New Cable TV converter protocol

We went back to the same campground that had the same cable company last year as the previous year to spend the winter months.
Last year we had to use the cable box. What had changed is what Dutch_12078 posted.

DSDP Don wrote:
"wildtoad"......the boxes are a cheap fix by the campground.....it's not the cable companies fault. They can easily send a digital signal. In this day and age, there are numerous systems that can be installed to provide cable or OTA TV without a box.

Could you give an example of these numerous systems that will deal with a digitally encrypted signal???

BTW the park where I winter gives a box with each site and their way of assuring they get it back is to make you provide a credit card. If you want to keep the box, they just cridit your account. As for the need to run wires through the window, It shouldn't be necessary. You just hook up like you normally do and connect the box between the incoming line and the TV. If you have more than one TV, it is required that you go and get one from the cable provider. They don't charge for the box, but like the park they make you provide a cc. Not an ideal situation if just staying a night or two, but not bad if staying a couple months or more. The upside is that ppv is now available.

Right, the problem is not KOA's. The cable companies are using proprietary encryption protocols to manage their subscribers viewing options. Some cable companies do offer a 'head end' setup where all the decryption is done up front, and an analog signal for the allowed channels is fed to the campsites. It's an expensive setup though, and I don't know what financial arrangements the cable companies that supply head end systems are offering the campgrounds.

"wildtoad"......the boxes are a cheap fix by the campground.....it's not the cable companies fault. They can easily send a digital signal. In this day and age, there are numerous systems that can be installed to provide cable or OTA TV without a box. This KOA probably couldn't afford the upgrade.

I like and use KOA's and in this instance I am blaming the KOA. It was old and in need of repair/upgrades. It will simply go on our list of campgrounds we won't use again.

I'm not sure its fair to blame the KOA for a situation the cable company created. The cable systems are moving to a setup where everyone will need a box of some sort to receive anything. The best a CG can do is to provide a bunch of loaner boxes and hope they get them back. Recently my golf course which had about 10 TV's being driven by basic cable had to get 10 boxes from the provider just to continue to get the golf channel. PIA to say the least. They didn't work real well so they switched to sat which of course resulted in 10 different boxes.

I hope at some point we can buy "Cable Ready" TV's once again where the conversion is done in the TV.

I've only run into the proprietary converter issue a couple of times so far, but when I was wiring up the sat system in our then new to us Landau, I added two short lengths of coax connected with a double 'F' connector to the TV RF feed, with the connector "loop" available in an overhead cabinet near the OTA antenna power injector and switch. There was already a 110v outlet in the cabinet for DVR power, etc, so now hooking up a converter is a simple 5 minute job.

We ran into this for the first time at a KOA on the Oregon coast. It was a very wooded campground on a hillside where OTA and sat were not going to work.

They provided us with a baggie that contained a cable box, remote and a short piece of coax. To make the system work, you needed at least two 25' lengths of coax which they sold in the store. I carry extra coax and connections and after about 30 minutes of assembling the box, cables and routing it through a window, I got it to work.

This was really an archaic system and probably a cheap fix when the world went digital, not a new system of cable operation. We find most KOA's are nice and a few are terrible. This was probably the worse KOA we've visited. The owners were pleasant, but the park was old, the roads were narrow the sites were small. The exit out of the park at the end of their main loop was such a tight turn, uphill, that they didn't allow it and made you circle the park and come in against the entering traffic.