Cable tv hook up

[Quicktree]

what are guys using when you go into a park that has a cable hook up? do you need a cable box in order to receive it like at home? how does that work? Thanks Tony

[luckyd]

Some parks will supply a box (if needed) for a deposit.
Most parks I just plug in ....nothing required.

[charliej]

Once connected do the auto scan to find the channels.

[mel s]

Originally Posted by charliej

Once connected do the auto scan to find the channels.

X2 !
We have never needed a cable box to receive cable channels provided by a RV park.
BTW, we stayed at park in MS that charged $350 a month for a FHU site, (50A electric and decent wifi included).
We could have had a site with cable for "only" $100 more!
Mel
'96 Safari

[wa8yxm]

I'll be at a park with Cable long about June/July.. (And thankfully 50 amps since it's in Southern GA).. I just run some RG-whatever (six I think is what I have) from their jack to my jack, Push a bunch of buttons marked CABLE up front, and download the proper program for my Replay TV DVR's and scan with the TV's. That's all.

(Oh, the "Program" is a program guide.. Replay TV units are kind of fun. They let me record (Since I have two, I can record two shows at once) and play back later,, They talk to each other so I can watch a show recorded on one unit, from the other unit,, they also chat with a computer I have, so I can download shows for long-term storage off-line and stream 'em back up as needed. (Got to do a bit of that today).. Well. Maximum flexibility,, One of 'em can even send/receive via the internet.. NICE. Only three problems with them.

1: NTSC only, no ATSC
2: No longer made
3: No longer directly supported for channel guides.. Which is why I have that computer they chat with.. IT 'Fakes' them out and serves up a custom edited guide to them.. Works great.

[Quicktree]

the RV parks must be different from home cable.I ran cable out to the rv from the house and can't get anything with out a box.

[nodine]

Originally Posted by Quicktree

the RV parks must be different from home cable.I ran cable out to the rv from the house and can't get anything with out a box.

Quicktree,

A lot of this depends on how the cable is configured and if your television will receive digital channels. Many cable companies have moved all the basic analog channels up to digital and you must use their box in order to receive channels. When Comcast did this in our area that was the last straw for me. That meant I had to have a box on each television and my TiVo would no longer be able to record from the cable without adding a module. I dumped Comcast and went to satellite.

Bob

[bruceisla]

Originally Posted by Quicktree

the RV parks must be different from home cable.I ran cable out to the rv from the house and can't get anything with out a box.

This is mostly a question of how old your TV is and which cable company is the provider.
Cable-ready - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[wa8yxm]

Originally Posted by Quicktree

the RV parks must be different from home cable.I ran cable out to the rv from the house and can't get anything with out a box.

There are several different types of TV.s and Cable systems.

Some older TV's. well they were not cable ready, You should be able to get channel 3 (also 2,4 and possibly 5 and 6) OK unless they are digital but beyond that channel numbers may be... other than indicated, if you can even get em.

Take a few years off and you have NTSC "Cable ready" Televisions (What I have) these receive analog cable just fine.

Take a couple more years and you have "Digital Cable Ready"

and a couple more years you have the modern set, Digital cable and ATSC over the air digital ready.

IF the cable is digital, and your TV is not digital ready.. You gonna need a translator (Set Top Box)

If your Cable company uses a scheme other than the one programmed into your TV,, you gonna need a box.

It is all up to the cable company.. Different parks have different cable companies. USUALLY the park subscribes to the lowest cost service, which is also the one most likely to work with your existing TV, but.. sometimes the cable company does not offer that option and you gonna need a box.

[Triker56]

Last time I hooked up to a campground cable was around 98-99.
See everything I want on DirecTV. If too many trees for signal then the Batwing & a weeks worth of movies on the DTV DVR works.

But it has been a few years since not having a signal in any campground.

[tricotec]

This is becoming an issue at more and more parks. Turns out that the FCC recently began allowing cable companies to scramble ALL channels to protect them from cable thieves. This means that ALL channels cannot be received without a box. Comcast has done this nationwide and has forced all parks to either issue "loaner" or rental cable boxes to guests, or to require you to get them from Comcast directly. This is a huge problem in the Seattle area, and prompted me to get Dish Network working with our Satellite dome on our coach. Other cable companies may follow suit. Dish network is the best choice for most RVrs because of their pay as you go program (allows you to just suspend service without cost if you are in a park with free cable, in an place you can't see the satellite, or storing your RV). Dish also has HD programming that uses the same band as standard def, allowing the use of much smaller and cheaper antennas. DirecTV requires large, expensive dishes for HD programming.

This is a major pain for RVers because it is difficult for the average RV owner to rewire the coach's entertainment system every time you move the coach. If you have a coach with the switch box for selecting which signal goes to what TV (See photo below), you can get a couple of short cables and use the VCR IN & VCR OUT inputs on the back to give you a place to hook these cable boxes. Nobody uses VCR's anymore really, so this should work great. Then when you want cable in one of these areas you just hook up the cable box to your VCR In and OUT cables and select VCR to watch TV.

If your coach does not have one of these video switchboxes, I recommend getting one. There are several models, some simpler and cheaper than the one in my coach.

[nodine]

Originally Posted by tricotec

...
This is a major pain for RVers because it is difficult for the average RV owner to rewire the coach's entertainment system every time you move the coach....

That statement seems odd to me since we have had the Winegard Travler on Direct TV for years and all we do when we get parked is push a button. The dish deploys and finds all the satellites including HD. As long as we are in our spot bean we also get our local channels back home. If we are out of the spot beam we also deploy the bat wing and use a compass and this program:
AntennaPoint.com - Antenna Locator
We can switch back and forth between the over the air and the satellite by changing the input on the television from DTV to HDMI. The only time we need to use the coax switch is if we want to switch the televisions between the bat wing and cable. We almost never connect to park cable. We also don't need to suspend service on Direct TV because we also use that at home. In fact we deploy the dish on the motorhome while parked at home so we don't have to refresh the service to the receiver due to in activity.

Bob

[tricotec]

Originally Posted by nodine

That statement seems odd to me since we have had the Winegard Travler on Direct TV for years and all we do when we get parked is push a button. The dish deploys and finds all the satellites including HD. As long as we are in our spot bean we also get our local channels back home. If we are out of the spot beam we also deploy the bat wing and use a compass and this program:
AntennaPoint.com - Antenna Locator
We can switch back and forth between the over the air and the satellite by changing the input on the television from DTV to HDMI. The only time we need to use the coax switch is if we want to switch the televisions between the bat wing and cable. We almost never connect to park cable. We also don't need to suspend service on Direct TV because we also use that at home. In fact we deploy the dish on the motorhome while parked at home so we don't have to refresh the service to the receiver due to in activity.

Bob

What I was saying was a pain was having to install a set-top box to watch cable channels when you pull into a park served by Comcast. The comment was not about Dish (I should have been clearer). We have the switch and can use cable and local broadcasts too. We are fulltimers and have no house to have Dish Network in. We park for weeks or sometimes months at a time and have often let the Dish Network account go dormant because the Sat Dome was unusable because of the location, or because the park had great cable which was included for free. Sooner or later we move elsewhere and just pay for another month an we're golden.... you can't get more convenient than that.
We have a Winegard dome too, and you'd be surprised how often there are obstructions, particularly in the Pacific Northwest where the trees are abundent and tall and the satellites are low in the sky.