Forum Discussion
twvette
Oct 09, 2018Explorer
Another update: I messed with the antenna's with no luck. Did a bit more research and went off on my own and purchased a larger 18in high gain antenna to try. Did not see an obvious signal difference in the park so figured it would not help much if any. My rig is just too big, too many walls, too much aluminum, etc. for the signal to not be blocked it seems.
I am hell bent on figuring this out and making this work, so next step was to buy some SMA cable and adapters so I could run the 18in high gain antenna to the roof. I ran the cable under the vinyl trim pieces that keeps water from coming in which worked well and fairly easy to do. Just used some silicone where it jumped from one trim piece to another to hold it in place/seal in the corners, etc. and worked my way to the trim piece up near the roof. I then secured the antenna to the top of my ladder handles temporarily for testing that are up on the roof in the drivers side corner but it is still at the back of the roof. This worked better in that had signal at speed but still had signal loss many times going down the road. If I came to an open area (no hills, trees, or guardrail next to road) is when it would loose signal as nothing for the signal to bounce off of and thus could easily tell the truck is basically in a dead zone without some reflection when moving at speed. It was very easy to tell this and repeatable. So, I have ordered some more SMA cable and gonna get the antenna all the way to the front up on the roof and I am very confident this will finally work to not get signal drop out. My only real concern is I will then have about 55ft of SMA cable and not sure how much signal loss there will be across this long of a cable and the multiple connectors it will have to make it this long of a run. Assuming this works, sure would be nice if manufacturers just ran a wire to put the antenna up front if going to offer cameras on long 5th wheel rigs.
I am hell bent on figuring this out and making this work, so next step was to buy some SMA cable and adapters so I could run the 18in high gain antenna to the roof. I ran the cable under the vinyl trim pieces that keeps water from coming in which worked well and fairly easy to do. Just used some silicone where it jumped from one trim piece to another to hold it in place/seal in the corners, etc. and worked my way to the trim piece up near the roof. I then secured the antenna to the top of my ladder handles temporarily for testing that are up on the roof in the drivers side corner but it is still at the back of the roof. This worked better in that had signal at speed but still had signal loss many times going down the road. If I came to an open area (no hills, trees, or guardrail next to road) is when it would loose signal as nothing for the signal to bounce off of and thus could easily tell the truck is basically in a dead zone without some reflection when moving at speed. It was very easy to tell this and repeatable. So, I have ordered some more SMA cable and gonna get the antenna all the way to the front up on the roof and I am very confident this will finally work to not get signal drop out. My only real concern is I will then have about 55ft of SMA cable and not sure how much signal loss there will be across this long of a cable and the multiple connectors it will have to make it this long of a run. Assuming this works, sure would be nice if manufacturers just ran a wire to put the antenna up front if going to offer cameras on long 5th wheel rigs.
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