDGY/?tag=rvf01-20

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0054EILOE/?tag=rvf01-20

Notice these are 5-2000 Mhz vs. what's printed on yours.

After the above my coax issues went away and the picture and channel scans were dramatically improved.
 
Right on, @Neal! It is very important to properly terminate unused ports. If you don't, the impedance (resistance to RF in simple terms) goes way up and signals get attenuated.

We had to terminate some open ports in our coach too, I didn't check the frequency range of the splitters and will do that soon as a result of your post. Maybe Newmar uses better quality splitters in the Mountain Aire, but I doubt it. My guess is that there's a huge box of them somewhere in Newmar's production facility where everyone gets their splitters.

TJ
 
@Neal … thanks for positing this. I am having similar issues in my coach so you have given me some hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

FLSteve
 
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@Neal … just checked and I have two (2) that look like this. Getting ready to order new parts. The one on the wall behind the kitchen sink will be a bugger to get to!

FLSteve

IMG_4034.jpg
IMG_4035.jpg


FLSteve
 
Yep, no good. Notice the frequency spectrum of 5-1000? It looks like what I used matches your orientation so they should work for you too.
 
Last edited:
@Neal … yes I actually ordered what you linked yesterday from Amazon and they should be here today. To get to the one on the back wall behind the kitchen sink I think I might need to remove the plumbing pipe off the bottom of the sink to make enough room for me to reach back there.

FLSteve
 
To get to the one on the back wall behind the kitchen sink I think I might need to remove the plumbing pipe off the bottom of the sink to make enough room for me to reach back there.

I was able to crawl under the plumbing. Removing that would be concerning but if you're comfortable with doing it go for it. The most important one is the one forward of the pegboard bay so if the plumbing is a concern try changing that 1 to 4 first and see how things go.
 
@Neal I was able to crawl under the counter like you suggested. Had to wait until we got to a campground with cable to test it so we’re here at Disney’s Fort Wilderness and everything works perfect. I’m so glad you posted the fix to this because I was kind of at a loss of what it could’ve been. Thanks again.

FLSteve


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Interesting. So the fix was the swap of splitters from 5-1000Mhz to 5-2000Mhz and not just terminating the open ports on the existing splitter? I may have to look at that on the home setup and replace those old splitters.
 
I just received my new 5-2000 MHz splitters today. Ordered the ones @Neal used. After the holidays, I'll get busy and replace mine too.

TJ
 

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