Which outside cable plugs are for what use for cyclone 4250.

[drtieperman]

Hi, Im new to this site and new owner of a 2017 cyclone 4250. Ive had many motorhomes so not new to the rving.
I recently bought the winegaurd pathway G2 direct tv satellite and went to hook it up... To my surprise and unlike any other motorhome or rv. none of the outside cable plugs are Marked as to what goes to what.
There are 4 plugs in the fresh water area box that i presume is where the inputs would be. there are 2 more in the storage that i believe are for hooking up an outside tv.

1. which plugs do i need to use for the sattelite for inside the cyclone.
2. Is there any way easier to hookup the receiver inside the rv. especially on the main living tv. The cabinet with the dvd isnt deep enough to house the current houshold receiver i had.
3. Does each tv need their own receiver like in the house. the motorhomes had one receiver then a switch box.
any tricks or suggestions.

Im thinking of going to the Dish satellite as and just having the service as needed on the dish plan, I was also told dish is better at allowing more tvs to be used on it.

 

[jimtoo]

Hi drtieperman,

Welcome to the Heartland Owners Forum and to the family. We have a great bunch of folks here with lots of information and all willing to share their knowledge when needed.

I'm sure some of our other Cyclone owners will jump in soon with some help for you. Usually 2 of the connectors go to cable installed in the roof for installation of a satellite dish and the other two, one goes living room tv area the the other to the bedroom tv where you have the booster for your regular antenna. So if you install a dish on roof you use a jumper across the connectors.

Be sure and check out our Heartland Owners Club. Join us at a rally when you can and meet lots of the great folks here and make friends for a lifetime.

Enjoy the forum and your new unit.

Jim M

 

[drtieperman]

Im useing a portable satellite. There are 4 unmarked plugs outside, so just trying to figure out what the plugs go to.

 

[danemayer]

Im useing a portable satellite. There are 4 unmarked plugs outside, so just trying to figure out what the plugs go to.

Probably the same arrangement as on our Landmark, pictured below.

You may have a large diagram of the connections in the Universal Docking Center (UDC), either on the side wall of the UDC or on the inside of the cargo door.

 

[Jesstruckn/Jesstalkn]

Do you have this sticker in yours

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[drtieperman]

I have a sticker on the door but for some reason it doesn't come close to the setup on the rv. For the most part the sticker shows only 3 cable inputs and the rv has actually 4.
It is almost like heartland got in a hurry to produce the 4250 and just used stickers from another model to throw on and most of the manual pics and explanations don't match the actual 4250.

 

[drtieperman]

I utilized the sticker to hookup the portable satellite to the plug that says living, i could not get it to come on in the living tv. with the receiver connected properly to the tv.

1.NOt sure if the outside sattelite is suppose to connect to one of these or the dual plugs on the other side of the rv in the front storage underneath.
2. there are a couple of cable plugs behind the tv on the wall one is brass collored the other is the normal silver,, the 4250 books show nothing of what goes to what. and the cabinet that has the dvd player doesnt have a plug there to connect a sattelite. very frustrated for such horrible or no marking or labeling for such an expensive rv.
3. Does the Air antenna booster need to be OFF in order for sattelite feed to work thru the lines.

 

[JohnD]

I utilized the sticker to hookup the portable satellite to the plug that says living, i could not get it to come on in the living tv. with the receiver connected properly to the tv.

1.NOt sure if the outside sattelite is suppose to connect to one of these or the dual plugs on the other side of the rv in the front storage underneath.
2. there are a couple of cable plugs behind the tv on the wall one is brass collored the other is the normal silver,, the 4250 books show nothing of what goes to what. and the cabinet that has the dvd player doesnt have a plug there to connect a sattelite. very frustrated for such horrible or no marking or labeling for such an expensive rv.
3. Does the Air antenna booster need to be OFF in order for sattelite feed to work thru the lines.

I think the brass colored coax connector is probably the sat hookup and the silver most likely the cable/antenna connector.

However, in our Prowler the plug on the wall behind the TV in the livingroom was labeled backwards.

Rather than trying to peel of the label stickers from the wall I removed the whole plate and turned it upside down and remounted it.

And it is possible that the entire rig's coax lines are wired backwards as well . . . ours was and after a year and a half I finally got it to work right last month while camping.

Also, if you are hooked up to campground cable you will need to turn the antenna amplifier off or you won't get any signal.

 

[danemayer]

Satellite signals are not routed through the signal booster, so whether on or off is irrelevant. If you connect the satellite dish to the cable TV connector, the signal won't get through.

 

[JW4250]

I think I can help here. I also have a 4250 I got new about 4 mo ago. I also have Dish Network and the Winegard Pathway X2. When you open up the fold up storage door (Just to the right of the front entry door) you will see 2 coax connectors on the left wall. The top one (I thing it's the top) goes to the other coax connector on the wall behind your tv! Route your cable coming from your Pathway up through the hole in the floor of the storage door directly below the 2 coax cable connectors there. Mine works fine. I replaced the crappy RCA blueray player with a Harmon Kardon ARV 1710 http://www.crutchfield.com/S-5EKCW25SeEh/p_532AVR1710/Harman-Kardon-AVR-1710.html
(It's a 7.2 surround sound but you can get the 1510 if you only need 5.1). it's the smallest unit you're going to find to fit in the small space! I put my Dish VIP 211 receiver on top of it. You will have to cut a hole in the back of the cabinet for the wiring to hand out into the bathroom lower cabinet area but you can't see it with the cabinet door closed. I blew the cheap factory speakers right away and replaced them with these speaker that are the same size but rated to handle 120 watts.
http://www.parts-express.com/pure-a...eaker-with-bracket--303-522#lblProductDetails
I had to remove the wooden strip inside the upper speaker area that's behind the cloth mesh for the speakers to fit. I siliconed some of the speaker in that area since my drill couldn't get into that small area. I also had to drill a 1" hole through the wall that separates the receiver area from the control panel area. There is an outlet in the control area and I put a 3 way plug on it to plug in my other pieces of equipment. My Pathway will support 2 receivers and I have 2 VIP 211's. So looks like you will only be able to operate 2 TV's BUT, my Harman Kardon 1710 had 2 HDMI outputs on the back and I'm going to find a way to run the 2nd HDMI cable to the TV in my bedroom. So that will take care of 3 of the TVs. Since I already have Dish network at my house, it's only $7 per reciver/mo to activate them. Dish has the Pay As You Go so you can only activate the receivers when you want. I only go to my RV one weekend a month over the weekend so I call on the way down there on Fri and call again on Sunday to turn it off. It's only 30 cents per day if you do it like this. Hope all this helps! I'm working on adding another breaker so I can run all 3 a/c units next. Thx, Jay

 

[Rookie17]

I just went through this on my new 4150 this weekend, and traced everything by using the HD antennae and a spare 50ft coax cable as a signal check. It's quite likely they are the same layout.

In that cabinet with the water hookups and four coax outlets, here is what I found:

Step A:
Far left connector (when looking in the compartment): CATV connection for cable TV at an RV park hook up. The coax cable behind the panel is colored orange.
2nd from left connector: Grey colored coax cable - I am using this one to feed satellite signal from a ground mounted (not roof installed) Direct TV dish to feed the signal into the camper.
3rd from left: Black coax cable that does not seem to connect to anything inside the camper, I believe it likely goes to the roof as a feed for a roof mounted dish or dome - presumably the other end would be under the HD antennae plate? If that is the case, and it were to be used and hooked up as intended, I expect a jumper coax would be used from this outlet in the water compartment box to either the 2nd from left connector (grey coax) or possibly to the 4th from left connector (black coax below). But that is an assumption at this point.
4th from left: Black coax cable and the label says "feed to TV one". Thanks to the wonderful Heartland labeling, I have no idea which is "TV one" but it doesn't seem to be connected to any coax ports in the camper. Perhaps it is supposed to be. Perhaps it is for an outside television. However I am reasonably sure it is a dead line unless a roof mount dish is installed. I didn't bother to chase it much as I had already found what I needed for my intended purposes (ground mounted dish).

Step B:
In the belly storage compartment on the other side of the camper (side door side) there are two coax outlets. Removing the cover shows one black coax cable and one grey coax cable (remove the cover to see which is which). The black cable port is on the same circuit at the HD over the air antennae on the roof. The grey coax cable is on the same circuit as all other grey coax cables in the camper (2nd from left connector stated above in the water compartment box).

Step C:
My 4150 has an outside TV under a door in the side of the camper up by the pin hitch. If yours does too, or is wired for one, removing the coax cover and following the same process as in Step B will result in you defining which coax outlet is on the grey cable circuit (I am using for satellite) and which coax outlet is on the black cable circuit for the HD over the air antennae.

Step D:
Removing the coax covers in the main living area by the couch will also show which coax outlets are on the black cable circuit for the roof mounted over the air HD antennae, and which coax outlets are on the grey coax cable circuit. In my unit, I have one black cable circuit for over the air antennae and two grey cable circuits in that area.

I didn't bother to remove the remaining coax covers in the main bedroom or toy hauler area, as by this time I had defined that one coax outlet will be on a black cable and the second will be on a grey cable in those areas. So for me, one for over the air HD antennae and the other for the Direct TV dish. So if I am getting the wrong signal source I will simply swap the cable to the other coax in those areas and label them at that time.

I used a label maker and labelled each coax outlet as "SAT" or "ANT" respectively so I never have to pull those covers off again.

Hope this helps anyone else going through the same fun and games.

- - - Updated - - -

One last thing... I have AT&T U-verse at the house but had one Direct TV receiver still operating for my outside hobby shop / camper storage shop.

I called Direct TV and told the retention dept that I was going to shut off my Direct TV account and go to Dish so I could use the pay as you go plan Dish has for my camper.

Direct TV has the same plan, they just don't advertise it. So they knocked $45 / month off my bill (due to limited camper use) and allowed me to use their pay as you go plan. Sounds like it isn't common knowledge that Direct TV offers a similar pay as you go plan, although it is by calendar month. I'm not sure if Dish is by month or calculated by the day(s) turned on.

 

[Rookie17]

Just confirming that all the above is 100% correct and that I have it all working as described now with Direct TV.

As a side note, with the cabinet under the TV for the Direct TV receiver being so small, any regular Direct TV HD-DVR receiver will not fit in that space. If you own one of these 4000 series Cyclones you will need to specifically request a HR24 receiver from Direct TV.
Standard definition receivers like the D11 or D12 fit fine, but the only HD-DVR option I found that will fit is the HR24.

I also mounted the SWM (single wire multi-switch) box in the water compartment, as that way the SWM box could be connected permanently to the second from left coax port feeding the entire camper (grey coax cables). So when I connect to the outside portable dish, I connect to the incoming port on the SWM box through the opening in the bottom of the water compartment.

Hopefully this info saves someone else from having all the fun I had.

 

[JW4250]

And do you have a clearer photo of this diagram? I cannot make out what the wording says on the far right and towards the bottom. I need this. Thx again.

Do you have this sticker in yours

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[Jesstruckn/Jesstalkn]

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