Our Class C does not have an antenna, only a cable tv port. We have never taken a tv with us. But, I was wondering how are campgrounds handling the digital signal switch. Can I just plug in an old analog tv into the campground system, or do I need a digital tv or worse yet a converter box?Regards,MrBHamilton

I havent been out this year yet but all I ever saw prior was the ANALOG signals coming from the camp ground cable connection.You might want to check before going.You can pick up a cheap digital TV converter box from WALMART for around $20 which will convert the digital TV signals back to "UGH" analog...If you are close to towns a rabbit ear portable antenna sitting on top of your trailer works out pretty good. I have done this on many trips in my POPUP trailer before I got a TV POLE mounted on the side of the trailer. Now I got a BATWING antenna on the pole which works great.You can see my side mounted antenna pole here with the bat wing antenna on it...Hard to imagine a RV trailer does not have a roof type antenna. Though they were pretty common on all RVs...Roy Ken

We've been to a few campgrounds that have both analog and digital, but most seem to be analog. More seem to be going to digital though.

Our old TV has worked just fine while hooked up to cable and not using our converter box, which we use with the antenie.

The analog/digital changeover that effected how TV signals are received referred to over the air broadcasting. If you have an older, purely analog television, you will need a converter box to receive and process the signal from your rig's antenna. Cable TV is different and the signals can be received and processed by all current televisions, whether that signal is an analog or a digital signal. What you won't find a lot of in RV park cable systems are HD signals, so your television will be receiving and displaying in SD. Many major cable companies are now changing over to scrambled digital signals, so converter boxes from the cable company may become necessary at some parks. Our parks use a private cable TV system, we buy the feeds from Directv and have our own combiner, amplifier and headend units. We are only able to broadcast SD, but we will not need to provide individual converter boxes to each rig. Just set your television mode to cable, be sure you are connected to the cable feed and run channel search, it will find the channels and you will be good to go.

Camps providing cable through a satellite provider ( like ours from Dish) are most likely analog. The equipment to provide HD cable from a satellite is prohibitivly expensive and prone to failure. Camps with a cable provider might be either, if the provider has the bandwidth, if the camp has the cable infrastructure, and the budget to pay for HD. Our subscription to Dish for 25 channels ala carte for 84 sites & cabins costs $484/ mo. We own and maintain the recievers, modulators, boosters, cable- everything. Even the climate controlled building to house the recievers. Cost to put it in topped 20k and almost daily we are asked to come to a site with a tv to prove it works. Sorry sir, the problem is in your RV. Did you turn off your antenna booster? Have you configured your tv to cable standard? Is your selector switch set for cable tv 1? We do not charge extra for cable or raise rates for it, but did factor in that it could fill sites, and set us apart from nearby camps with no cable. We are in an area with no air channels. That assumption is working, but is it worth the hassle & expense? It will take a long long time to recoup the investment. If our IP provider could provide enough bandwidth to allow video streaming we would not have put in catv.

Campground Cable digital or analog | Good Sam Community

13 Replies

korbe
Explorer
Jul 31, 2013
Our old TV has worked just fine while hooked up to cable and not using our converter box, which we use with the antenie.
fj12ryder
Explorer III
Jul 31, 2013
We've been to a few campgrounds that have both analog and digital, but most seem to be analog. More seem to be going to digital though.
RoyB
Explorer II
Jul 31, 2013
I havent been out this year yet but all I ever saw prior was the ANALOG signals coming from the camp ground cable connection.

You might want to check before going.

You can pick up a cheap digital TV converter box from WALMART for around $20 which will convert the digital TV signals back to "UGH" analog...

If you are close to towns a rabbit ear portable antenna sitting on top of your trailer works out pretty good. I have done this on many trips in my POPUP trailer before I got a TV POLE mounted on the side of the trailer. Now I got a BATWING antenna on the pole which works great.

You can see my side mounted antenna pole here with the bat wing antenna on it...

Hard to imagine a RV trailer does not have a roof type antenna. Though they were pretty common on all RVs...

Roy Ken

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Campground Cable digital or analog

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