Community Forums

Doug427 · 08-23-2020, 11:20 AM

We bought our coach used, it's a 2005 Mountain Aire 4304. The dish on the roof is original, and therefore so old it's useless. It will no longer work with either Dish or DirecTv current equipment. I have decided to go with only basic streaming for now, and I'll invest in equipment of a better quality in 2 years down the road when I retire and we spend much more time in the coach than we do now. Long story short, I bought a cheap Amazon FireStick, and I need to connect it to one of the two remaining TV HDMI ports.

By "box of many buttons" is original, and doesn't offer anything by coax connectors on it. My original Sony Surround Sound receiver system is working well, but again it has no HDMI on it, and no open video inputs at all.

By far my easiest and cheapest route is to just plug the FireStick into one of the two remaining open HDMI ports on the TV. It'll make the FireStick much easier to use as well. The issue is, how do I get to the back of the TV? Also, while I'm in there I would like to run cables from the two remaining ports on the back of the TV to the audio cabinet so I don't have to deal with this in the future if for whatever reason I want to add something down the road. It'll keep the FireStick readily accessible in the audio cabinet so if I need to reset it, replace it, or whatever else, it's right there.

I'll try to attach a photo here of my front overhead cabinet setup - looking toward the front of the coach, I have the audio cabinet on the left over the driver, the electrical equipment cabinet (thermostat, electrical system display panel, slide switches, etc) in the middle, and then the TV in its cabinet to the right over the entry steps.

So for you experienced Newmar guys, how does this all work? How do I get the TV out of the cabinet to get to the back of the TV? The original tube type TV had already been removed and replaced with a 40" flat screen TV when I bought the coach, and I have no idea how it's held in there and how to get to it. There's a wooden molding fastened around the face of the TV, I assume I have to remove that molding and somehow get to the back of the TV that way? I have never done this and I really have no idea.

How do I get into the electrical cabinet to pass the cables through it? Do I have to somehow unscrew and remove all the electrical equipment from the cabinets to run the cable through? Or is there a very easy way to just pass through the cabinet behind all the equipment in the center cabinet without removing everything from it? There is already a HDMI cable running through there from the back of the TV to the surround sound receiver unit. So, with this already there I know it can be done.

Any ideas or help that you guys have would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT - Again, I see one photo is sideways. Sorry about that, fixing that is beyond my tech ability!

Dutch Star Don · 08-23-2020, 11:58 AM

When I had my 2005 Monaco Diplomat and decided to upgrade everything, the first item to go was the "bomb". It's useless with HDMI equipment. I replaced the old TVs with new ones that had HDMI ports. I wired everything directly to the TV(S).

Most of the front TV's require that you lean out over the dash and remove a panel between the TV cabinet and windshield. I would buy some HDMI cables, plug into as many ports as you have and feed the cables to the AV cabinet. Buy a female to female HDMI coupler and connect your Firestick to one of the HDMI cables in the AV cabinet for easy access.

Doug427 · 08-23-2020, 12:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dutch Star Don

When I had my 2005 Monaco Diplomat and decided to upgrade everything, the first item to go was the "bomb". It's useless with HDMI equipment. I replaced the old TVs with new ones that had HDMI ports. I wired everything directly to the TV(S).

That's one of my planned projects once we start using the coach a lot when I retire in 2 years. For now I'm still working and we don't use the coach as much. Doing this bomb replacement will likely require rewiring the whole coach with HDMI, which I just don't want to get into right now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dutch Star Don

Most of the front TV's require that you lean out over the dash and remove a panel between the TV cabinet and windshield. I would buy some HDMI cables, plug into as many ports as you have and feed the cables to the AV cabinet. Buy a female to female HDMI coupler and connect your Firestick to one of the HDMI cables in the AV cabinet for easy access.

Other than the leaning part that actually sounds pretty easy. I wonder how much space is between the back of the cabinet and the windshield. I'm guessing it can get pretty sporty trying to get in there to get the screws out that hold the back panel in? I'm guessing that the center cabinet and the A/V cabinet have removable backs too? I'm going to run as many cables as I have open ports so I don't have to deal with this again. Thanks, Don.

Does anyone know if this is applicable to an older Newmar like mine?