Entertainment Center Upgrade

[Colorado__5]

Has anyone ever attempted to upgrade their old analog entertainment center to a digital format? I have a 2003 Winnebago Minnie with it's original entertainment center in it. Needless to say the thing does not work. I attempted to connect the original antenna to an led flat screen and it would not receive any signal.

All wiring is coax cabling which is not compatible with the hdmi connections on the tv. We also have a small tv in the back bedroom that has a coax running to the front of the RV that when switched used to send signal to the rear tv for viewing.

I'm curious if anyone knows if I can pull an hdmi cable through the walls to the rear of the RV using the coax cable as the snake.

Also anyone that has attempted to upgrade their RV please chime in on things you did, things that worked and things you would do different.

Here is a picture of the Entertainment Center.

Click For Full-Size Image.

[Colorado__5]

RoyB,

I hadn't thought of using the air ducts as a way to run the length of the RV that is genius. And I hadn't thought of running under either. But this Bluetooth thing sounds interesting. I'm going to do some more looking into that. Do you know if this Bluetooth will also send signal from the antenna as well as the blue-ray?

DFord,

I think I had pushed the little button and the green light was on next to it . I have a picture of it somewhere. If I find it I'll post it. For me the biggest issue is figuring out if I'm even getting a signal. I have the coax connect to the tv and I run an automatic scan and it comes up with NOTHING. Not a single channel. So does that mean I need the antenna higher maybe or a stronger antenna or something? I thought maybe it was because it was old but if you're saying that shouldn't matter than I'm perplexed. You would think I would at least get one channel. or a couple fuzzy channels.

[DFord]

Colorado #5,
There is no difference between old analog Batwing antennas and the newer ones. They will both receive today's digital TV OTA signals. BUT, they both have an internal amplifier that get power from the wall outlet with the little push button switch. No power = no signal to the TV. If you can't find the wallplate, someone may have removed it. Regardless of brand, the rooftop antennas need power to amplify the signals they receive. Someone replaced the original Winegard Batwing antenna on my motorhome with a King Jack antenna. The biggest difference is the King Jack doesn't need to be cranked up to use - just pointed. I had a Winegard switch box that fed power to the antenna but the power supply went bad. I bought a Winegard wallplate which had a power supply in it which is a very common site in RVs and used it to power the King Jack antenna. It works great. I leave the little button depressed all the time providing power to antenna amp. It uses such a small amount of power the battery has never drained.

Make sure you're powering the antenna if you want it to send a signal to the TV.

[colliehauler]

mmccray100 wrote:
You cannot use HDMI cable to substitute for Coax from the antenna. HDMI is for High Definition signal from a Cable Box, Blu-Ray or other Digital source. Your Antenna uses only Coax.
As for using the old coax to "fish" new cable from back to front, it's probably not possible. The manuf. likely bundles several cables with zip ties.

^^^This is correct.

[mmccray100]

You cannot use HDMI cable to substitute for Coax from the antenna. HDMI is for High Definition signal from a Cable Box, Blu-Ray or other Digital source. Your Antenna uses only Coax.
As for using the old coax to "fish" new cable from back to front, it's probably not possible. The manuf. likely bundles several cables with zip ties.

[RoyB]

Colorado #5 wrote:

I'm curious if anyone knows if I can pull an hdmi cable through the walls to the rear of the RV using the coax cable as the snake.

I have pulled several RG type cables from the front to the back of my fifth wheel using the ceiling a/c vents. I have one about every 6-feet or so in the ceiling. They are not actual vents per say but an opening that runs the whole length of the trailer. If you use this route be sure your entry and exit places are sealed good as these A/C ducts are designed to provide even air flow by design. You mess up the plan and may have some vents not blowing air as strong as others...

Most of them can drop down into the inside of a ceiling cabinet of some sort where you can drop down into a table top or something using stick on cable ducts...

You can easily pull one of those vents to gain access to the ceiling vent trail. Just stick some cables into the down as far as you can and go open the next ceiling vent and grab the cable and so forth...

I was doing a lot of this for my ham radio and police/fire scanners from an op area in the main room back to the bedroom area...

The walls in the trailers are not very thick and not easy to use for adding cables behind them. Adding cable ducts on the outside of the walls is a better idea and paint them to blend into your room décor.. A better solution may be to add PVC cable ducts with slide on covers etc between cabinets along the floor out of sight along the walls. Then you can paint them to same décor of the walls... If running along the walls is not practicable for you go through the floor under the trailer. Run your PVC ducts/conduit under the trailer from Point A to Point B...

If all you want to do is running HDMI cables them look up on AMAZON for BLUETOOTH WIRELESS HDMI Devices... Do it wireless... All kinds of adapters are available to get HDMI control from point A to B...

Roy Ken

[Big_Katuna]

I use my old surround system that came with my 05 Fleetwood. It has optical and RCA sound inputs.

I replaced the tv (get one with sound out) with a flat screen with four HDMI.

Bought a Blu-ray. Had Appletv. DISH sat box.

I connected everything to the tv via HDMI. I connected sound out of the tv to the tv sound input on the surround amp.

I connected the OTA antenna to the tv via Winegard Pro Sensar amp. (Great product)

This allows me to use the tv remote to select what to watch. The sound automatically comes out the surround. I leave it in TV mode and it never needs switched unless listening to the tuner or cd.

The rear tv is connected to OTA only which is fine with us. One could add a DVD player if they wanted.

I have a wireless DVD device for the outside tv which we rarely use. If we watched more tv outside I would get another sat box. The dvd device is a bit pricey.

[Colorado__5]

Well Roy the bottom line is I'm not getting reception from my antenna. So I don't know if I have to replace it with a newer (Post 2009) BATWING antenna to receive a signal. I have a media switch at the front that would switch the antenna signal from the front tv to the rear tv. This switch board also has a VCR and AUX port for other devices however they are all coax. My blue ray is hdmi and I would need to route that through a coax adapter or run an hdmi cable the length of the rv to watch movies in the rear. I'm curious to know if anyone has ever attempted to route an hdmi cable through the walls of their rv for the rear tv. Does that make better since?

[RoyB]

I guess everything is different...

My TV setup uses one of those ANTENNA WALL PLATE PANELS that gives a direct connection to Main TV and BEDROOM TV Antenna INPUT RG connection. This can be from either CABLE TV or OTA TV by pushing a small switch on the outside of the TV WALL PLATE Panel...


Google image

I would be using standard VIZIO type 24-30 inch LCD TVs from WALMART...

My OFF ROAD POPUP is setup using the ANTENANN PANEL and will work just fine with both CABLE TV from Camp grounds or OTA TV using my BATWING antenna...

My outside antenna is one of those BATWING antennas.


I had to change out my TV sets in 2009 I think it was when the US changed over from Analog TV to Digital TV...

We mostly camp off grid and seems to pickup stations off the BATWING antenna just about everywhere we go... There are a few time we will be out of range of TV Transmitter Towers sometimes...

If you are wanting to downstream all of your TV and not use CABLE TV or OTA TV connections then it would be a different animal haha...

If all you have is the smart TV's then I think they want to see HDMI cables routed between them... Most of those however still should have a standard Cable or OTA TYPE F connector on them to use for CABLE or OTA TV connections...

I may not be understanding you question here...

Roy Ken

[sempka]

I upgraded my TV to a new TV, but for the antenna I still use a coax cable from the antenna. The TV had both HDMI and a coax cable connection. Used the coax cable to connect the antenna and HDMI to connect the Blue Ray player. Used the existing Coax to send the antenna signal to the TV in the Bedroom via a splitter.