Flummoxed by cable TVs

[Cousin_Eddie93]

Took the new to me 2009 Greyhawk to frontier town this week and hooked up the cable coax for the first time. Not the first time camping with her. Have already logged a week of boondocking with no need for cable until now. I Turned on the entrainment center TV, switched through all inputs - no signal. Antenna TV and Xbox working fine. Try the other TVs, again no signal. I take one out of the mounts and hook it directly to the coax feed outside, using a different cable to rule out a bad one and still no signal. Call in maintenance and they arrive in under ten minutes, excellent response time by the way. After an hour of fiddling and testing etc. the technician and myself remain baffled. His little test TV works fine. After he left I spent more time reading through the manuals inexorably searching for a clue. Mind you, his test tv worked fine inside the rig. I take a break then have an other go at it. I find a channel search menu under an obscure setup setting some three layers deep inside this Sharp tv's menu options. I click inside and yet another layer of options then low and behold, it asks to scan cable and digital channels. It's default is AIR. Who uses air anymore? I select cable and run the scan. A progress line appears then like a miracle; from the deepest Depths of this programming nightmare, this horrific setup jungle yields channel after channel of good quality to nice and crisp cable tv. I had to repeat this process on the other two TV's. You'd think the manuals would state one must run a channel scan in order to get this tv to work. Nothing. Just thought I'd share that. Otherwise having a great trip.

[SCVJeff]

Cousin_Eddie93 wrote:
Just want to thank everyone for all the good info. Will probably stick with using DVDs and Xbox for Netflix etc as we really don't watch cable or any broadcast TV much at home or on the road.

ah cummon.... For some of us its a mission to achieve some level of success in TV DX. Gives you something to do .. 🙂

[pennysmom09]

Sorry, should have clarified that in the desert where we were...satellite was all that was available.

[j-d]

Just as an FYI, not all Flat Screen TV's are Digital Ready. I'm old enough to remember when the neighbors went from B&W TV to Color and we didn't, so to me any flat screen is new. But fact is, some flat screens hit the market before DTV, and one of those'll drive you to drink digging in menu settings for an option that isn't there. Flat screen needing a Converter Box? Weird, but true.

[Cousin_Eddie93]

Just want to thank everyone for all the good info. Will probably stick with using DVDs and Xbox for Netflix etc as we really don't watch cable or any broadcast TV much at home or on the road.

[belairbrian]

I'll add this. We were in Auburn a few weeks back and the site had cable TV. Since we were down behind a hill resulting in no OTA signals, I hooked it up and scanned. Result, no channels found. Swapped the cable to a spare, same result. Tried the other TV same result. Tried one more time and answered YES to a question about needing analog channels. Bingo, all of a sudden I have 30 some channels available.

Turns out it was really a satellite feed with analog repeater system. Hadn't seen one of those in a while.

[Cousin_Eddie93]

Goes to show how often I watch TV, which isn't very often. btW the campground tech did mention a channel scan but couldn't find it. Jayco prob opted for cheapest model that would work in theory. We do it all the time for custom appliances at work.

[SCVJeff]

pennysmom09 wrote:
We traveled to Arizona and back this past winter, and each stop along the way we have to scan for channels on both tv's. If the cable is really poor, we scan for air, and quite often it was better. Then of course in Arizona satellite is all there is!

I can guarantee you THATS not true at all.

[SCVJeff]

So now you know what everyone else already did:
You MUST scan the TV everywhere you go, period. That includes cable and off air.

Who uses Off Air anymore? Everyone! That's why it's the default mode. Otherwise mode would be removed.

Now you know how to watch TV when boondocking too

[BB_TX]

Our TVs also require a scan each time we go to a new site, even for over the air. But the scan menu is not buried as is yours. Just a selection from the first list after hitting the menu button.

[Sandia_Man]

Whether over the air or cable tv a scan is required, satellite or DVD player just needs to be on the correct input to view. TVs at home are the same but not an issue for us since we don't utilize cable or ota tv, just use satellite or wifi for our viewing pleasure. Really surprised park maintenance didn't know a scan was required.

[Artum_Snowbird]

When I sold the last rig, I had written out the scan instructions for the new owners.. But also have helped other owners find the menu and do the scan. You just learn to expect to find it somewhere in the menu system.

[pennysmom09]

We traveled to Arizona and back this past winter, and each stop along the way we have to scan for channels on both tv's. If the cable is really poor, we scan for air, and quite often it was better. Then of course in Arizona satellite is all there is!

[bobm253]

I also do a scan everytime I visit a new site. The other thing to remember is to make sure your antenna booster is on when viewing from your over the air antenna and off when using park cable.

[wildtoad]

A great many of us use OTA tv as it's the only thing available at most state parks, and in many cases better than the cable service at some campgrounds. I'm surprised the scan feature was not described in detail in the manual and that is was so deep in the menu tree.