Frustrating TV among other things

[Davidceder]

Any assistance appreciated.

On a shakedown with my Sabre 32 RCTS.

TV1 living area= 32 Inch Toshiba-Came with rig
TV2 Bedroom= Just purchased 24 inch Vizo

Last week when I tried to get TV1 working it took me a good bit to figure out that where you hook up the TV in the water bay there is a label and 2 coax connectors. The label reads Cable/Satellite (cable on left / Satellite on right) in reality the connectors are Satellite/cable (Satellite on the left / Cable on the right). So the lable is wrong or they switched the connectors.
Ok, so I figure that out and I am fine for a week and today I purchase TV2. Hook her up in the bedroom and it only finds zero digital stations and only 31 analog. ( of the 31 ALL were too snowy to even look at. TV1 has 24 digital and 61 analog. Moved the TV (with the same coax I was using in the bedroom) hooked her up instead of TV1 and ALL IS WELL. Tried the bedroom again and same as previous results. I even tried connecting the source from the campground to the Satellite hook up in the water bay and got the same bad results. It looks to me as though TV1 is trying to pick up the Antenna signal instead of the cable (that's just a guess, and yes the antenna amplipher is off). Any way. Pulled the coax plate in the bedroom down and cable reads CATV/Satellite. Does anyone know if that means the coax should work with either cable or Satellite? My coax plate in the living area has two connections. The upper one reads AUX/Sat the lower reads TV. There is only one hook up in the bedroom. Is it possible they only hooked up Satellite in the bedroom. Sounds crazy to me if they did.

Any assistance is appreciated

[BarryD0706]

Originally Posted by Davidceder

...
Pulled the coax plate in the bedroom down and cable reads CATV/Satellite. Does anyone know if that means the coax should work with either cable or Satellite

Good job on your diagnosis so far! I think (in your question above) you are referring to the printing on the coax cable itself and not some label? If so it just means it's high frequency coax and nothing more. Just ignore that.

I'm not familiar with your RV but your antenna booster control probably looks like this on the back:


The "Set 2 Output" is what should be driving that other TV. I would take a look at the connector on the wire to see of it's messed up (and the one where it connects to the plate in the bedroom too).

I'm curious about the connections on the two-outlet plate you mention. The one is no doubt where the external Sat connection is terminated, but what is the wire going to that's labelled TV there? It might be where you take the Sat receiver output to drive other TVs, which could then be involved in this somehow, but I don't see how that can work if there's only one outlet in the bedroom. Perhaps you can see if that two-outlet plate is wired to the antenna booster somehow.

[Davidceder]

Barry,

Thanks for the picture and the input. As soon as I get a chance I will check out the booster plate. I did hear from Gary Grigsby of FR and he stated among other things that Satellite can only be received in the living area. (I didn't know that) All other TV connections should be able to receive Cable or Antenna. Did a bit more testing yesterday. Could not get cable in the basement either (just as with the bedroom). Funny thing is I was able to get Antenna in the basement. I got 3 digital and zero analog. Didn't touch a thing, went to the bedroom, reprogrammed the TV and received 7 digital and 1 analog. Gary thought every TV should received the same amount and same channels.

The mystery continues. I hope I can pull the booster out. It is stuck inside a cabinet. I will try when I get the opportunity.

David

[B and B]

Originally Posted by Davidceder

Barry,

Thanks for the picture and the input. As soon as I get a chance I will check out the booster plate. I did hear from Gary Grigsby of FR and he stated among other things that Satellite can only be received in the living area. (I didn't know that) All other TV connections should be able to receive Cable or Antenna. Did a bit more testing yesterday. Could not get cable in the basement either (just as with the bedroom). Funny thing is I was able to get Antenna in the basement. I got 3 digital and zero analog. Didn't touch a thing, went to the bedroom, reprogrammed the TV and received 7 digital and 1 analog. Gary thought every TV should received the same amount and same channels.

The mystery continues. I hope I can pull the booster out. It is stuck inside a cabinet. I will try when I get the opportunity.

David

Hello,

I have a Winegard Carryout with 2 outputs. I use the satellite input on the side of the RV for the Living room. I disconnected the cable tv input on the switch and used a F81 (f type barrel connector) to hook the cable that was used for cable TV directly to the Bedroom TV satellite plate output for the sat receiver in the bedroom. I have 2 coaxes from the Living room area to the bedroom. I still retain OTA viewing in both locations.

Brian

[slide5r4fun]

David, I would agree with Barry that the problem is either the connections on the cable going from the entertainment center to the bedroom or the cable itself.

Originally Posted by Davidceder

I did hear from Gary Grigsby of FR and he stated among other things that Satellite can only be received in the living area....

You can get a satellite signal to the bedroom very easily in the 32RCTS. The amount of mods you will have to do will be determined by the satellite provider you use, more specifically the hardware involved. We have DirecTV SWM so we can get HD and I just ran a cable from the basement up into the dresser (using the same hole as was used for the water lines to the washer) and replaced the single receptacle on the side of the dresser with a double so I can still get OTA/cable or satellite without changing anything.

[Davidceder]

Barry;

Many thanks for the picture of the antenna booster control. It is exactly what I have. I will make a long story short (if that is possible) More or less the problem is fixed. As stated by several of you the issue was cabling. The output from my "Set2" went to a splitter and the output of that splitter went to either the Bedroom, or the Basement. BOTH connections from the output of the splitter were no good. The male conductor (cable end) was cut so short it never made with the female and just got crushed in the connection. I was able to make the bedroom side work but I had to get a push on connector for the basement (no crimping tools with me) not a really good connection. The living room and bedroom find identical channels on both antenna and cable. The basement finds different numbers of channels that the other rooms but finds most channels ( ie, wont find any digital cable channels where the other TV's find 27.) Antenna channels vary each time I program the basement TV. The basement signal is not very clear as well. for now I am going to mark the basement problem as a bad connector at the splitter and let my dealer replace it. If I still have issues I will take it from there.

Thank everyone for your assistance. If you have any additional ideas please send them over

[Davidceder]

Barry; In reference to you question about the 2 outlet plate. The top coax is labeled AUX/SAT and has the orange satellite cable going to it. The bottom coax is labeled TV and this seems to be my cable hook up. The bedroom plate is not labeled and the basement plate says Antenna. Any wonder about the confusion? To top it all off where I plug my cable INTO the RV in the water compartment the label reads Cable/Satellite but the satellite coax is connected to the connector marked "Cable" and the cable coax is connected to the connector marked Satellite. That took me a bit to figure out at the beginning. I can see the orange wire going to the connector labeled "Cable" and the Grey wire going the the connector labeled "Satellite".

One day I will tell you my horror story about rewiring the stereo. I still haven't found my sub woofer and I ended up with one pair of speaker wire where I cannot find the speaker. (all of my other 9 speakers work fine) I can make all the speakers crackle by placing the wires on a 9 volt battery but this last wire pair make no noise at all, so I do not know where they lead as of yet. I was told my sub might be under the step riser but I haven't figured out a way into the yet. Step wont come off and I hesitate to pull the carpeting from the riser. Might just let the dealer figure it out.

Thanks again for all your help. Much appreciated.

David

[BarryD0706]

David,
thanks for the info on the two-connector plate. So the cable input came to that instead of the "Cable Input" on the booster control. That would make it more difficult to support a TV in the bedroom (for instance).

Yes, my Sat & Cable inputs (or the labels) were also swapped. Seems there's about a 50% chance they'll get it right.

Glad you got the problem figured out.

[slide5r4fun]

Originally Posted by Davidceder

I was told my sub might be under the step riser but I haven't figured out a way into the yet. Step wont come off and I hesitate to pull the carpeting from the riser. Might just let the dealer figure it out.

David,

I haven't been able to access my subwoofer from the stair area either. You can get to it from the basement area but access is still pretty limited. Remove the access panel on the rear wall of your basement and you will see it on the left under the aluminum framing of your stairs.