Community Forums

TechWriter · 11-01-2015, 06:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlyingDiver

And I really don't think there's any such thing as "the very best QAM tuner". Either you have one or not. The only difference would be how well they work with a weak signal.

Not true. Some QAM tuners are better than others -- see Television Compatibility.

nothermark · 11-01-2015, 06:34 PM

More likely what you are running into is this:

"Beginning in 2013, Comcast (the largest cable company in the United States), began encrypting all channels in certain regions, including all local / basic tier channels. It's believed that in the coming years other cable providers will eventually encrypt all of their channels. Originally, The Federal Communications Commission required cable providers not to encrypt basic tier or local channels, however, the FCC reversed its decision under pressure from Comcast and other providers."

from:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAM_%28television%29

**CountryFit** · 11-01-2015, 10:51 PM

i was pulling my hair today wondering why my tv doesn't get cable channels in this rv park... when we checked in, the front office didn't bother to say anything but just handed out the instruction "turn off your power antenna and auto program your tv" with a list of cable tv channels.

my tv is a samsung un32f5500; its manual does not say qam or digital tuner. ota programs are fine though.

wa8yxm · 11-02-2015, 07:15 AM

I have done a bit of research.. ELEMENT TV's (I checed specifically th 19" model which is made in Michigan), far as I know the ONLY television made in the USA.. Under Tuners it listed NTSC and ATSC only,, (Analog and broadcast digital) it did not list QAM. (Cable digital).

Also some cable companies are going encrypted digital so you MUST have their box to decode it... A means of adding to your monthly bill of course (Read that ripping you off since they are already charging you around 100 times what the product is worth).

RonLC · 11-02-2015, 07:53 AM

I started having this problem about a month ago with a park's "new digital" cable system. We are moving every couple of days and for some reason I have not had the problem since in several other parks. I have a new Samsung Smart TV in the front and a new Vizio 1080 TV in the bedroom.

But, yesterday in a new quite nice park I thought that I had run into it again. I scanned digital, analog and both at the same time with zip results. After pulling my hair out for over an hour my wife asked me it I had selected "Cable" from the input out put box. I had forgotten to switch from sat to cable. All worked.

It seems that 99% of the problems I have had with all the systems both electronic and mechanical end up being my fault. Never DW's...she has never admitted to anything in her life.

Good luck

Retired and Happy · 11-02-2015, 10:24 AM

I have run into a similar problem at a park we have visited several times....and will again for Thanksgiving. We have an old clunker for the front TV for which I use one of the government subsidized converters for OTA signals. Works fine in my driveway. My bedroom TV is a newer flatscreen that works well without such a converter in my driveway.

At the RV park the front TV finally received a few stations when I removed the converter and connected directly to the park cable. The rear TV scanned and received only analog signals from the cable. The stations received on each TV were not necessarily the same as the other TV received.

Although I was told nothing special was needed to receive the complete cable signal, I'm suspecting the old analog TV needs some kind of converter/tuner to receive the cable, and the rear flatscreen TV (1 1/2 year old) does not have a QAM tuner (RCA), but picks up some analog signals from the cable.

Is there something else I'm missing, or was the information from the park probably wrong?

Triker56 · 11-02-2015, 11:29 AM

Last time I hook up to a campground cable had to be over 15 plus years ago.

DirecTV HD & my Batwing for OTA works for me.

ChasA · 11-02-2015, 02:39 PM

Retired and Happy
Plain cable is analog, you don't need any kind of converter. The digital converter you have is for the over the air signals which are digital. I used to have a digital converter in my old coach. It had what was called "pass-through". If its power was off, it passed the signal straight through to the output and I used the TV's tuner. If the power was on, I tuned the Tv to channel 3 and used the converter remote to tune stations.

TechWriter · 11-02-2015, 04:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChasA

Plain cable is analog, you don't need any kind of converter. The digital converter you have is for the over the air signals which are digital. .

Half right.

All TVs made after 2007 must have a ATSC tuner for decoding Over-The-Air digital TV signals.

However, new TVs are not required to have QAM tuners which are necessary to decode digital cable.

If a campground uses unencrypted digital cable, then a TV that has a QAM tuner should allow you to watch the programs on cable.

If a campground uses encrypted digital cable, then the campground should supply a set top box.

If a campground still uses analog cable, then you don't need a QAM tuner or set top box.

**CountryFit** · 11-02-2015, 07:29 PM

i open googled the features of samsung un32f5500 mine is, a few sellers said it has qam. i further dug it out today and found the wire was broken. after corrected it and scanned, man, the video was so grainy that was barely viewable. never mind. i don't feel i miss anything without it.

Jim A · 11-02-2015, 08:24 PM

If you have digital cable (or digital OTA), and it is grainy, you have a major problem with your equipment somewhere. Picture and sound should be perfect, or not at all. Pixilated at worst if the signal is borderline. But not grainy.

**CountryFit** · 11-02-2015, 08:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim A

If you have digital cable (or digital OTA), and it is grainy, you have a major problem with your equipment somewhere. Picture and sound should be perfect, or not at all. Pixilated at worst if the signal is borderline. But not grainy.

my scan resulted in no digital channels but all analog from the cable. my ota is all digital and picture perfect. could this rv park have no digital cable channels? strange thing, i may ask them about it.

Jim A · 11-03-2015, 10:21 AM

Most RV park cable systems I have connected to were analog only. No QAM tuner needed for them. The few digital cable systems I have connected to sometimes have a few analog channels as well as the digital channels.