Portable Direct TV slimline 5 HD hookup

fiverdude

Member
My wife and I just purchased a 2013 3450 Big Country fifth wheel. Great rig. I have 2 cables coming in from my Slimline 5 HD dish and only 1 coming into the living room. I have tried a splitter and even running one through the cable tv hookup line. My receiver requires 2 lines. I am currently running the 2 receiver cables from the satellite through the window. Working fine!! Getting ready to hit the road soon. Help !!!
 

danemayer

Well-known member
Hi fiverdude,

First of all, congratulations on your new Big Country and welcome to the Heartland Owners Forum. There's lots of great information here along with a great bunch of friendly and helpful people.

Satellite signals won't usually pass through cable splitters and definitely won't get through the signal booster that's on the cable TV hookup line.

If you're running both cables through the window now, I'm guessing that you're having trouble with getting the existing satellite line to the entertainment center to work, and you need a 2nd line. Let's talk about the existing line first. Here's a link to the BC COAX layout in the TOOLS/HOM OWNERS MANUAL section of the forum. If I have the correct diagram, you have 4 satellite connectors in the UDC. 2 go to pre-wiring in the roof for a rooftop dish. The other two go to the living room and bedroom. If you've tried the one marked Living Room and it doesn't work, you should try each of the others. The factory could have gotten the wires or labels swapped. If you leave one cable going through the window, you should be able to tell when you hit the live connection. It's also possible the label in the living room could be wrong.

Another possible problem is a bad crimp on one of the connectors. Check for loose connectors and for shield wires touching the center conductor. If you don't feel like dealing with this, you might wait until you take the rig in for service and have the dealer fix the coax connections.

To get the 2nd line, you have several options. It's clumsy, but flat COAX cables are widely available now. They are intended to go through windows. A 2nd choice is to add additional cable, running from the UDC, down to the frame, and back to your entertainment center.

A 3rd, and probably the best choice is to change your receiver and LNB to Single Wire Module (SWM). Your receiver may be enabled for SWM (you can check the menu on dish types to find out). A Directv servicer/installer might be willing to give you a SWM LNB upgrade to replace your existing multiswitch LNB, or you can buy a kit on Ebay. You need the LNB, a power supply, and a SWM splitter. SWM requires only 1 wire to the receiver, which then acts like the old 2 wire arrangement. Both tuners work from the single wire. Of course if your receiver isn't SWM capable, you'd have to get a new receiver to do this. If you've been a customer for a while, Directv might even give you new equipment.

Good luck.
 

cookie

Administrator
Staff member
One option that Dan did not mention is to run an additional coax from the UDC back to the entertainment center.
Behind the UDC I removed the coax that runs to the roof and connected one end of the added coax there.
I then removed the screws that on one side of the under belly material to gain access.
Then fished the coax back to the slide area and followed the current coax to the entertainment center.
Works great with my DVR and took me a couple of hours to do the job.

Peace
Dave
 

fiverdude

Member
Thank You for your replies. My HD satellite receiver has to inputs and one is for my DVR. It seems that I will have to run another line since there is only one Satellite line to the living room. I really don't like to tear (bad word ?) into a new rig. Thanks again!!
 

Ray LeTourneau

Senior Member - Past Moderator
Thank You for your replies. My HD satellite receiver has to inputs and one is for my DVR. It seems that I will have to run another line since there is only one Satellite line to the living room. I really don't like to tear (bad word ?) into a new rig. Thanks again!!
fiverdude, I have the slimline with 2 separate coax cables to the receiver. The easiest route for me was to put a wall plate on the side of the entertainment slide out. It's a small square RV style plate and it has a waterproof boot on the connectors. Inside the entertainment compartment for the DVR, I used 2 short cables to connect to the DVR. As of right now I don't use the SWM technology because I only have the one receiver so I'm stuck using 2 coax cables for the DVR. This was the easiest way for me. When the slide is retracted, the plate fits smoothly past the seals and has not caused any problems in the 3 years I've used this set up. I'll try to get a picture posted later. if you're interested.
 

2psnapod2

Texas-South Chapter Leaders-Retired
I have the SWM HD DVR and it runs on only one wire. I would contact the sat company and just have your equipment upgraded. That way you have the best equipment and you will not have to add anything to your coach, which can sometimes be very problematic.
 
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