2011 3850 Satellite Hookups?????

shriver63

Active Member
I have 2011 3850 Cyclone which is labeled backwards according to the sticker on the underside of the baggage door. There is two sat hookups. Would one hopefully be a sat in to the receiver? Which area does that cable run to to set my Dish Network receiver. I really hate to run sat cable all over the RV when it could have been done right from the factory. I'm hoping to set the receiver and feed the camper through the sat hookups
 

shriver63

Active Member
Trying to put a Dish receiver in the front bedroom. The sat plug in the front bedroom is not hooked up to anything...@###. Does anybody know if it's possible to watch sat tv in this rig without getting the drill out?
 

DC10-FE

Member
I'm actually having the same problem with mine. The only difference is that I can't get anything to work from either connection. I plugged in a cable hook up and none of the tv's will receive a cable feed unless I plug it into the tv's directly. Same thing happens when I try my sat to the sat inputs. The coach is currently at the dealership having this and a few other items looked at. I'll update when I find out what was done to fix it.
 

shriver63

Active Member
I went with the drill hole method since no one on here knew anything, plus there is no coax wire hooked to the satellite terminal on the back of the outlets
 

ScubaSteve

Full Timer
It may be too late, but I found a solution without drilling and running new coax. You'll need a tester and a lot of patience.
 

DC10-FE

Member
I finally got my coach back after over a month in the shop. I don’t think it took the factory this long to build it. That’s another story I just won’t get into right now. One of the issues I had them address, as I stated on an earlier post, was the cable/sat connections at the UDC, when connected to an external cable or satellite, will not feed the internal connections.

The work order stated as follows;
Problem: Customer states the cable and sat. connections do not work when connected at the UDC. Connections work when hooked directly to a receiver or TV.
Cause: Found 5 crimp connections bad/loose from factory production.
Repair: 5 crimp connections repaired.

Sounds viable, at least in theory, being the “trusting” soul that I am, I figured I'd give the connections a checkout with my home sat. hookup, I have Direct TV at home. You can see where this is going... Not a single connection worked.

I decided to do some trouble shooting on my own. As soon as I removed the wall to gain access to the UDC, there sits the splitter. I merely touched the splitter and both crimp connections disconnected from the splitter. The F-connectors remained attached to the splitter. I then went to the closest cable connection available which is on the opposite side of the basement for connecting a TV for outside viewing. I removed the cover plate and low and behold, 2 more crimp connections came off the cable and remained attached to the wall plate. I’m seeing a trend here.

I then went through my box of left over wires and cables I have in the garage and found a 15’ piece of RG-6 cable. For those who are not familiar with the different cables, RG-59 is a “standard” cable used for most home cable installations while RG-6 was designed specifically for satellite applications. Sometimes you can get RG-59 to work on a satellite system, but in my case, I’ve never been able to get it to work properly so I stick with RG-6. Once I connected that cable to the splitter at the UDC and ran it to the faceplate in the basement. VOILA! It worked as advertised!

I found another 10’ cable the Direct TV installers left behind and decided to run that from the living room entertainment center to the splitter. Once again, SUCCESS!! I now have 2 out of 3 working satellite connections in my coach. The third being in the bedroom, I’m just not ready to tear apart the roof for a connection I probably won’t use much if at all.

As far as the cable connection goes, I have yet to hook up to an external cable connection to verify that was in fact fixed. Based upon past performance from this dealership, I’m not holding my breath.

So, based upon my menial trouble shooting skills, I have determined the cable the factory installs for the sat/cable lines in their rigs is a very cheap quality that was probably designed primarily for strictly cable only setups. Since they most likely purchase their cable in bulk to cut costs, my guess is future Cyclone owners will be dealing with the same issues we are when it comes to sat/cable viewing. In the future, I think I will have a buddy of mine who installs cable for Comcast, make some lines with the proper crimping tools to prevent any more “loose crimp connections”.
 

jhchccc

Member
Well, everyone is right and wrong. My 3795 had to be completely re-wired by the Dish folks. Thank goodness, I got the top notch guy who spent all day installing my satellite cable. Turns out, Heartland wired the entire coach for cable and antennae use. They never intended the entire coach to be be wired and used for satellite. Furthermore, the coax splitters inside the walls will not conduct the satellite signal. We were able to get to some of the cable by pulling the walls off inside the storage area. From there, we were able to isolate the cables running into the front bedroom and the main living area. I ahd to open a small hole in the wall by the front door, to remove the factory installed splitters, then reroute the cable. I did the same thing in the loft. Bottom line, if you are going to use satellite only, you will have to re-wire the coach. You will not be able to use cable or the antennae after that, because all the wiring will be for satellite use. Good luck!! Too bad Heartland did not wire these rigs properly to begin with.
 

cookie

Administrator
Staff member
Bottom line, if you are going to use satellite only, you will have to re-wire the coach. You will not be able to use cable or the antennae after that, because all the wiring will be for satellite use. Good luck!! Too bad Heartland did not wire these rigs properly to begin with.
I rewired both of my Bighorns for satellite. Some was usable. I have two feeds in the living room and one in the bedroom. I do have full use of cable and over the air antenna. Me thinks if yours does not work then your top notch satellite guy......well never mind......as long as your happy.

Peace
Dave
 

Cimriver

Well-known member
We had the same "poor connections" issue with our Elkridge we purchased last April. I like the OP basically found that most if not all of the connections were faulty. I replaced all that I could find with a high quality compression type of connector. I have had zero problems since doing this.

It really seems like this is something that Heartland needs to address. Doesn't seem like it would be all that costly to just fix the issue.

It's also been my experience that the techs at most RV Dealers are totally clueless on how to diagnose/repair these types of cabling issues. My satellite system is portable and has to be setup for each use. The warranty repair shop I took it to said they were unable to diagnose the problem without a permanent satellite hookup. I ended up fixing it myself.
 

Jackal

Member
I just received my 2012 Cyclone 3800HD and went about hooking up a Wineguard Caarryout automatic dish it worked perfect wired directly to receiver. I wish I had found all of the reported issues here in the forums, I could have spent the 4 hours today rewiring my $60K RV with acceptable RG6 secured ends. Needless to say I had 8 loose F connectors 6 of which fell off before i could disconnect the end from the fittings. It would really be nice if Heartland would use some quality cabling for the AV system. Other than this issue I am very happy with my new toy hauler and cant wait to head for the smoky mountains in Tennessee for some much needed vacation.

Thanks to the many here who posted their experiences I would have wasted another day putting quality end on the factory run cables that wouldn't work right to begin with.

I finally got my coach back after over a month in the shop. I don’t think it took the factory this long to build it. That’s another story I just won’t get into right now. One of the issues I had them address, as I stated on an earlier post, was the cable/sat connections at the UDC, when connected to an external cable or satellite, will not feed the internal connections.

The work order stated as follows;
Problem: Customer states the cable and sat. connections do not work when connected at the UDC. Connections work when hooked directly to a receiver or TV.
Cause: Found 5 crimp connections bad/loose from factory production.
Repair: 5 crimp connections repaired.

Sounds viable, at least in theory, being the “trusting” soul that I am, I figured I'd give the connections a checkout with my home sat. hookup, I have Direct TV at home. You can see where this is going... Not a single connection worked.

I decided to do some trouble shooting on my own. As soon as I removed the wall to gain access to the UDC, there sits the splitter. I merely touched the splitter and both crimp connections disconnected from the splitter. The F-connectors remained attached to the splitter. I then went to the closest cable connection available which is on the opposite side of the basement for connecting a TV for outside viewing. I removed the cover plate and low and behold, 2 more crimp connections came off the cable and remained attached to the wall plate. I’m seeing a trend here.

I then went through my box of left over wires and cables I have in the garage and found a 15’ piece of RG-6 cable. For those who are not familiar with the different cables, RG-59 is a “standard” cable used for most home cable installations while RG-6 was designed specifically for satellite applications. Sometimes you can get RG-59 to work on a satellite system, but in my case, I’ve never been able to get it to work properly so I stick with RG-6. Once I connected that cable to the splitter at the UDC and ran it to the faceplate in the basement. VOILA! It worked as advertised!

I found another 10’ cable the Direct TV installers left behind and decided to run that from the living room entertainment center to the splitter. Once again, SUCCESS!! I now have 2 out of 3 working satellite connections in my coach. The third being in the bedroom, I’m just not ready to tear apart the roof for a connection I probably won’t use much if at all.

As far as the cable connection goes, I have yet to hook up to an external cable connection to verify that was in fact fixed. Based upon past performance from this dealership, I’m not holding my breath.

So, based upon my menial trouble shooting skills, I have determined the cable the factory installs for the sat/cable lines in their rigs is a very cheap quality that was probably designed primarily for strictly cable only setups. Since they most likely purchase their cable in bulk to cut costs, my guess is future Cyclone owners will be dealing with the same issues we are when it comes to sat/cable viewing. In the future, I think I will have a buddy of mine who installs cable for Comcast, make some lines with the proper crimping tools to prevent any more “loose crimp connections”.
 

CrazyCooter

Well-known member
I had similar findings with my 300C when I installed the Winegard Traveler last weekend. Everything was labeled poorly and almost every connector we touched fell off.

Luckily, my buddy is a satellite/cable installer and had all the good stuff to tone out the rats nest of cable and splitters.

Found cable in the attic that didn't have a connector on it and wasn't even hooked to anything.....it was supposed to feed cable signal to the bedroom.

Tired of rebuilding my new RV :(
 
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