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jholovacs's avatar
jholovacs
Explorer
Jun 18, 2013

securing an external RV cable

I am installing an external cell antenna at the back of my travel trailer. The cable will run down the back and enter in a hole near my power cable entrance.

The cable is black. My RV is white. I was thinking about securing it with a long piece of white tape, but I don't know if that will look totally ghetto or not.

Has anyone done something similar? How did it turn out? What is recommended to make it look nice and professional, or at least like the cable is supposed to be there?

10 Replies

  • I had a similar problem with the cable to my backup camera. While changing the clearance lights to Leds, I discovered raceways were built in the back wall for all the clearance light wiring and fished the wire thru those raceways. When the center clearance light was off, I made a 1/8 " al plate to go behind it that has a channel to run the power and video wires under that light. And the camera bracket is mounted to that plate. The camera power is taped into the trailer clearance lights power but the video wire runs thru the raceway at the top of the wall and down the right side to the brake light. I couldn't find a way out at the bottom of the wall so I drilled straight thru the wall at the brake light (into a storage closet) to get the video wire out.
  • You can also run the cable inside a piece of white pipe, then secure the pipe to the camper using clips.
  • Hah the antenna I bought (with the flex spring, mounting plate and built-in ground plane) comes with the 10' black cable attached... messing with that could ding me on the gain.
  • Why not use white cable? Should take only a minute or two to apply some white tape to the trailer and make your own decision as to how it looks there.
  • You might consider mounting the antenna forward and near the refrigerator vent. You can then use the refrigerator vent to drop the coax down and then on to a convenient location.
  • Well I don't have a ladder, so that's not really an option for me. I don't have a rear cap either; the back is the rear wall of the camper.

    I have never heard of cable race ways. I'll look into that.
  • wa8yxm's avatar
    wa8yxm
    Explorer III
    Is the rear cap on the trailer a true or false rear cap? (my Motor home it's a false cap, the true cap is like 4" farther forward the cable is in the gap).

    Running it down the ladder is the best idea I've seen to date. or buy white cable, or both.
  • There is such a thing as cable race ways. You can find them in many places that will have sticky backing to stick to your rv. Simply run the cable inside it and snap it together. The problen you might have it that I dont know how good of UV protection the stuff has. So it could get ugly looking in a year or so
  • For now, we have the same set up. We ran the cable down the ladder then ran it along the window frame with black tape (black frame). When we get some white duct tape we will probably replace the black tape and drop the cable a little lower. I don't think anyone will be looking close enough at our trailer to notice it.

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