RV electronics upgrades
Wanted to share some insight on this topic. I bought a used 2003 Itasca suncruiser last year and wanted to get rid of the old picture tube TV's and go with HD/smart tvs. First I called around to a few RV shops to get some estimates. $2-3K just to do hd wiring upgrades and cabinet changes, receiver, did not include TV costs.
Then I went to att/directTV thinking to do it myself. They don't offer HD for their RV types packages and the sales people I dealt with really had no clue. Both DirectTV and the rv shops wanted to replace my winegard minimax antenna that was already on the RV.
I then went to dish, found they have a great pay as you go package, confirmed I didn't need to change out my dish and went with them.
I also purchased the Actiontec hd wireless transmitter/receiver and now, $400 later I have a smartTV, a dish receiver, and an Actiontec wireless device, I have HD satellite service in the main cabin, use the alt out to send sat to the rear TV, and have wireless HD sat services for a TV outside the RV.
This winter I will replace the rear tv and build proper cabinets. Bottom line, don't be afraid to jump in yourself and do your own research. Get in and dig around in your RV. I've achieved what the RV shops wanted at 10% of their costs and didn't have to punch holes in the rv for new cabling and can still use existing cabling for standard RV park cable services .
There's a lot of options out there, I took the simpler one to prove I could do it myself. In hindsight should have bought a dual sat receiver. Easy swap out later.
Next adventure will be to improve wifi.
Then I went to att/directTV thinking to do it myself. They don't offer HD for their RV types packages and the sales people I dealt with really had no clue. Both DirectTV and the rv shops wanted to replace my winegard minimax antenna that was already on the RV.
I then went to dish, found they have a great pay as you go package, confirmed I didn't need to change out my dish and went with them.
I also purchased the Actiontec hd wireless transmitter/receiver and now, $400 later I have a smartTV, a dish receiver, and an Actiontec wireless device, I have HD satellite service in the main cabin, use the alt out to send sat to the rear TV, and have wireless HD sat services for a TV outside the RV.
This winter I will replace the rear tv and build proper cabinets. Bottom line, don't be afraid to jump in yourself and do your own research. Get in and dig around in your RV. I've achieved what the RV shops wanted at 10% of their costs and didn't have to punch holes in the rv for new cabling and can still use existing cabling for standard RV park cable services .
There's a lot of options out there, I took the simpler one to prove I could do it myself. In hindsight should have bought a dual sat receiver. Easy swap out later.
Next adventure will be to improve wifi.
