New Cardinal, New member, wife needs Help

[meandrc]

Good afternoon, we just bought a new 3850 Estate and before delivery I had to leave Arizona to work for awhile. My wife did the walkthrough and the dealer helped her set it up in a RV Park in Yuma. I always did all the setup so now she is struggling with the TV setup. She cannot get hardly any channels to scan and is hooked up to cable. Can anyone tell me if there is a antenna amplifier and where it might be? Thanks in advance, I’m sure I’ll have many more questions until I get back down there and then I’m sure I’ll have even more.

[Kimber45]

every unit I have ever owned the amplify is on the wall behind the tv in the main living area and has a small push button to turn on and off with a small light to confirm on.

[Mr. Dan]

On my Wildcat, the booster button is on a faceplate on the wall behind the tv in the bedroom. If she's hooked to the campground cable, this booster must be off... then she has to set the TV's input to Cable... then she has to scan channels.

[meandrc]

Thanks, Kimber I’ll have her look there.

[meandrc]

Mr. Dan, I had a Montana and the booster was in the bedroom closet but my wife never dealt with it.. Thanks”

[fendermicar]

Our Cardinal the amplifier is in the bedroom. We have front living room.

[fendermicar]

Originally Posted by fendermicar

Our Cardinal the amplifier is in the bedroom. We have front living room.

The directional ant is in the living room.

[meandrc]

Thanks to you all.. She found the Amp and turned it off,ran the scan nothing, changed the cable to all three inputs, nothing, the cable worked on the old trailer so I know that’s good. Might have to wait till I go back down to check things out..

[CHICKDOE]

on our cardinal there are three coax jacks in the water compartment. one is for cable, one is labelled satellite, and truthfully i do not know what the third one is. she may want to move the park cable input to another of the jacks and try again. also, when you scan on the tv you may have to use the menu to set the scan to cable rather than over the air. some tv's also have option to scan either analog channels, digital channels, or all. use the scan for all.

[fendermicar]

FYI check the Jack's behind the panel to see if they are hooked up to anything. I had Dish sat installed on my Cardinal and when it wasn't working we that the sat Jack was hooked to nothing. We ended up having to take is lining in storage out to hook into the tv. Works great now [emoji16]. Apparently they don't hook sat up at the factory.

[rjshiflet]

On our Cardinal we have 3 inputs in the "wet bay" area...one for Cable, one for SAT and one for AUX.

We had the same problem as you are having, so I pulled off a small (perhaps 8x8 or 6x6) piece of the covering just inside the basement area and looked. First thing I noticed was that NOTHING was hooked up to AUX.

Then I disconnected the two (CABLE and SAT) and on a hunch reversed them. Suddenly, I had both CABLE and SATELLITE feeds getting through.

I'd be suspicious of those connections based on my experience with our Cardinal.


I still have no idea what is SUPPOSED to be hooked up to AUX, but it is still just a dummy connection.

[DrLewie]

The outside jacks for the cable and satellite may be mislabeled. An RV tech told me this is a common problem on all brands. Suggest your wife switch the cable to the sat jack and try again.

[CHICKDOE]

two cables need to go onto two jacks. no need to trace the cables, just put one on then the other and you'll be right 50% of the time. electricians use color coded wire. perhaps they should use something like black coax for cable and white coax for satellite. but don't hold your breath.

[Tiggerdad]

I'm sure anyone at the campground be be glad to check. Keep us posted on what you find.

[blufrog1]

I have an older Cardinal with which I experienced similar issues. The cables connected to my outlets were also reversed and disconnected. I live in Yuma and would be willing to assist if you would like. Shoot me an email if so.

[The Newsoms]

There’s an access panel in the storage compartment where you can look behind the outside connection ports. Ours weren’t connected good and they were mixed up.

[DouglasReid]

Originally Posted by CHICKDOE

two cables need to go onto two jacks. no need to trace the cables, just put one on then the other and you'll be right 50% of the time. electricians use color coded wire. perhaps they should use something like black coax for cable and white coax for satellite. but don't hold your breath.

While the cost for the black and white may be the same the need to stock two different colors will kill that logical idea!

Besides the minimum wage worker will just get the colors mixed up anyway, with the same result.

[changing it up a bit]

Have the same rig and love it. Reach out if you have questions. The switch is in the cabinet in the bedroom, left side. Open the door you will see the light. Press the button all good.

[djousma]

So, we had this problem as well. What ended up fixing the problem for us is I had to go back behind the water bay, and trace the cable coax from the backside to the splitter it goes to. I cut off both ends, replaced them, and reconnected them. Seems that one of them was shorted out when whomever at the factory put the ends on. Once I did that the problem was solved. Had I been thinking, I would have done every single one while I was in there "just because".

You can buy the tool to cut/crimp these ends pretty inexpensively.

[The Newsoms]

Originally Posted by CHICKDOE

two cables need to go onto two jacks. no need to trace the cables, just put one on then the other and you'll be right 50% of the time. electricians use color coded wire. perhaps they should use something like black coax for cable and white coax for satellite. but don't hold your breath.

Ours were different colors; white, gray, and orange. The auxiliary goes to the bedroom.