Puzzling problem with Dish

wa8yxm wrote:

Bill.Satellite wrote:

newman fulltimer wrote:
The cable in the rv is the wrong cable for HD is the problem

I do not usually disagree with Bill and in many cases this is not important (in short he is effectively right) but. You can skip to part 2 of this reply if you like.


This answer is wrong. ALL coax will handle HD.

True and not so true.. There are many different cables. There are several differences betewen cables but I use RG-8/58/8X a lot this is a 50-52 ohm cable used for TRANSMITTERS.. And I also use RG 6 a lot (72ohm TV/Sat cable) and some RG-59 (Also 72ohm but higher loss)

The three main differences are
Size (Diamater)
Loss at frequency
and Impedance (50/52 70/72(

RG 59 can be very lossy at Sat frequencies 50 feet of RG-59 can easily have as much loss as 200 Feet of RG 6 or more and 300 feet of RG-11

So not all coax is the same. Oh 3 feet of it won't matter much but when we run from the front down the pillar and all the way to the rear we may well have 50 or more feet of cable.

That said Part 2:

The Park cable in the RV runs to a box of electronics (The wall plate that selects ant or cable) there it ends a 2nd cable runs from there to the TV and to the roof and a 3rd to the roof top antenna BUT to use the already in place cable for sat tv you got to DISCONNECT it from that switch plate and extend it to the sat box.

The box prevents power from getting to the sat antenna. it's a powered antenna. The antenna is also a "Smart" antenna (2 or more antennas in one) and the box prevents the signals that tell it what antenna is desired. So it's the switch box that can be the problem.

I never said all coax were the same. I said all coax would do HD. If the signal will pass you would get SD or HD.
I also believe the poster mentioned the setup had worked previously and is using a "Satellite In" connection designed for the use of satellite TV and not a "Cable" connection that would run through a splitter or power supply.