Forum Discussion

tstryk's avatar
tstryk
Explorer
Aug 12, 2015

Coax nightmare

After a fridge fire, the insurance company contracted ServPro to clean the coach. They did a great job cleaning, but putting things back is another matter. They removed the switch box, the satellite boxes, and the home theater system. They cleaned it and returned it, leaving me to hook it all back up. They labeled NOTHING when they removed it and any markings that were on the wires was cleaned off. Anyone know an easy way to trace the coax to see what wires go where? Any help would be appreciated!
  • You can go to Loews or Home Depot to get a coax toner. My coach was labeled and wired wrong from Winnebago. had to trace the coax to get it to work.
  • You have all the equipment needed to test right there. You have signal sources: the antenna, VCR, DVD, etc., and your destination monitors: all the TV's. Start touching pieces of coax together (or use an F barrel) and it should go fairly fast. The only trick is finding the antenna if the switch box is also the power source, but that HD tester won't tell you that either.
  • If your system is like ours in our 2004 DP, we would not even attempt to reconnect the wires! I would find someone who specializes in RV Satellite and electronics. We had some work done on ours at Sats2Go in Houston TX and when he disconnected everything we could not believe it!! No way could we have figured it out. It depends on how many TV's you have, if you have surround sound, if you have over air antenna or not, converter boxes or not, how many receivers you have, do you have splitters or not. Does your satellite feed come from the rooftop or the bay? Do you have DVD player? etc.
  • wa8yxm's avatar
    wa8yxm
    Explorer III
    Many of the cables do not go far and thus you should be able to trace

    TV's Tune TV's to channel 3.0 Touch the center wire with finger.. You will know when you find the right wire.

    Antennas.. Are a bit tougher however.. I could help you live if you were parked near me but that's the only way

    Harbor Freight has,I'm told, a cable sorter,, You hook the colored "end cap" on the cable, then hook the cable to the tester which says "Red Cable" or "Blue Cable" and it's that simple. A toner is useful too, Hook the transmitter on one end adn the one that splits your ears is the other end of the same cable.
  • I found the tone generator one online at Home Depot - will get it tomorrow. I think if I can just figure out which are the TV cables (3), I can trial and error the antenna, cable, and satellite ones. This is too much thinking for a retired guy. Thanks for the ideas!
  • trial and error might be fine. How many tv's do you have? do you have a rooftop satellite or just
    cable and external sat hookups? Be patient and you'll figure it out.
  • They make gizmos for doing that but I usually jump the center wire to the sheath on one end then go around with an ohm meter looking for the other.
  • Search on Amazon for a Coax Toner you should be able to find something cheap online in the $20-40 range. You use it by connecting a small tone generator end on one end of the cable ie. outside the rig, than using the wand end to search for it ie. in the entertainment console area. When you find the cable you are looking for the wand will beep.