Encrypted digital cable, box required at each TV.

[Pogoil]

Charter cable has decided to change all its cable to encrypted digital in Oregon by June sometime.

We stay at RV. parks with our motor home and now I am told we will require a DTA. box at every TV. in the motor home. A couple parks have told me that Charter is providing the boxes to the RV. parks to loan out to the guests.

My question is my TV. is built in above the dash, how did you wire the box between the TV. and your inlet to the TV. I am told other areas in the country have already changed and require this. This box I am told also has a remote to change the TV. channel.

Also told some cable company's have changed and still have the old analog signal and everything stayed the same at some RV. parks that had other than Charter cable.

Thanks for the insight.

Pogoil.

[wa8yxm]

Question (then answer) do you want to watch the SAME SHOW on all TV's or do you want to watch different shows in different rooms?

Answer. Do not access the rear of the TV (though it may be way easier than you think) Access the switch box.. Somewhere in your RV is either a wall plate or a box of many buttons.. I gather this is where you can get to it easily to switch from OVER THE AIR, to Park Cable.

All the connections you need are here.

If box of many buttons they are labled on the back you will need a coax jumper or two, and possible a "Joiner" (Double female, or barrel connector)

Pull box, find lead to MAIN TV, disconnect it and connect to decoder box. (TV-OUT) hook jumper from now vacant port (MAIN TV) on switch box to decoder

If the other TV is equally hard to get at you can do the same thing with it's lead here.

On the wall plate,, if you have one,, Usually the main TV comes off the front, But if not it will be the 3rd (or 4th) connector on the back,, Viewed from the rear with the 12 volt accessory socket at the top.. The cable are, In order

1 (left most) ANT
2: Park cable in
3: TV-2 out
4: (Optional) Tv-3 out

You can make the same type of change there.

IF you are only going to watch same show on all sets

Disconnect park cable from Switch box.. Feed to cable in on decoder, extend if needed with jumper and barrel connector.

Jumper from TV-out to the now vacant Park Cable port on switch box.

Trust me, (I just did a mod not much different than that) Easier to do than to type.

[bigdogger]

Funny this is coming up now since I just had a conversation with a park owner who is facing the same dilemma. In his instance, both the cable provider and he decided there is no way a loaner box system would work, since it is a transient park. Comcast does partner with some outside services that would install a private cable system (20 channels) for the park (at a substantial cost) and use the cable feed for programming, however the cable provider is wanting an astronomical amount per site, per month to provide the feed and of course the cost would go up as the number of channels increased as would the cost of the equipment for the private cable system.
They have tentatively decided to go to a private cable system fed by Directv. Such a system costs around $20,000 for equipment to convert the Directv service to cable channels. Again, they are looking at around a 20 channel system. Their monthly costs to provide cable will also be increasing nearly three-fold. They are one of the larger parks in their area and they are hesitating. Some of the other parks have already said they aren't going to invest in a system, so no cable whatsoever. I wouldn't be surprised to see that as a trend across the country, $20,000 plus for equipment, plus higher monthly bills will be a tough pill for smaller parks to swallow. And since RV parks are probably a small fraction of a percent of the total subscribers the cable systems have, they aren't going to be doing too much to accommodate a park's rather unique needs.

[J-Rooster]

TucsonJim wrote:
Now I'm glad I switched to satellite. One set up, and I'm good to go.

X-2 Jim, also Charters Stock on the stock market went up last week so all of Charters doings is paying off for there shareholders. I went to Dish satellite last month prior to that we had Comcast ( owned by Paul Allen, expensive in our area) who bought Charter out in our area about 15 years ago. I'm sorry to the OP that you will probably have to go thru a hassel to get T.V.

[K_Charles]

You can record the news and just play it back every evening, it's always the same thing plus a lot of adds. I'm glad I live where cable says they will never go unless I pay for a few miles of cable.

[rk911]

ComCast did the same thing several years ago but most of the parks that we have stayed at since that offered Comcast continue to be unencrypted. there have been a few exceptions and without exception all of those parks had no boxes to loan out having either provided them to their seasonal campers or those that were loaned out to transients were not returned. one CG mgr told me he had tried the honor system...no deposit...but it didn't work and he wasn't going to invest hundreds of $ for replacement DTAs.

btw, on the Comcast system each local franchise issues DTA boxes that work only on that franchise. we live in a western suburb of Chicago and my mother-in-law resides in a southern suburb. our DTA box will not work on her Comcast and vice-versa. if Charter does the same thing and the parks are encrypted customers may be in for a rough go.

[TucsonJim]

Now I'm glad I switched to satellite. One set up, and I'm good to go.