Community Forums

Jim28730 · 12-08-2011, 12:13 PM

I'm going to replace my King Dome with a Trav'ler. I know I've seen a thread somewhere that said you can't mount the Trav'ler in the same location as the King Dome due to vibration and noise caused by a roof area that is less than substantial.

I was wondering if you install the optional roof reinforcement plate that is available from Wineguard, would that stiffen the roof enough to make that location feasable? Mounting the new dish behind the front A/C as suggested by others would first require relocating my solar panel. Something I'm trying to avoid.

Just wonder if any of you Alpiners have tried this.

Old Scout · 12-08-2011, 03:52 PM

Dont think is so much a roof strength issue as it is air deflection off the front cab while you drive. Moving it back behind the front AC unit and or the solar panels get it out of the air vortex coming over the top/front of the cab.....sure other will have more specifics.

Jim A · 12-08-2011, 03:52 PM

Nope, I didn't try that. I got the impression from previous threads that the problem was related to air flow over the cap, not vibration due to the roof. I just moved mine, taking off the small solar panel that I had nearby. The problem went away. Much quieter.

Good luck! The dish works great once installed.

Jim A · 12-08-2011, 03:53 PM

Clever minds think alike....

Old Scout · 12-08-2011, 03:57 PM

YUP!!!!!!

Basil Shannon · 12-08-2011, 06:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Old Scout

Dont think is so much a roof strength issue as it is air deflection off the front cab while you drive. Moving it back behind the front AC unit and or the solar panels get it out of the air vortex coming over the top/front of the cab.....sure other will have more specifics.

Agree! My Traveler is mounted forward and I occasionally get a rattle. If you can find a place, do it.

EngineerMike · 12-08-2011, 07:34 PM

What's a Trav'ler?

OldForester · 12-08-2011, 10:41 PM

Travl'er is Winegard's HD satellite dish. Works great. If you don't have one, you might want to get one. Much better than the Kingdome. I left the Kingdome in place and had our Travl'er mounted behind the AC in place of the satellite internet dish I used to have. No noise, works as advertised, looks like HD on our 32' TV in front. Wouldn't be without it. Only thing that's not as good as Kingdome is high (60+ mph) winds. That's when I lower the Travl'er to prevent damage to the roof. But rain, etc. doesn't bother it and it always locks on the satellite first time, on it's own, and stows reliably.

EngineerMike · 12-08-2011, 11:29 PM

Wish I had a 32 foot TV.

dgerstel · 12-09-2011, 09:14 AM

I had a factory installed MotoSat antenna mounted in front of front AC on my '02. Had lots of problems with noise. MotoSat factory said they had problems on that mount on Alpines. One of their guys offered to move it for me and did. Problem solved.

I have 3 solar panels on my present coach and wanted to get rid of dome antenna, horrible, after using MotoSat on last coach. When I did the install of new Motosat Antenna, I was able to move the front solar panel to the pass side and place the MotoSat in the area behind the front AC. When stowed the dish covers a very small are of the solar panel.

EngineerMike · 12-09-2011, 11:30 AM

Dale- have you checked output on the partially shaded panel?
My understanding of the internal wiring of photovoltaic cells arrayed into a solar panel is that they are wired in series-parallel, i.e. that some string of cells is in series so their voltage is additive, followed by wiring the series sub-arrays in parallel so like voltages x amps (i.e. watts) from each sub-array add their amps together for the total panel watts. the significance here is that shading out some portion of the panel (one or more P.V. cells) kills off the wattage produced by that series string of cells. In more other words, if the series wiring is a long string, shading one cell will kill the production of a long string, or if the shading crosses several cells each series wired to non-shaded cells the shading will kill production of the several series strings. With this wiring method, a small amount of shading can kill a lot of a panel's production. Because of the above, when doing bldg roof mounts, we take care to align panels so shading will affect the least amount of production when the sun gets low in the sky, for maximum production throughout the day.
This isn't as big a deal w/a motorhome, since the coach will reside in whatever attitude you get when you park in groups (most of the time spent), and when you have latitude (like the days before & after Quartzite when the area is fairly empty) you can re-orient as space is available and you need all the solar production for protracted stays off the grid. But it would be a consideration in locating a potential obstruction that would cause shade to the panel, like a dish.

OldForester · 12-09-2011, 09:14 PM

EM-

Few Alpines were made with 32' TVs. Mine came with 32" TV. A little fat-finger typo. But a 32' would be pretty awesome!

Birddog Pilot · 12-10-2011, 06:42 PM

Jim,
We've got six solar panels on our 2006 36' and still found room to have Bobby and Scott, in Junction City, place the Trav'ler off centerline just behind the kitchen exhaust fan housing. It works perfectly there, no vibration; and has the added benefit that you can visually check and verify the extension and retraction right through the vent. One more nice part of this installation is that all the cables were run through the overhead air condition duct forward to the audio/video units -- a very sanitary and efficient installation. Another big, "Atta-Boys" for Bobby and Scott, they're the greatest!!

chris cross · 12-11-2011, 03:30 PM

I had the dome removed and the travel'er installed in the same place. The rattle was driving me (more) Crazy. I'll bet I climbed up to the roof 10 times to try to figure out how to dampen the noise. Finally had it switched to alongside the solar panel.
Peace and Quiet and Happy Holidays to all.