Journey with Confidence RV GPS App RV Trip Planner RV LIFE Campground Reviews RV Maintenance Take a Speed Test Free 7 Day Trial ×


Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 06-09-2015, 03:30 PM   #1
Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2013
Posts: 53
Portable Satellite on A/B switch

I have a 2015 Georgetown 351 DS.

We have a portable satellite (King Flex which is the Dish/Direct TV version of a Tailgater which is Dish only)

When we camp, sometimes we use the dish and sometimes we use the cable provided by the campground. I wanted a way to switch back and forth without having to totally reconfigure the inside cabinet equipment. (I'll always have to switch from the campground cable to the satellite cable in the storage compartment in the rear - but that's easy)

I wanted to provide this information on how I wired it and report that after testing with both the dish and cable - it WORKS!!

Because the dish uses the park cable jack - the RV TV selector must be set to CABLE.

Unscrew the cable in connection from the back of the RV TV selector and attach it to the IN of an A/B switch

From the B out of the A/B switch- take a short piece of cable to IN on your satellite's control box.

From OUT on the satellite control box - take another short piece of cable to the IN on the Dish/Direct TV receiver.

From OUT on the Dish/Direct TV receiver yet another short piece of cable to go to IN B on a Cable Combiner

From the A out of the A/B switch use - you guessed it another short piece of cable to go the IN A on the Cable Combiner

Finally - with one last short piece of cable go from the OUT of the Cable Combiner to the Cable IN on the RV TV Selector.

Now you can switch from cable provided by the campground to satellite TV by flipping the A/B switch back and forth (plus switching your source in the storage compartment)


splitter/combiner

Amazon.com: CHANNEL PLUS 2512 DC + IR Passing 2-Way Splitter/Combiner: Electronics

A/B switch

Amazon.com: Coaxial A/B Switch: Electronics

5 pack of short cables

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ilpage_o06_s00
dirievi is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-10-2015, 11:35 AM   #2
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Northern California
Posts: 147
Thank you for this great post. I drew a diagram to help me visualize how you did this and how it works. I am going to try it out this weekend. Now I need to figure how to go from the antenna to satellite and think that it will be similar except for the booster amp! I will do a search...
__________________
2015 Rockwood 8329SS TT
2004 Chevy 2500HD D/A 4X4 CC SB
Andersen Weight Distribution hitch
lakejumper is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-10-2015, 11:50 AM   #3
Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2013
Posts: 53
for Antenna - you should just need to switch the RV TV Selector from Cable to Antenna and that should bypass the whole thing and then you would scan the TV for the Over the Air channels.
dirievi is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-10-2015, 12:04 PM   #4
Senior Member
 
bubbles's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 7,645
With us it is either cable or tailgater (call dish to get local abc, nbc, cbs, fox channels thru sat feed) and there is no issue with ota antenna feed (just have to set tv for ant and tv input selector to ota instead of cable or sat) and do not have to turn off booster. Just another option and of course the sat feed via coax is going to be SD instead of HD because routing HDMI or digital out wiring is to difficult in my coach. SD is fine with us though.
Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version

Name:	satellite.jpg
Views:	248
Size:	100.3 KB
ID:	79566  
bubbles is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-12-2015, 09:11 PM   #5
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2012
Posts: 869
I used a simpler solution for my tripod mounted DirecTV setup. The feed cable from the park cable system goes to the output of an A/B switch. The cable input of the AB switch goes to the Forest River installed input selection box, where I unplugged the park cable connector. The Antenna input of the AB switch is wired to the DVR box. When the AB switch is set to cable, the cable from the back of the RV is connected to the 3-way selection box that came with the RV. When the AB switch is set to antenna, that same cable from the back of the RV feeds the DVR box.

My DVR box doesn't have an RF output so I plugged the DVR's HDMI cable into the input of an Actiontec HDMI transmitter. A receiver at each of the TVs allows watching the same show on either or both at the same time. The Actiontec boxes aren't cheap but they're a lot less expensive than running HDMI cables through a built RV. Maybe FR will someday include HDMI wiring when they build the units. This switching arrangement also allows us, at the same time, to use the DVR on one TV and watch a local station on the other.

Phil
pmsherman is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
satellite

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off


» Featured Campgrounds

Reviews provided by

Disclaimer:

This website is not affiliated with or endorsed by Forest River, Inc. or any of its affiliates. This is an independent, unofficial site.



All times are GMT -5. The time now is 10:16 AM.