Cable Issues (SOLVED)

yellow103 · 04-15-2012, 03:18 PM

I have a cable issue in my 2012 Puma Unleashed, I have separate hooks ups at the outside back, one is for park cable, and the other is for satalite, I have no issues when I hook up my Directtv, but when I hook up to park cable, the picture is extremely snowy, it is the same on the TV hook up in the garage, main entertaiment area and the bedroom. I can hook up directely to the TV and picture is great. Beside the Entertaiment system I have a wall plate, top coax hook up is for my direct TV and the bottom coax hook up is for park cable/Antenna. ANd no I do not have the antenna switch on when trying to use park cable. On the back of the wall plate is the coax coming in and one going out which I beleive is going to the bedroom. Now I have a coax hook up in the garage, and since this is the closest to the outside hook up, I am wondering if there is a splitter at this point that could be causing my issues, took the wall plate off and pulled about a foot or two of coax out, there was more but I stopped. This issue is is not acceptable for me. Any ideas out there????

cardinal4fun · 04-15-2012, 03:42 PM

It sounds like you will have to pull the wall plate off along with the entertainment center to get a good reading on where your cables go. Once there make sure everything is wrench tight. I found when I did this most of the connections were more than very loose.

yellow103 · 04-15-2012, 03:54 PM

I was headed that direction, but thought I would post on here first, hoping it would be something simple I have never ran into before. I'm thinking it is a splitter issue, I'm just worried that the splitter may be in the garage area at the first tv hook up, this hook up is only about 3-4 feet from the main hook up outside, if that is the case I have no way of getting to it without tearing out a wall, and that is not happening.

jimh · 04-15-2012, 04:14 PM

the outside outlet box can be unscrewed to check that connection. the other end is at the wall plate. don't believe the cable connecting goes anywhere else first. there is a splitter in the sat hookup if u have a second sat outlet somewhere.

yellow103 · 04-15-2012, 06:20 PM

Well I may have found the issue, I decided to pull the wall plate in the garage area something just told me this is where the splitter may be, I pulled about 4 feet of coax, and there was a two way splitter, this thing is hooked up wrong I think, the coax coming fron the outside hook up is hooked up on one of the two out plugs, the other coax hooked up on the second out plug goes to the main entertaiment area in the living room, the in plug was hooked up to the wall plate for the garage tv. Shouldn't the single IN plug be the coax coming from the outside main hook up. and the out plugs should be hooked into the wall plates, Isn't this correct?

jimh · 04-15-2012, 07:58 PM

i don't believe it makes any difference. i've also used splitters as combiners for two antennas.
unless ur going thru a trap or amplifier, it shouldn't make any difference.

yellow103 · 04-17-2012, 10:36 AM

Okay, may have found the issue not 100% sure yet, just got back from camping, and again the horrible picture quality when hooked up to campground cable was there. Once home I hooked up my directtv outside and on the to TV from the back of the receiver I hooked in to my cable hook up on the camper. Picture quality bad, I found a dual splitter in the garage area, fittings were no more than finger tight, one was not even that. Tightened all with a wrench. Removed the enterainment center, and found a 3 way splitter, same thing finger tight at best with one having just less than that. Tightened all with a wrench and quality improved. Makes one scratch their head and go Huh. Will replace both splitters with much better quality and see what happens.

**Herk7769** · 04-17-2012, 12:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yellow103

Well I may have found the issue, I decided to pull the wall plate in the garage area something just told me this is where the splitter may be, I pulled about 4 feet of coax, and there was a two way splitter, this thing is hooked up wrong I think, the coax coming from the outside hook up is hooked up on one of the two out plugs, the other coax hooked up on the second out plug goes to the main entertainment area in the living room, the in plug was hooked up to the wall plate for the garage TV. Shouldn't the single IN plug be the coax coming from the outside main hook up. and the out plugs should be hooked into the wall plates, Isn't this correct?

I am not sure how your camper is supposed to be wired.

However in my camper, the "Campground Cable" coax coming in from the outside is routed directly to the wall amp and switch.

The output TV1 (I think) is then routed to the splitter, and the outputs go to your TVs. The SAT connector on the outside of my camper goes directly to the wall plate connector labeled SAT and that is where the receiver should be hooked up. The SAT receiver only runs the living room TV (there are workarounds to distribute the signal to all TVs).

yellow103 · 04-17-2012, 01:25 PM

Mine looks almost the same as yours, however, the campgropund cable stops at the TV hook up in the garage, this is where the dual splitter is, main lead in, one "out" goes to the TV in the garage, the other "out" leads to livingroom main entertainment area, it is in this area, where the triple splitter comes in, one to the bedroom, one to the main living room, and one outside. The reason I hooked up the directtv, and then connected it to the cable port outside, I was trying to simulate the issue I was having in the campground while on cable. So I could pin point the pproblem, which after doing all this I was able to improve the picture quality greatly, and I am hoping this truly was the issue, loose connections on the splitters.

**Herk7769** · 04-17-2012, 01:35 PM

Something else to keep in mind.

As you know; over the air TV is high definition and your HD TV will be beautiful using the roof antenna.

HOWEVER, most parks use standard def down-sampled analog video on the cable system. When displayed on an HD TV, your TV must take a down-sampled signal and "up convert it" so it will fit on your HD screen.

The resulting picture will look "blurry" or "splotchy" due to video anomalies created in the down-up conversions.

The same thing can happen with satellite if you only have a standard def receiver. The low def sat signal will not look good on an HD TV for the same reason. The only way to fix that is with an HD receiver. (Which you might have; I am just sayin')

yellow103 · 04-17-2012, 01:42 PM

Thnaks for the info, I was aware of that. But the picture quality was much worse that those issues present. I compare it to the picture quality I remember as a kid living in a very rural area trying to pick up channels over 100 miles away over mountains and through the valley so to speak, that is how bad it was, some channels we couldn't evn watch they were so bad.

jimh · 04-17-2012, 07:35 PM

if ur going to go back into it, check to make sure the center lead on each of the F connectors isn't short and possibly not making contact. i like to have the center lead even with the open end of the F connector.

thevetswife · 05-14-2012, 05:28 PM

Does anyone know where the splitter would be in a XLR 386? We put a tv in the bedroom today and didn't work after hook up, tried the other bedroom (garage) didn't work, tried in living room after unhooking existing tv and it worked fine. I cannot find a splitter anywhere in this thing.

ng2951 · 07-16-2012, 03:46 PM

Its actually on the backside of the TV/DigitalTV wall plate.

For the most part the problems you are having is probably just lousy cable service and the way they support analog channels.

I found when I had pure digital channels it worked just fine.

Poppy94 · 07-24-2012, 10:44 PM

is the lack of tightness on the fittings a common problem that plagues the 356QLB? i'm having issues getting the dishnetwork to "find" itself and the satellites. not connecting somehow so i'm going to use the wires/cables directly to the receiver (bypassing the wall plate), then troubleshoot for continuity from the rearward satellite jack to the wallplate distribution jacks at the TV. i appreciate this forum!

jimh · 07-25-2012, 06:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MurphyKyle

is the lack of tightness on the fittings a common problem that plagues the 356QLB? i'm having issues getting the dishnetwork to "find" itself and the satellites. not connecting somehow so i'm going to use the wires/cables directly to the receiver (bypassing the wall plate), then troubleshoot for continuity from the rearward satellite jack to the wallplate distribution jacks at the TV. i appreciate this forum!

i don't know if on ur setup u can put the receiver on two different outlets ie living room bed room. if you have that option u may want to check for a splitter in that system. if all works when u hook up direct, they may have used the wrong splitter. u need a 950-2150 mhz w/DC pass thru on a sat system. on mine (2002) they used a 5-1000mhz splitter. i was having problems with the carryout setting up sometimes and had missing channels. replacing the splitter solved this. oh, what i found was a 5-2150 as a replacement.

the connectors i have never tightened more than hand tight. just make sure they are tight. i try wiggling the cable to make sure the connector is actually tight.

yellow103 · 07-27-2012, 06:27 AM

my sat runs direct from the outside hook up to the entertainment center, no issues there. Park cable now works fine since I hunted down all the splitters and tightened all the cables. Life is now good.

Poppy94 · 08-01-2012, 01:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by herk7769

I am not sure how your camper is supposed to be wired.

However in my camper, the "Campground Cable" coax coming in from the outside is routed directly to the wall amp and switch.

The output TV1 (I think) is then routed to the splitter, and the outputs go to your TVs. The SAT connector on the outside of my camper goes directly to the wall plate connector labeled SAT and that is where the receiver should be hooked up. The SAT receiver only runs the living room TV (there are workarounds to distribute the signal to all TVs).

on the aux/sat/tv wall plate, what is the dual stage button on the right hand side for?

yeah, the one with the little green light....which, what does that indicate when illuminated or not?

**Herk7769** · 08-01-2012, 06:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MurphyKyle

on the aux/sat/tv wall plate, what is the dual stage button on the right hand side for?

yeah, the one with the little green light....which, what does that indicate when illuminated or not?

The wall plate switch does two things.

1) It (when on) provides power to the roof antenna signal amplifier built into the antenna head (the white box up there).

2) It (when on) switches the inputs of the wall plate from the outside signal source from campground cable to the roof antenna.

It should always be "OFF" when you want to watch campground cable and when you are not watching broadcast TV. It uses battery power and will deplete your battery if you are not on shore power.

Poppy94 · 08-11-2012, 04:46 PM

thanks to all. got the winegard satellite working. my problem was a power source's low amperage. i had the 13.6 volts heading out to the dish, but it appeared to be weak. once i changed power sources on the converter, BAM! everything worked like it was supposed to. once again, thanks to all.
see y'all down the road!

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