Satellite hook up help

[ltwest]

Today we brought home our new to us 2009 Forest River Sierra 345RET, and we're having trouble finding how to connect the receiver to the satellite hook up. We have an outside connector, but can't find where to connect inside. There's a plate in the bedroom to connect, but there's none in the back where the entertainment center is. Any help would be appreciated.

[melk-man]

will be watching this thread too. i have a forest river xlr27hfs. The outside hookups as i understand it, will only work with cable.. like if you connected to a park's cable. then all the plates throughout should receive that signal.
But with sat, you have to run the sat cable in through a window, to the box, then connect the box to the tv as the sat signal is now "powered" like cable signal is.
i just had my local sat guy try to connect mine but we need a hd dish to go with my hd box.. the standard dish would not "talk" to the hd box. the box kept reverting back to something that would not work with the std dish.

[BarryD0706]

I'm not familiar with your specific RV, but in general, if you only have one coax connector outside, it's for "Park Cable". You have two options which are to run the Sat coax thru a window (as stated) (or route that new wire some other way), OR to put that existing cable to more uses by moving it as needed

At one of the TV outlet plates in your RV there is a little black "booster" switch with an LED light showing when that booster is on or not. (That is the amplifier control for the Winegard antennae on your roof.) On the back of that amplifier control switch you will find where the other end of that "Park Cable" coax connects. You can take it off of there and just connect it directly to the Sat box. If your Sat receiver has a modulator (coax) output, you could connect that to where the Park-Cable originally connected in order to distribute the Sat picture to other TV's.

BTW, just curious, I'm guessing that you're trying to use Direct-TV (instead of Dish)?

[melk-man]

on my trailer, i think i have 2 outside cable hookups. And yes, of the 3 inside cable outlets the one in the dining/living area has a little button that has a green light, one way is for cable, the other for aux/sat if not mistaken. That is a booster for something ?
yes, i'm trying to hook up direct-tv sat.

[BarryD0706]

Originally Posted by melk-man

on my trailer, i think i have 2 outside cable hookups. And yes, of the 3 inside cable outlets the one in the dining/living area has a little button that has a green light, one way is for cable, the other for aux/sat if not mistaken. That is a booster for something ?
yes, i'm trying to hook up direct-tv sat.

Your situation is a little different then. Regarding the booster switch, ON is for the roof-top (Over-The-Air) signal. Off is for "Park-Cable". The outside Sat connector won't be connected to this at all. You should just find the other end of it at an outlet plate of its own somewhere in the RV.

[rockdog97]

We just bought a new 8289ws and it came wired for a bedroom tv. We are trying to just hook it up to the over the air antenna like our main tv, but can't seem to figure it out. There is a coax connection beneath the main tv for "satellite to bedroom." So am I to assume that the only way to get signal to the bedroom tv is from satellite and not OTA?

[Jimmerinwi]

Originally Posted by rockdog97

We just bought a new 8289ws and it came wired for a bedroom tv. We are trying to just hook it up to the over the air antenna like our main tv, but can't seem to figure it out. There is a coax connection beneath the main tv for "satellite to bedroom." So am I to assume that the only way to get signal to the bedroom tv is from satellite and not OTA?

Could you put a splitter behind the living room TV, one line to lr TV, the other to the sat to bedroom hook up?

[BandJCarm]

Jumping in here.

A "splitter" only works with Coax. Many satellite receivers are not gonna work without an HDMI cable. Those are harder (maybe impossible?) to split. It's very hard, if not impossible to run two TV's off of one receiver, IF IT IS HD!

That's what the H25 receiver (and appropriate related SWiM dish) is for, in the DirectTV world.

Running the cables physically is something I've yet to do. Long thread on this earlier, but I have a 'satellite/cable" single outside connection. No clue why it's labeled satellite, if as folks say, that satellite won't work through that connection.

I still think I can get rich running an RV Satellite TV Consulting and Installation Business.

Course, I probably need to make mine work at least once first.

[rockdog97]

I'm still confused. In the b/r there are two coax plugs, neither are labelled. In the l/r by the main tv there is a coax plug labelled "bedroom satellite."

Is the tv in the b/r wired to run off the OTA antenna or just through a satellite (like DirecTv)?

I could not get the b/r tv to pull in the OTA stations (through the digital antenna).

[dpereira]

Just an update for all with "sat connection". I spoke with forest river and they contacted the manufacturer. The splitters are generally behind the stereos. In the unit I have (404fb) it was in behind the stereo unit in the back room. My suspicions were correct in the fact that they hooked up the spitters incorrectly. Please pass this on to all Salem owners looking for the wiring issues it could save a lot of time finding these issues and save the headache of rewiring cables through windows or tip out sides.

This is how it is wired. Park cable goes to main bedroom where the roof antenna booster is (orange cable). Form there a white cable goes to the living area.

Sat cable in goes from back of trailer to splitter in behind the stereo into a "satellite splitter." It then has tree outputs to the Main bedroom, living room and on outside beside the sliding door.

I had to tone out all the connections to make sure that this was how they were run.

Hope this helps.

[rockdog97]

Ok, I have a different issue. I tried hooking up my DirecTv- we have two separate set-top boxes in the trailer: one in the bedroom on its own TV and the other in the living room on the main TV. Our problem is that we get signal and channels to each box and TV, but the signal is black and white and pixelated.. We have a round dish. Not sure what the problem is.

Any suggestions?

[Chris1304]

Do you use the boxes at your house as well? Could be a dish type setting issue or you may wanna check the type of coax cable your using and insure its for sat.

[rockdog97]

Well figured it out..it ws the input settings on the tv..had to select AV for the color to work...one tv was set to HD output but when I changed it to AV it worked fine.

[EastlakeRoo]

Just a quick update that I have Direct TV in my trailer. The set up box is in the main living room and I purchased an item online called "Actiontec MyWirelessTV". This allows the hdmi signal coming out of the set up box to go directly to living room tv and then transmits the hdmi signal wirelessly to a receiver box. I have 3 receiver boxes in my trailer. 1 in the bunkhouse area, 1 in the master bedroom and now 1 outside.

Perfect way to split the hdmi signal from satellite. I have mine set up where if I want to watch a local channel I change the input on tv to use trailer antenna (TV) and then I can switch back to cable by selecting (HDMI1). Just wanted to share this info as in my other trailer I used a HDMI SPLITTER using hard cables to route to other rooms. My new trailer doesn't allow this so the wireless setup is the perfect way to go. Little pricey but after your initial purchase your done.