Cable Line Not Connected, Antenna Horrible

[tom92]

I recently purchased my first RV (Coachmen Catalina 26TH toy hauler) and have been testing and setting everything up. I'm not sure what kind of antenna they installed, but the reception is almost non existent without the booster and poor with. With the booster I get about half of what I get in the house. RV is in the driveway.



I tried connecting the TV to the cable line and plugging an external antenna into the cable input outside. That got me zero channels when scanning.



I further connected a cheap "paper thin" antenna directly to the TV and placed it on top of the shower door under the skylight. It picked up every channel I do in the house with the exception of one somewhat distant VHF channel.



I removed the cable outlet next to the TV and discovered the cable (top) connection isn't attached to anything. It looks like there are three coax lines coming up through the wall. I assume one is from the antenna into the booster. The other two could be feeds to the bedroom and outside. I'm also thinking one could be the other feed and have a splitter somewhere else while the third is actually the Cable In, but something is missing between the PC board and top F connector.


I don't plan on tons of TV time in this camper, but would still like decent OTA reception for rainy days. I assume the antenna is what it is and fixing it would require an investment into a new antenna on the roof. I would probably opt for a temporary outside setup vs putting an expensive new antenna on the roof if that cable line was connected.



If they really didn't pull the coax from the input to this box is it fixable without destroying multiple walls? I've also found an issue with my grey tank sensors not reading so I will have the dealer fix that at some point, but don't want to create bigger problems.

It seems the upload rotated my pictures 90 degrees. Left is actually up in the images below.

Any input is appreciated.

[TXiceman]

Most RVs now come with a small omnidirectional antenna which in my opinion are JUNK. In the amateur radio world, omnidirectional antennas are said to perform equally bad in all directions.

You have to run the booster on the RV to get much reception and with a good directional antenna like the Winegard Sensar IV or V with the Wingman attachment, 40 miles is good range for them. The Omnidirectional antennas are even less.

I would look to upgrading to a Winegard Sensar antenna with the Wingman attachment.

Ken

[jacwjames]

I would check all the connections, when I first bought our Class C it had very poor reception, turned out they had the wires reversed from the antenna to the TV.


Do you have a cable connection outside to hook to, if so hopefully they ran the wires and just forgot to hook it up. You will probably have to completely remove the wall plate to check for other wires.



We have the Winegard Sensar type antenna and it gets pretty good reception, I did add the digital wing which helped. In our old house I got about as many channels as a pole mounted antenna. In the new house I mounted a good antenna in the attic with a booster amplifier, we get about 45 channels now (granted some of them are pretty useless).

[tom92]

I do have an outdoor cable inlet plus and outlet on the patio side - not sure if those are antenna only. I'll have to check to see if they are actually wired.



It is hard to see in the pictures but I believe there are three coax cables connected to that circuit board. It all seems very fragile and I was worried about causing damage if I tried to remove it further.



I don't get why they just didn't install an A/B switch. Pick A and antenna is routed to all three TV locations. Pick B and it is cable/satellite at all three locations.



I've also discovered my grey tank level is always empty. I'm assuming this and the cable issue are under warranty. I'll get the dealer to fix everything at some point.

[Craig36]

Most coaches have a switch box to select between Satellite, cable or OTA (local channel) antenna. These are normally located in a cabinet over the windshield area. Assuming your cable test included setting your box for cable, then check the TV is set up correctly. Newer flat screens TV, need to have the input set to the correct input. If you want to stream TV, you can install a Firestick or other hot spot device, and set your TV to the input with the Wi-Fi adapter input (not supplied with the TV)

We use either our satellite receiver or streaming, and never use the OTA set up

BTW, older coaches had crank up antennas that rotate for local stations. Newer coaches, I believe have fixed OTA antennas.

[Old Scout]

...my experience is that the new digital OTA signals seem more sensitive to direction and obstructions....the new King OTA antenna works well but needs to be pointed toward a source for best results....doesn't explain why your other antennas work better…..could be a bad connection/connector????? they do sell coax tracing tools that aren't too expensive.....

[Bob_C]

Cable connection is just that...for campgrounds that offer cable tv.....you possibly have faulty coax cable ends, or loose connections.......what year is the RV?......Does the coax going to the tv have a 90 degree connector....some of those are faulty....coax splitter connections could be loose....

[tom92]

No switchbox, or windshield - it's a travel trailer. Brand new 2020 Coachmen Catalina Trailblazer 26TH toy hauler.



The method of switching from antenna to cable is to unscrew the coax from the TV RF input from Antenna on the RV wall plate and move it to Cable an inch above. As shown in the pictures, there is nothing connected on the back side of the cable connector, so somebody missed a connection. The antenna and booster do work, just poorly. I don't see any loose coax connectors but I'm also just a little paranoid about digging into the walls as I'm new to RVs and everything seems so fragile.



I haven't checked to see if there is coax connected to the outside input. I'm guessing that requires cutting caulk to remove the connector and I hate caulk. Installing my Hailoview three camera system has used up my caulk patience for at least a year.


This is basically what worked fine with a view through the bathroom skylight when connected directly to the TV. https://tinyurl.com/y5t7fkzz
The TV is right next to the door so for now just throwing the antenna onto the roof or strapping to the awning when needed is probably the easy fix. I'll let the dealer see what they can fix once I figure out what else the manufacturer missed before I start tearing open walls.



Thanks for the input.

[traveldawg]

Originally Posted by tom92

It is hard to see in the pictures but I believe there are three coax cables connected to that circuit board. It all seems very fragile and I was worried about causing damage if I tried to remove it further.

Pull it out more and verify all 3 of those connections are tight. If you can use a coax tester to verify they go to the right place. One cable is from the antenna, one is input from your outside cable input and the third one feeds your TVs (most likely through a splitter which you may want to locate and tighten those connections too).

Originally Posted by tom92

I don't get why they just didn't install an A/B switch. Pick A and antenna is routed to all three TV locations. Pick B and it is cable/satellite at all three locations.

The reason they don't use an A/B switch to go between antenna is that that box you pulled out is a switch. It switches between cable input and antenna (OTA) and also puts 12v on the roof antenna for its booster amplifier. Old style coax switch boxes did the same (back when everything was a coax signal before HDMI days); they just did it when you pressed the "antenna" button.

Originally Posted by Old Scout

...my experience is that the new digital OTA signals seem more sensitive to direction and obstructions....the new King OTA antenna works well but needs to be pointed toward a source for best results....doesn't explain why your other antennas work better…..could be a bad connection/connector????? they do sell coax tracing tools that aren't too expensive.....

When things switched to digital TV nothing changed at the broadcast antenna end. Not their frequencies, not their strength, not their directionality. The only thing that changed was they put a digital signal on the carrier frequencies instead of an analog signal.

What we now experience as a loss of signal or poor signal level is when our new TVs sense a signal is too low and won't present a picture. This is unlike the old TVs that weren't smart enough to sense when a signal was too low so they presented a picture with lots of static. It was up to the viewer to decide if it was viewable or not - not the TV.

Originally Posted by tom92

The method of switching from antenna to cable is to unscrew the coax from the TV RF input from Antenna on the RV wall plate and move it to Cable an inch above.

Something is amiss. The antenna input is switched via that box (as I noted above) and fed out through the "second TV" labeled port on the back of that switch. This is gonna sound dumb, and I don't mean to offend you, but please be sure you are using the small button on the front of that switch to change between antenna and cable. The indicator light should be on when you select antenna and off when you want to use cable. (I figure you know this but still have to mention it - I've made this mistake too many times and only realize it after scanning and getting no channels).

I hope all this is somewhat helpful.

[tom92]

I did some more digging and apparently I have a Weingard amplifier that is built into the wall plate.


http://pdfstream.manualsonline.com/1...6c3b244154.pdf


On my walkthrough they told me to move the coax from TV to CABLE to switch inputs - that was apparently wrong.



When the switch on the plate is off, the CABLE feed will be supplied to all TVs. When it is on the antenna is activated and the antenna will be fed to all TVs. The second connector on the top of the plate is meant to be disconnected for future satellite system use. The single push button acts as both a A/B switch of the input and activates the power to the antenna.


Since I connected the TV to the disconnected Satellite feed with the external antenna on the cable input I got zero stations since I was connected to nothing. When I scanned with the TV connected to antenna but the switch off, the wiring in the trailer must have acted as a poor antenna and provided a couple channels.


I just tried again with a basic, non-amplified "paper thin" antenna connected to the cable input and propped up on the 6' fence and the antenna off. It pulled in five channels the RV roof antenna missed, including CBS so it is not just the low power local stations it missed. The four bar TV signal strength meter was also a bar or two higher on all channels with no break up except for the low power stations.



It is a win for the trailer being wired properly, but loss for such a poor antenna being installed to begin with.


Thanks for the guidance.

[Bob_C]

So which antenna do you have?

[Jim A]

Originally Posted by tom92

I did some more digging and apparently I have a Weingard amplifier that is built into the wall plate.

I assure you that the amplifier is NOT built into the wall plate. It says so right on the pdf file you linked, first page bottom right. It provides 12V DC electrical power to the antenna amplifier built into the Sensar antenna head. When turned on it powers the amplifier and routes that signal through the device to the TV. If turned off, it routes the cable connection to the TV. Just as you learned. But it does not boost the signal by itself.

Disconnect the coax from the antenna head on the roof, and check for the 12v power on the coax. If somebody put a splitter on the coax going to the roof antenna, it will likely block the power from getting to the antenna head!! Most splitters will not pass the current. Or a broken coax would also cause it to not get the power. Either way if there is no 12V power present, your antenna head will not function properly.

[tom92]

Finally following up on this. I've decided to abandon the roof antenna - not sure of the model as I didn't see any ID on the roof unit (see pic). The wall control is marked King but the electronics are exactly like the Weingard manual posted earlier.

I've also added a 20' telescopic flag pole mounted to the A frame and found that I got much better reception with my cheap "paper" antenna duct taped about half way up so I decided to make a more permanent flag pole antenna.

I picked up a Clearstream 1Max antenna on ebay for $25. While I was waiting for it to arrive I pulled the stereo and found a three way splitter that was feeding the bedroom, outside and radio from the wall control, so those signals were being split twice. I replaced it with an RCA VH240R four way amplifier since it was all I could find locally ($20 at Menards). It runs off of 12 volts so I just cut the cord off the wall transformer and attached it to the supply that was feeding the King wall control. I pulled the King control and replaced it with a basic coax only wall plate which I added a toggle switch to so I can turn off the amp.

Thankfully the stereo is only a couple feet below the wall plate so I was able to snake an extension for the Cable input line and the power cord down without any trouble. The Cable input now feeds the amp directly with splits to the three TV locations and radio.

The antenna arrived and I was able fashion an L bracket out of some 3/4 steel flat I had laying around. The flagpole had an aluminum ball top that I was able to remove a M12 x M6 adapter from that screws into the top of the pole. A short M6 bolt let me assemble it with no extra cost.

In my driveway where the factory antenna was providing about 10 of the RF channels I get in the house (most heavily pixelated), I am now getting one additional low power station I can't get with my house roof antenna. All of the local stations have solid signal strength and even the low power stations are clear. Overall I'm getting 15 RF stations with a total of 69 with the sub channels. It is not a good distance test as most stations are only 8-15 miles from me, but I do get a solid 4/4 bar signal on RF channel 9 that is about 30 miles away. I tried hitting Toledo (50 miles) and Flint (70 miles) but didn't get anything.

It will add a couple minutes to camp setup and teardown. The only option I saw without putting new holes in the roof of the RV was the automatic directional antennas but those are $400 with horrible reviews for durability. This solution cost me about $70 for the antenna, amp and 50' RG6 quad shield. One plus is it will be impossible to pull away without cranking down the antenna since the flagpole is mounted a foot from the hitch.