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denamy1's avatar
denamy1
Explorer
Apr 12, 2015

Dish satellite hookup via cable input on Travel Trailer

After reading many posts, today I hooked up my "Dish Tailgater" satellite using the existing "cable input" on my Coachman Travel trailer. It was rather simple.

My travel trailer did not come with a satellite exterior hookup, just the cable input, so here is what I did.

As you know, plugging in the satellite receiver via the powered antenna RG6 coax plug WILL NOT WORK. So.. I bought a "diplexer" which looks like a splitter but is not a splitter. It has three ports: in/satellite/VHF. I removed the coax cable coming from the travel trailer's outside cable port and connected that to the "in/out" of the diplexer, then hooked up a short coax from the UHF on the diplexer to the powered wall plate. I then hooked up the satellite box to the "satellite port on the diplexer. Bingo.. everything worked.
The whole idea is to put the diplexer in between the coax coming in from the outside of the rv and the powered wall plate. This allows you to use either the TV OR satellite. I did not have to run a new coax like some people posted.

By the way the diplexer cost me 5 bucks on Amazon.

3 Replies

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  • Sandia_Man's avatar
    Sandia_Man
    Explorer II
    Apr 12, 2015
    Had the same issue and performed this simple mod to our existing antenna amplifier. Our rig only had a single exterior coax input although our RV came satellite prepped from the factory. We always use our satellite since park cable tv can be quite inept, and already had all the parts laying around. About 15 minutes later we were good to go, that was eight years ago and never an issue with satellite signal reaching receiver.
  • DutchmenSport's avatar
    DutchmenSport
    Explorer
    Apr 12, 2015
    I'm glad this works for you. I'm fortunate to have the "satellite prep" on my camper, so will never need this. But I've read lots of posts on these forums saying how complicated and or even impossible it is to run satellite through the outside cable jack, this is kind of refreshing that there's an easier way to do it. I'm glad this worked for you and you've provided an alternative answer to a difficult puzzle.
  • Dutch_12078's avatar
    Dutch_12078
    Explorer II
    Apr 12, 2015
    Obviously the diplexer gets the job done for you, and that's great. But for us, I still prefer a separate satellite input for our portable dish. Having both connections available lets us hook up the dish and the campground cable service at the same time. With that setup plus our batwing OTA antenna aimed for the area locals, by flipping a couple of A/B switches, we can handle scenarios like recording two channels at once on our VIP211K with an external hard drive, while watching a DVR'd program on one TV, and a cable channel on the other TV. That situation doesn't occur often, but it's nice to have the option when we want it.

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