Satellite dish hookup on 2012 Saber 32RCTS

[rpresley]

Trying to hookup my portable direct TV dish. Signal is fine when going directly from dish to receiver. Trying to avoid running cable through door. When hooking up to the cable/sat connector on the outside of the trailer then coming from the aux sat connector in the entertainment center to the receiver signal is lost. Tried it with the switch in both on and off positions. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as we are on a two month stay and don't want to be tripping over cables and wasting heat from routing cable through door or window.
Is it possible I'm hooking to the wrong connectors?

[TURBS]

are you plugging into the sat coax or the the cable coax outside ?

[rpresley]

I'm hooking up to the sat coax but when that didn't work I tried the cable option. Neither worked

[DougP47]

Hope this helps

http://www.winegard.com/receivers/setupguide.php

this is for the 1518

http://www.winegard.com/receivers/setupguide.php?main=directory&leftcolumn=dish-carryout&product=image_carryout
that if your running a wineguard dish.

[rpresley]

Using Direct TV slim line with H25 receiver and inline swim module. Thanks for the info though.

[rpresley]

I'm thinking my next step will be to ohm out the connections of the trailer. I have tried using the rooftop antenna several times in areas where I expected to get decent reception and barely got a channel. I'm beginning to wonder if the outlet connection may be crossed.

[DougP47]

I have had a few friends with the
Similar problems that found out the switch box was bad. We had to bypass the switch and go direct to the tv after the receiver

[ret2006]

Two out of three fifth wheels I have owned came new with television/sat coax problems. I don't know who these mfg., get to install the cable but they don't do a very good job. Present rig I found a bad crimp on a connection behind the outside receptacle. Good thing the problem wasn't hid somewhere in the wall or ceiling. Check all your crimped connectors, they may look good but still be a bad crimp.

[rpresley]

Based on the number of issues mentioned my confidence level of proper cabling isn't very high. You would think these would be verified after assembly.

[53Oliver88]

Chances are extremely good that the problem is where the coax either originates or terminates as mentioned in prior responses. When I couldn't get any signal with our 2007 Shadow Cruiser Fun Finder, I discovered on the backside of the pre-amp/switch plate, the inner connector had pulled back inside the coax itself so it wasn't even make connection, but you would not know that looking at the metal coax connector screwed onto the plate because it was crimped properly on the outside. This can happen when someone crimps the connector onto a tightly wound spool of coax wire prior to it getting straightened out. Yes, someone needs to "QC" this connection at the dealership prior to it being delivered as I don't think the TV monitors are hooked up and installed until after final delivery for transportation reasons. This is a very easy problem to have even among us hobby ham radio operators who make these kind of connections all the time, but no excuse if properly inspected in light of how much these rigs cost $$$$$$ 73's W8RFK--Myron

[rpresley]

Problem solved. I checked continuity between outside satellite hook up and connector at entertainment center. Checked fine on both the center wire and case. Then pulled faceplate off wall at entertainment end and discovered manufacturer used RG 59 instead of RG 6 which is required for HD on Direc TV systems using H25 receivers. I routed a RG 6 cable to the faceplate creating direct connection to the dish and all is working fine. Thanks for all the suggestions.

[BarryD0706]

I doubt very much that the change from 59 to 6 is what fixed this problem. You just happened to clean up the real problem in the process.

[Crankshaft]

Just a thought...I have heard that the pre-amp switch needs to be in the "off" position to receive signal from satelite or cable. The switch is used only for over-the-air reception.

[rpresley]

The preamp switch was tried in both positions. Then it was totally removed from the circuit. The rg59 was hooked directly to the receiver and did not work. When rg6 was connected in the same fashion it worked fine. A Google search explained that rg59 is definitely unsuitable for HD. Those in doubt should do the research.

[Stanleyg]

As a service tech for a cable company that has over 175 HD channels, I can assure you that the 59 cable will carry HD signal.

[Jimmerinwi]

Originally Posted by Stanleyg

As a service tech for a cable company that has over 175 HD channels, I can assure you that the 59 cable will carry HD signal.

Maybe on cable, but sat is a much higher frequency.

[rpresley]

StanleyG Have you ever a Direct TV H25 receiver with a swim box using 59 ?

[53Oliver88]

In all my radio-reference books, the RG-59 & RG-6 have about the same charactereistics except for the type of outside shielding & dialectric material used which makes the RG-6 a little larger and harder to work with which is probably the reason manufacturers of RV's and those wiring a home as a "spec." home would use RG-59. But, RG-59 is very suseptible to shorting out inside the coax if the wire has been either crimped or wound too tight! What happens is the inner conductor gets pushed through the thinner lighter foam dialectric and shorts out against the shielding which is most likely what happened in your case. Use of RG-59 for short runs as you would have in any RV should not effect the signal even with HDTV. But, the chances of problems is much greater if the RG-59 has been miss-handled prior or during construction. I have heard of many people thinking their newly purchased DVD or VHS player was bad and took it back for replacement or repair and the real problem was with the short coax patch cord of RG-59 if the coax was used instead of the direct connect method. I hope this clears this up. When buying long runs of coax for either antennas or satellite instillations the use of RG-6 is preferred, but beware the attachments of the connectors is much harder and the use of the proper tools will make installation a breeze. Just don't crimp that coax or make tight bends with it!!! Good Luck. W8RFK-Myron

[Stanleyg]

Originally Posted by rpresley

StanleyG Have you ever a Direct TV H25 receiver with a swim box using 59 ?

Our headend is wired with wire smaller than 59 and we put all our channels through it. Cable size makes a big difference if you are going a long distance. We have apartment complexes wired completely with 59 cable and they get HD, STD digital, telephone and high speed Internet over it.

With that being said, if the shield on the cable is poor, such as copper, that could make all the difference in the world. Copper braid shield acts like an antenna and attracts off air signals, such as tv or radio stations, and they could kill the sat signal.

There are several things that could have caused the sat not to work, just saying that if the 59 cable was a good cable, that would not cause yours not to work.

[53Oliver88]

Originally Posted by Stanleyg

Our headend is wired with wire smaller than 59 and we put all our channels through it. Cable size makes a big difference if you are going a long distance. We have apartment complexes wired completely with 59 cable and they get HD, STD digital, telephone and high speed Internet over it.

With that being said, if the shield on the cable is poor, such as copper, that could make all the difference in the world. Copper braid shield acts like an antenna and attracts off air signals, such as tv or radio stations, and they could kill the sat signal.

There are several things that could have caused the sat not to work, just saying that if the 59 cable was a good cable, that would not cause yours not to work.

That's right, although the braiding of the shield in RG-6 is much tighter and protects against both signal loss and intermod/interference. The less expensive coax should work OK/satisfactory but it all depends on how the coax was treated during installation and you might not know if it was tightly bent or accidently crimped where the inner conductor & outer shield are now compromised which makes a tremendous difference with digital & HD signals that we never had to be concerned about with analog. The installers at any RV or home construction site are, generally, not electronic engineers and probably do not understand anything about what we are discussing. I've seen it where whole runs of coax had to be ripped out because someone used a staple gun to connect the coax to studs and at each staple the shield was crushed to either shorting against the inner conductor or close enough to sap the signal away; both digital-HD killers!