Help with MH Televisions

[donnyB7]

I need some help with the two TV's in our Winnebago MH. I have never used them before, and now that I am trying them, I am completely stumped. No matter what I try, neither will work. The main one is a 24" Sony Wega and the other is a 19" RCA. In addition to the two TV's there is a TV/VCR/TV2 switch. It has push buttons for SAT, Aux, TV Ant, VCR, & CATV for each item. There is also a small box that says Digital Stream DTV. This has coax connectors "in from Ant" and "out to TV"

If I just turn on the TV, all the channels have snow. If I turn on the DTV box, all the channels have snow except for channel 4. This channel is set on the DTV box. I have a Winegard bat wing antennae and no matter which direction it is aimed I get "Weak Signal" on channel 4.

Just to rule out bad reception, I put a flat screen from the house with electronic rabbit ears in the MH and tried a few channesl. No problem - several channels with a strong signal.

I thought about just replacing the TV's, but they must be bolted down and I am not even sure I can remove the old ones.

What am I doing wrong? How do I troubleshoot this?

Also, will a Winegard Wingman help?

Winnebago Adventurer 35A Gas

[D_E_Bishop]

Donny, As you can see by my signature, I have a Adventurer too, I have flat panel TVs in the cabin and bedroom. The original owner replaced the boat anchors with the flat panels so I did not remove them and can't help very much in that area, but, I did remove them in another rig and it is just a matter of removing the plastic bezels and looking for the mounting. Your front TV is in a very substantial steel framework but pretty easy to get to the mounting.

The rear TV's bezel and mounting is gone so I have no idea what was there.

If you are pretty handy and if you're not too fussy about trimming out around the TVs, it pretty easy to pull the old ones and buy a suitable mount and installing it.

This would be my suggestion. I happen to have a pretty good WW shop and today I will unwrap the router bits that will allow me to copy the cabinet doors and moldings exactly. The suggestion to download the manuals and schematics from Winnebago is very good and very simple and I would download all of the electrical schematics for 2006, not just the ones for your model. Sometimes the schematics for the same circuit have better illustrations for one model than another.

The total parts catalog is also a very good item to have. Some stuff is proprietary to Winnebago but most is common hardware.

When you change TVs, I would go to a big box home store and or electronics store and buy the Coax stripper and the F connector installation tool. I ended up replacing all of my F connectors. For the exterior connectors I just fitted an "O" ring to the connector and they are weather proof now.

I retained the BOMB, we do however have BlyRay players for both TVs. As I said, both TV's had been replaced and the original owners had scarfed all the stereo equipment, CB rig and installed a satellite system and jury rigged the cabling to convert back to just a DVD player and the antenna. Who ever it was did a crappy job and was a butcher. I am slowly repairing all the damage and making new doors and trim.

In Florida I have been told are a lot of RV re-modelers, if you don't want to tackle the conversion, check some of them out.

My current must do is replacing the return springs for the HWH leveling jacks. They were the old style and one jack was very slow in returning to the stored position. It is a relatively easy job and I will do the front jacks tomorrow morning.

If you want or need any more info, PM me and I'll try and answer any questions you have.

David

PS: Merry Christmas

PPS: I would keep my batwing and not do anything to improve it or upgrade it until I got everything else straightened out and find out if I was satisfied with my system. If you then need to upgrade, you will have a good basic system to support an upgrade.

[wa8yxm]

First: I will state that you left out some IMPORTANT info. But you said some other things that give me a feeling that I may be able to fill it in.

You said you have a Matrix Switch (The box of many buttons or BOMB for short) These were common in older RVs (IE MINE) with older TV's.. These TV's no longer work. Period. for Over the air at least, may work on SOME (But not all) Cable channels. Since 2007 they have been useless without a digital "Front end" adapter (A set top box that picks up the modern DIGITAL TV and convertes it to either Channel 3 or 4 or base band A/V (RED/White/Yellow cables) out Or in some cases even HDMI but that's rare in a converter).

You may be able to snag a converter.. Last I knew Radio Shack (If you can find one) still sold 'em as did Best Buy but last I knew was like 2006.

THe converter goes between the BOMB and the TV by the way

OR you can upgrade to modern "Wide screen" Digital TV's

Now BOMB operation

Button on left is POWER. you press it and a light comes on. (IF you were to go up on the roof and unhook the cable from the antenna (Do this with switch OFF) and hook up a volt meter CAREFULLY you should see 12 volts (Battery voltage) on the cable, center wire is positive nut/sleeve is negative. IF YOU DO NOT you have a cable issue. Most likely the connection in the roof. (There is a connection either at the roof line or under a cap on the roof)

If you have 12 volts, or once you have 12 volts TURN POWER OFF and reconnect.

Next: Select ANT for everything on the BOMB and with power on and the antenna raised scan for stations, note the results and turn 90 degrees and re-scan, using the best result pick a station and peak it.

Use of a smart phone app like TV ANtenna Helper (Free) will make this easier

Now the antenna
The basic Winegard Sensar II or III has a figure 8 reception pattern, If you extend your arms like the "Wings" on the antenna it looks straight foreward, and back.. If you add the WINGMAN, (This affects only UHF performance) then the UHF pattern is changed to that of an EGG, shap or teardop shape, the long axis is the direction the wingman points.

Upgrades beyond that:
I added a SENSAR pro between the BOMB and the antenna, this is a "Wall Plate" type switch

I get great reception most everywhere. IN fact more than I can watch.

[MrWizard]

If the converter goes to the antenna in, on the Bomb then TV 2 should get a signal from the converter, just set tv2 to the same channel that TV 1 is using for the converter
Scanning the TV is useless
If no signal try swapping the coax at the Bomb between TV 1 and tv2
If that does not work you have a bad coax going from the Bomb to tv2 or a Loose connection at the back of tv2
Stretch a piece of coax from the Bomb or converter to the rear TV as a trickle shooting tray

[Bill_Satellite]

Well, there you have it. The previous setup was done to allow 1 TV to be converted to digital. You either need to re-wire or buy a 2nd converter as mentioned above OR, THE BEST OPTION, get new TV's and get rid of the converter. Oh yeah, you also get full uncompressed HD for the very best HD TV available! New TV's are cheap. Doing much of anything else really makes no sense at all (unless you disagree and then I am completely wrong).

[donnyB7]

DTV is my Digital Stream for analog to digital conversion.
I have a switch box (BOMB for Box of many buttons).
The coax goes from the DTV to the BOMB. The BOMB has several connectors that go to TV1, TV2, DVD, etc. When I push TV1 and use the DTV remote to scan, I get several channels. When I push TV2, all I get is snow on all channels. According to the previous owner, this used to work. I'm just sure how to do it.

[Bill_Satellite]

DTV meaning Directv remote or Digital TV remote? I am assuming Digital TV as in using your OTA TV antenna. Where is the analog to digital converter located? Do you know where the output for the converter goes? If it goes directly to 1 TV then that's all that will work. If it outputs to the BOMB then you might be able to get a signal on both TV's.

[MrWizard]

Get another digital converter, mount it next to that TV
Or replace it with a new digital TV

[donnyB7]

OK, I have success! I found the DTV remote and when I put in new batteries, I was able to set the BOMB to "Main TV". I did a scan using the DTV and it found several channels.
Next I set the BOMB to "TV2" and tried a channel scan on the bedroom TV, but all I get is the snow on all channels. How can I get TV2 (bedroom) to find the channels?

[Artum_Snowbird]

In my 2006 motorhome I also had the Sony Wega. Huge heavy box. It was a beast to get out and I basically tossed it to the re-cycler.

I can't remember what I replaced it with, but I put in a nice Sony digital on a pull out tippable swing arm and loved the change. Old one took 150 watts, new one had a dim feature that took 35 watts.

Nice.

[Artum_Snowbird]

In my 2006 motorhome I also had the Sony Wega. Huge heavy box. It was a beast to get out and I basically tossed it to the re-cycler.

I can't remember what I replaced it with, but I put in a nice Sony digital on a pull out tippable swing arm and loved the change. Old one took 150 watts, new one had a dim feature that took 35 watts.

Nice.

[maddog348]

donnyB7 ~ My 2006 Itasca Sunova came with a 24" RCA ANALOG TV. Did Original owners change them to digital. Maybe you gotta look for a converter bx. JM2¢

[shastagary]

the Digital Stream digital tv converter box should have a separate remote that came with it if you do not have it the dtv box is useless as you cannot do a scan to find the channels. you need to set the TV/VCR/TV2 switch to the proper position. your tv's are both analog if they came with the 2006 rv so they do not have the digital tuners that's what the dtv converter box is for. tv's are inexpensive now i would suggest getting new ones then different channels can be watched on the tv's and they will have the proper high definition tuners. you can get the manual for the proper dtv box here Digital Stream digital dtv box

[Bill_Satellite]

You have analog TV's. The "snow" is the key word. You cannot receive ANY OTA programming with those old TV's unless you add a digital to analog converter. I am pretty sure they are still available somewhere but you are going to have to do some research. Until you can replace those antiques you will be able to watch the programming coming from the DTV box but you must also have a satellite TV antenna (dome or one like the antenna on your home). The Batwing has nothing to do with satellite TV.

[MrWizard]

What he said ^

You have old analog TV's, you remember them
Set the TV to ch4, turn on the steam dtv box
Use that remote, and do a channel scan
Be sure to point the Batwing in the correct direction
And the red light is on, on the antenna Power switch panel