FlyerChief
Active Member
Brought our new Bighorn home on Saturday. Got everything loaded up for our first trip over the 4th of July weekend. Hooked up the portable dish to the connection in the UDC.....nothing. Ran the cable from the dish directly to the receiver and everything worked....hmmmm. Where to go? How about a search here on the forum?
Did you know that if you do a search for Satellite on the forum, there are 751 threads? Yes, I looked at most of them. Sorry I can't remember the specific posts that helped, but here's what I found. I suspect it will help others.
I hooked the received up to the satellite connection behind the TV. That put a signal down the coax. I took my trusty Radio Shack satellite meter outside and tested each of the connections in the UDC. If one of them was hooked up to the inside, my meter would light up and beep. Nothing. Having read about the history of bad crimp connections, I pulled the connections out for the LR satellite. Tried jiggling the coax as it went into the F connectors on the back of the wall unit.....and the coax fell right out of the male connector! The wire mesh had been jammed down inside the coax jacket and wasn't making any contact with the outside of the connector and the crimp looked like it had been done with a pair of pliers instead of a true crimping tool. A quick trip to Radio Shack to pick up some good quality compression connectors, a stripping tool, and a compression tool....10 minutes work....and I had a good, solid, tight connection. Plugged it into my satellite meter and I had a bright light and a loud steady tone! A beautiful thing!
Yes, I know I could have taken it back to the dealer and had them troubleshoot the problem, but that would have been a giant pain. Turned out to be a simple fix. Thanks to all who have gone before me on this problem and who came here and posted how you troubleshot it and how you fixed it.
Now.....wonder how I could have found this during the PDI? We tested the antenna and cable, but didn't have a sat connection. Short of carrying a tone generator around, I'm not sure how I could have picked this up earlier.
As others have posted, this is a factory assembly problem. You would think it would be pretty easy for them to test these connections after they are installed. This wasn't even close to working....it would have been obvious. Given the number of posts on this subject, it sounds like this is something the factory should resolve.
Thanks, again, for all the help!
Did you know that if you do a search for Satellite on the forum, there are 751 threads? Yes, I looked at most of them. Sorry I can't remember the specific posts that helped, but here's what I found. I suspect it will help others.
I hooked the received up to the satellite connection behind the TV. That put a signal down the coax. I took my trusty Radio Shack satellite meter outside and tested each of the connections in the UDC. If one of them was hooked up to the inside, my meter would light up and beep. Nothing. Having read about the history of bad crimp connections, I pulled the connections out for the LR satellite. Tried jiggling the coax as it went into the F connectors on the back of the wall unit.....and the coax fell right out of the male connector! The wire mesh had been jammed down inside the coax jacket and wasn't making any contact with the outside of the connector and the crimp looked like it had been done with a pair of pliers instead of a true crimping tool. A quick trip to Radio Shack to pick up some good quality compression connectors, a stripping tool, and a compression tool....10 minutes work....and I had a good, solid, tight connection. Plugged it into my satellite meter and I had a bright light and a loud steady tone! A beautiful thing!
Yes, I know I could have taken it back to the dealer and had them troubleshoot the problem, but that would have been a giant pain. Turned out to be a simple fix. Thanks to all who have gone before me on this problem and who came here and posted how you troubleshot it and how you fixed it.
Now.....wonder how I could have found this during the PDI? We tested the antenna and cable, but didn't have a sat connection. Short of carrying a tone generator around, I'm not sure how I could have picked this up earlier.
As others have posted, this is a factory assembly problem. You would think it would be pretty easy for them to test these connections after they are installed. This wasn't even close to working....it would have been obvious. Given the number of posts on this subject, it sounds like this is something the factory should resolve.
Thanks, again, for all the help!
