Guide me on what needs to happen to upgrade TVs

All good information.

I expect to get the vehicle back from Conway truck and Bus Monday (had then go through it replace all the air bags, do a good PM, check all the brakes, put the hitch on.

Expect to use the vehicle next week end for the Empire Gold Cup race (I am a racer)

Need to spend some time running all the systems so I understand them. I hope to get to the TVs, we will see.

I do have a larger inverter on the house batteries so 110 will work.

Current TVs are tube.

Front TV will be viewed pretty much straight on, bedroom I will check angles

I started looking at in motion satilie, but do not want a monthly fee so will look into the on air suggestions and keep you updated

Thanks

We have Sony flat screen CRTs in our MH and for the amount of TV we watch I got 2 convertors in '09 when the Digital came out. I just put them in this year and t he picture is very good. We got along all those years without TV and never missed it. I have also carried a Dish inthe basement and never set that up yet.

When you're buying the replacement tv, look at where the speakers are located and how you're going to mount it. Some speakers face the front, some face the floor, and some may be on the rear. Also think about any cables that you may want to temporarily attach to the tv, and where those attachment points are located.

It's an easy upgrade, and you'll enjoy the results.

Fred

double post

You may have a digital to analogue set top box tucked away in a cupboard somewhere and that needs to be switched on to get a picture on your old set.

Set up in my 99 Cutter is similar to yours and since we never bother with TV, the small one in the bedroom has already hit the dumpster and the large one is still there just to save me filling the hole up with something. The old VCR also bit the dust as did the tapes that the previous owner left behind.

Next 6 month trip I might do something about the rest. Buy a new flat screen and get rid of the rest of the analogue bits and pieces.

Some bad info here. Your bat wing ant will work fair but it will work a lot better if you get the add on part or the whole replacement head shown above.
People keep posting that your old ant will work but they just don't understand how antenna's function.
An upgrade will work better because unlike the old bat-wing, the new part is tuned for UHF reception - which is what HD is Broadcast over.

RoyB wrote:


If your BATWING antenna does not have these DIPOLES added to it then you can really improve the UHF operations by adding these. Simple 5-min mod...




Roy Ken

All very good advice but before you put the wingman on you old Batwing I would look into the Jack Antenna for 2 reasons, I would check out the clearance around it.

I found that I had no clearance with Wingman as shown in the picture and I also got more over the air channels with it as opposed to Batwing with the Wingman.

It is smaller, lighter, bangs around less, fits without hitting anything Plus I get more than twice the channels than the Sensar IV that I tried.

When we replaced our original 13 inch TV with a digital flat screen, we looked at a lot of TV's in stores. One important thing we discovered was that the viewing angle (left/right or up/down) varied significantly. Since our TV is mounted high, similar to your second picture, we made sure we got a TV that had a good picture when viewed from below.

The old TV was mounted in a cabinet with a VCR beside it and after careful measuring we found that we could get a 26 inch flat screen in the cabinet on the diagonal by using a fully articulating arm.

Old 13 inch TV and VCR on roll out shelf


New 26 inch TV mounted on articulating arm


NCAA basketball game - old batwing antenna can receive digital broadcasts from local stations


New TV stored on diagonal in cabinet for travel


Cabinet door I fabricated from the original roll up door panel

First are you sure you don't have HDTV sets already installed. Most likely if they are the heavy CRT type TVs then you will need a HDTV. Analog TV is no more these days except at most camp ground cable hookups which is still sending analog TV to the trailers cable TV connection.... Only digital TV now from OTA TV signals..

Just go down to WALMART and pick up two of the 22-inch VIZIO HDTVs (Less than $150) and bring them back and plug'm in. The HDTV will not weigh very much and you will need to properly mount them using swing arms wall mounts etc that you will find at WALMART in the TV dept. These TV SETS will need to be secured to your cabinet or wall or they will fall out on you as you go down the road..

If your BATWING antenna does not have these DIPOLES added to it then you can really improve the UHF operations by adding these. Simple 5-min mod...



You can get by with 120VAC HDTV units as the 12VDC special mobile TV's are expensive. What you do is purchase a 300WATT or more PSW Inverter if think you want to run more 120VAC appliances down the road. This should be connected as close to the battery setup as possible and a 120VAC drop cord run to the TV locations so you can plug them in.. Be sure to purchase a TRUE SIGN WAVE (PSW) type Inverter for any of your electronics you want to run from 120VAC. Having an installed Inverter usually is best to also have two coach batteries installed as INVERTERS are very POWER HUNGARY...

The National BROADCAST new digital TV will be transmitted from the local towns and all will be in high definition wide screen HDTV mode. You just switch the VIZIO HDTV to menu mode and select AUTO SEARCH mode just like you do at home and scan in the available digital TV signals. Of course you first have to point the batwing crankup antenna to the local towns and select ANTENNA on the antenna mode in the setup menu. You will also have to engage the 12VDC PUSH BUTTON on the antenna panel to power up the BATWING internal preamp.

We usually get 6-36 digital HDTV stations just about everywhere we go here on the East side of the US.

We really enjoy the new digital local town BROADCASTs of CBS-NBC-ABC-FOX-PBS and some other local transmitted stations. The local 24/7 RADAR station is really important for us to keep aware of the local area storms. All of this is free to the general public.

enjoy...

Roy Ken

I would probably remove existing front TV cabinet as it looks totally in the way and engineer a pull down 32" LED or larger on ceiling.