Problems with TV satellite/cable connections on RV

What does the one that is marked bedroom satellite for? We have a new Big Country. This is our second time out with it. We are attempting to set up our Directv Dish Satellite to the livingroom television. It seems that it is connected correctly from dish to satellite connection on the outside of RV but tuner/receiver is getting no signal. We have set all the azimuths, etc. correctly. Don't know if there is a wiring problem inside the RV or what. We have camped for several years at this park, using the same hook system as we are currently using on our old RV. Never had this problem. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to correct the problem? We are up near the border of Canada and aren't even getting any good digital signals from the RV antenna. Help.//heartlandowners.org/images/icons/icon5.gif//heartlandowners.org/images/icons/icon9.gifWe have studied the outside connections on the RV, now, and assuming that they are labeled correctly, we now know what they are for. We just don't know if the labels are correct or if the inside wire is good.
 

TXBobcat

Fulltime
I don't know how your Big Country is wired, however it might have been similar to my Bighorn.

From the UDC the cable connection goes to the bedroom and connects to the booster. The outdoor TV antenna also goes to the booster. A cable from the booster goes to the bedroom TV and one to the entertainment center in the living room. One Satellite connection goes to the roof in the bedroom and coils up in the ceiling to be used by a roof mounted Satellite antenna. Another Satellite connection from the UDC goes to the entertainment center in the living room. A cable marked satellite from the entertainment center goes to the bedroom. This is to send the output from the satellite receiver to the bed room. The output on the receiver, (3 cables - Yellow, Red, White) is where the cable from the TV is connected.

With the help of TerryH I found the cable from the entertainment center to the bedroom. We cut it in the basement and placed connectors on the ends. I connected the section to the entertainment center, to the connector in the UDC that goes to the Satellite cable coiled in the bedroom ceiling. This gives me two cables for Directv Satellite to the living room. I took the cable from the bedroom and connected it to a new connector that I installed in the UDC. This gives me a Satellite Dish connection to the receiver in the bedroom.

This allows me to view the Satellite in the bedroom on it's own receiver and have two cables to the entertainment center in the living room so I can run a DVR. I put a voltage controlled multiswitch in line so I could connect the two LNB cables to three receiver connections, 1 in bedroom and 2 to the DVR in the Livingroom.

Here are some photos of what I use.
DSC_0884 [800x600]..JPG DSC_0887 [800x600]..JPG DSC_0888 Voltage C&.jpg

One thing you can do to check out your cables and their connections is to connect the cable to a CD player. Play a movie on the player and connect a TV to the connectors and see if you get a signal. One thing, push the button on the booster in the bedroom and turn it off. This will let the signal from the CD player to be seen from any input, Satellites & Cable in the UDC and Satellite in the entertainment center.

Hope this is helpful.
BC
 

Ray LeTourneau

Senior Member - Past Moderator
patandbob, first make sure your dish is set correctly by running the coax from the dish directly to the receiver through a window. Once you know for sure you have the dish set and have a good signal, move the dish coax to the UDC connection. I don't know the layout of the newer rigs and as TXBobcat mentioned, things have changed since our rigs were made. I'm sure a member with a newer Big Country will see this and offer more current info. Good Luck.
 

Cimriver

Well-known member
Can't say for sure what your issue is, but this seems to be coming a recurring theme. I also can't get a connection from the satellite connection in the UDC to the Living Room television. Examining the back side of the connectors in the UDC and the outlets in the Living Room and Bedroom, I discovered some really poorly done cable terminations. First the crimp connectors and crimping tools are of a poor quality. I replaced these with compression connectors. I think I am going to have to dig a little deeper under the underbelly where the cabling goes into the slide. Another owner on here tells me he found a bad connection where the cable is spliced going into the slide. You might want to pull off those connector plates to see how the terminations look on the back side.

Also on our Elkridge, there is not a cable run to the satellite connection in the bedroom. I have been told by Heartland Customer Service that this is not installed on the Elkridge. I found this quite interesting since there is a connector labeled Satellite in the bedroom.
 

shriver63

Active Member
Also on our Elkridge, there is not a cable run to the satellite connection in the bedroom. I have been told by Heartland Customer Service that this is not installed on the Elkridge. I found this quite interesting since there is a connector labeled Satellite in the bedroom.

I got the same thing on my 2011 Cyclone 3850. I guess the factory thought us Cyclone owners were too slow for satellite TV too
 

rvn4fun

Well-known member
On our Big Country we had some trouble getting the signal to our back tv because of bad connections. We just hooked up to the sattelite connection that said living room, another problem was getting a signal to the front bedroom from our Dish dvr. After trying every thing we finally just ran a seperate cable from the DVR inside stuck under the front kitchen slide down thru the furnance vent into the basemeant and hooked into the bedroom cable, this finally gave us a signal up to the front tv. When we leave camp we unhook from the back of the dvr and roll up the cable before we bring the slide in. Different club members gave us good advice on how to back feed the cable ect, but we were unable to get anything to work. And yes we found some really poor cable connections, in fact we ended up taking the tv off of the wall and replacing the cable going to the tv, after a week of trying to get the tv to work on sattelite. When we finally wired direct, cable thru the door, still no connection, took tv off the wall and cable fell out of connector. Very poor connections all thru system, guess it was a new hire that did it.
 

gratton

Active Member
I to had problems with connections with my new Big Country unit. Worked fine from the UDC to the bedroom but did not work to the entertainment center. The first couple of shakedown trips I ran the coax thru the slide. The problem turned out to be a bad connection at the UDC. Resolved that and working fine now.
 

Aristakat

Member
This seems like same problem I had this weekend , guess I will look at connections.. After all said and done I realized I should of ran direct to receiver box to check udc connections. My neighbor at the camp ground set his up perfectly so he came over to lend help on ours we never found siginal and my sat finder seemed to pulsate on and off so I now think maybe this met a bad connections causing finder to get low volts and pulsate...

Patandbobcuddy (did you'll find problem ?)
 

Aristakat

Member
weird deal got home checked dish at home and worked directly to receiver once got it dialed in I switched to udc to make sure it worked thru 5th wheel.. All worked so it was just a bad siginal I am learning the sat finder I bought was NOT very useful seems like receiver does same thing using siginal metere...
 

SmokeyBare

Well-known member
Most low cost Satellite finders can not tell you which Satellite it's taking the signal from. The one I have cost around $15.00 from EBay. It has a tiny red light inside that tells me I am getting power from the Receiver, a analog needle that indicates the strength of the Satellite Signal and a audible sound (which I hardly can hear) that changes with a higher signal from the Satellite.

There are far more costly meters on the market that will tell you which Satellite your aimed at...

I use both the Meter and the sound from the receiver's own signal meter when I aim the dish. By opening a window close to the dish. We often use a pair of portable radios to communicate when setting up our dish.
 

Aristakat

Member
Your finder sounds exactly what I have all same functions





Most low cost Satellite finders can not tell you which Satellite it's taking the signal from. The one I have cost around $15.00 from EBay. It has a tiny red light inside that tells me I am getting power from the Receiver, a analog needle that indicates the strength of the Satellite Signal and a audible sound (which I hardly can hear) that changes with a higher signal from the Satellite.

There are far more costly meters on the market that will tell you which Satellite your aimed at...

I use both the Meter and the sound from the receiver's own signal meter when I aim the dish. By opening a window close to the dish. We often use a pair of portable radios to communicate when setting up our dish.
 

leezimmer

Member
We just bought a new Big Country no tv from or dish or RV antenna. I did run my dish cable through a window and it worked. I am sad that we put big money out and things like this don't work.
 

cookie

Administrator
Staff member
Leezimmer, don't be sad. Many people have had problems getting their signal. Some times it is just a matter of getting things hooked up correctly or as simple as turning on the antenna signal amplifier.
Please provide us with some more information. Like which TV do you have and what year is your Big Country. What connections do you have at the UDC?

Peace
Dave
 

Aristakat

Member
my previous problem with finding a siginal was either a bad dish setup on my part or not connectted fully because when I got home and got tilt and angle right I was able to get a siginal connectted thru the UDC....
 

ken.webb

Member
In my 2011 Big Horn 3185RL I found a number of things wrong with the satellite cabling. First, the factory used the wrong kind of crimper for the connectors. The cables for the satellite are RG-6 and are double shielded and bigger in diameter than the regular TV coaxial cables so every one of the cables was squashed and can be easily pulled or fall off and one had the shielding shorted out to the center conductor. Second, the outside connection for satellite has two connector plates with two connectors each for bedroom and living room and the lables were reversed. On the back of the plates there are four cables connected and I traced them down into the wiring bundle but only one comes up through the floor for the living and one for bedroom. In order to use my dual receiver DVR, I drilled a hole in the side of the slide-out, installed a dual connector plate and ran two cables through the cabinet inside to my receiver. Last, I replaced RCA jacks to the TV with HDMI and an optical cable to the audio tuner/amp. Side note: The satellite does not go through the amp that the TV antenna is connected to.
 

aquiring signal

Well-known member
In my 2011 Big Horn 3185RL I found a number of things wrong with the satellite cabling....the outside connection for satellite has two connector plates with two connectors each for bedroom and living room and the lables were reversed.....

I just spent 2 hours troubleshooting & learned that my satellite connections were also mis-marked. I'm aggravated, but looking on the bright side - this forum is awesome. I don't know that I would have thought to check for them being labeled incorrectly had I not read this. Thanks to all the contributors here. And Heartland - please do a better job of checking this out before delivery. It could save your customers hours of angst & frustration.
 

robnmo

Well-known member
Well I'm glad I'm not the only one dealing with figuring out hookups. AFter 2 days/dropping the belly pan/pulling coax from the cargo hold to the garage/adding a splitter, I got satellite to the garage, and living room (which the living room one actually worked), and still leaving the hookup in the cargo area. Now the bedroom is a different story, still haven't got that one working OR figured out yet, I'm thinking a 19" tv with a DVD player, and fooey on the satellite but we'll see what this week brings.
 

danemayer

Well-known member

This link
is to the owner's manual section on this site, specifically to the diagram of the coax wiring in the Big Country. It looks like the satellite connection in the UDC feeds the living room; no connection for the bedroom. The reason there are 2 connectors is that one goes to the living room, the other to the roof. If you install a satellite dish on the roof, you jumper the 2 connectors in the UDC to feed your rooftop satellite signal to the living room. The left connector of the pair probably goes to the living room and the right one to the roof, but maybe not. If they are labeled wrong, you can relabel or switch the connections on the backside of the UDC to get things matched. Of course if your connectors are crimped poorly, or you're pointing at the wrong satellite, none of this will be helpful.

There are also diagrams posted for Bighorn and Landmark, and some other lines.
 

skpartner

Member
We just recently purchased a new Cyclone 3950 and trying to get ready to go full time rving. Have tried to set up the satelite but no success yet.
Cannot find the diagram mentioned in the forum for the cable and satelite tv connections. Would really apprecaite some help.
 
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