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Old 05-17-2018, 04:49 AM   #1
ctbruce
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Satellite Hookup Help

Of all the questions that are asked regularly, one of the most common is "how do I hook up my satellite to my XXXXXX camper?"

So here's the deal, we need to help each other, as that is what this forum is all about. If you have a satellite system and have successfully hooked it up, do the following by replying to this thread:
1. In the post title, list your camper type, your service provider, your receiver and your satellite type
2. In the post, list where the satellite connection is located
3. List any special gymnastics that helped you get connected
4. Pictures of where the connections, inside and out, are good for bonus points!
5. A picture of where you place your receiver in your unit earns double bonus points.

Hopefully, this will lead to a lot of information to help a lot of folks all organized in one place. It will be as good as you make it, so have at it.

GO!
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Old 05-17-2018, 06:19 AM   #2
Mikendebbie
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Dish Satellite hook-up for 2018 Montana 3921FB

First - I would not call this a success story. It is a work in progress, but all my TVs work when I do it this way.

I use Dish Network with a gray Tailgater (purchased January 2016) and VIP211z black box. I use the 50' coax that came in the box with my tailgater and VIP211z. I use iphone app DishForMyRV (~$10) to help find the satellites and make sure the view path is clear (no tree limbs in the way!).
We only watch satellite on the living room TV and have no intentions to use satellite on bedroom TV. Antenna and park cable signal works fine on both TVs once I run a scan for channels. Both TVs are the stock units from Keystone.

The coach connections for satellite do not work for my tailgater. Keystone installs coax splitters galore rather than run single dedicated coax for satellite feeds. Park cable and boosted antenna signal have enough power to "push" signal thru all the internal splitters to each TV. Tailgater's low power acquired thru the coax from the black box head unit is not enough to "push" the signal thru the splitters. I get zip-none-nada satellite signal thru the internal factory wired system. One time I tried a shorter 10' section of coax in lieu of the 50' section to see if signal would improve...and a partial signal was able to make it
thru but still made it inoperable and unwatchable. SPLITTERS!! Grrrrr!

My current solution is to run coax thru a window close to the TV and hook directly to back of black box. DW hates the black coax dangling from window to the TV - but it works.

The ultimate solution is for me to pull dedicated single cable to service the Dish black box...but I am lazy and have not yet been so motivated to start that project...plus DW gets nervous when I start poking and pulling stuff on our new RV...all the more reason to procrastinate and put this job on the list of future projects. Pics below show the Docking station in my Montana + the main splitter behind the docking station + example of an in-wall splitter that may be in use behind the living room TV. Finally a marked up pic of how it is set up in the living room. Hope this helps.
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Old 05-17-2018, 10:08 AM   #3
Mikendebbie
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Montana 3921FB - more pics

I had one more pic I wanted to share. This sequence of pics shows how I believe Keystone intends to convey the signal for all inputs (antenna, cable, satellite) to each of the TVs using splitters...not dedicated single coax cables.
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Old 05-17-2018, 10:58 AM   #4
Homer & Marge
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Wink Dish

Keystone Vantage has outside hookups for cable and sat on right rear with other utility hookups. Took main area tv plates off and found multiple splitters and cable runs for 4 outlets and amplifier. Checked continuity to find out which raw cable led to main tv and put on dedicated single plate direct. Dish playmaker runs fine this way. Also used amplified antenna signal and CABLE from outside connection to a duplex plate, one connection for each and now have all three from main tv working well. We only need one tv and now we have cable, antenna and dish, all working by selecting input from tv. Continuity check can identify most all cables at each end.
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Old 05-18-2018, 09:44 AM   #5
MattE303
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Carbon 337, Dish Network, Winegard Pathway X2, Wally receiver

Our trailer came with a coax input labeled "satellite prep" on the outside (in the "convenience center" compartment where the city water fill, outside shower, and battery disconnect are). On the inside there are satellite prep output coax connectors behind the main tv in the living room, and on the wall in the bedroom next to the bathroom door. The connectors in the bedroom are actually labeled as such, the ones in the living room are not labeled.

The satellite prep wiring, as built by keystone, uses splitters that don't pass power, so it is useless for mobile satellite dishes that get power through the coax cable. It may not even work for dishes that don't require power, I don't know, I wasn't able to test that.

Before changing anything, I tested the satellite equipment by connecting the dish directly to the Wally receiver (bypassing the trailer's wiring completely), and connected the Wally receiver to the tv with an HDMI cable. Everything worked fine. Attempting to use the trailer's factory wiring to connect the dish to the receiver, as expected, did not work.

To get things working with my equipment, I replaced the factory wiring with my own straight run of good quality quad shield RG6 coax cable. A 10' run was plenty and it was actually a very easy job.

  1. open the basement storage access door on the left side of the trailer, next to the convenience center. There is a white shroud held in place by several screws that you can remove to get access to the back side of the convenience center.

  2. at the bottom of the wall cabinet below the tv in the living room, there is an access panel held in place by 2 screws, remove this panel. You will see lots of wiring in there, and a hole that goes through to the basement, behind the convenience center.

  3. remove living room tv wallplate (behind the tv), and disconnect the coax cable from the satellite prep wallplate connector.

  4. push the new cable into the opening, downward in the wall, until it hits the bottom. Looking into the access panel (at the bottom of the cabinet) there is a hole in the wall, you should be able to reach your fingers in and grab the cable you fed down thru the wall.

  5. pull most of the cable thru, connect the other end to the wallplate and reinstall the wallplate.

  6. feed the other end of the cable thru the hole into the area behind the convenience center. I used a wire fish to push it thru far enough so I could grab it from the other end. If you don't have any wire fish equipment, a stick and some tape will work fine.

  7. remove the "satellite prep" wallplate in the convenience center and disconnect the factory cable.

  8. grab the new cable behind the convenience center, push it thru the wall, connect it to the wallplate, and reinstall the wallplate.

  9. reinstall the convenience center shroud and cabinet access panel. You're done!

You can now connect your portable dish to the "satellite prep" in the convenience center, and connect the receiver in the living room to the satellite prep connection behind the living room tv.

We don't have a tv in the bedroom yet, but when we do, my plan is to run a long HDMI cable thru the walls from the hole behind living room tv, to the wall where the bedroom tv is supposed to be mounted, so the bedroom tv will have a full HDMI connection directly to the receiver. This will be a little trickier, figuring out how to fish the wire through. If that proves too difficult, an easier solution would be to run another coax cable between the living room tv area and the convenience center (would need to add a new wall plate), and use this as a "return" to connect the satellite receiver's coax OUTPUT to the "cable tv" input in the convenience center. This way, tv's other than the one in the living room (which is connected directly to the receiver) would use the antenna/cable coax connections to watch the output from the satellite receiver.

I will try to add some pics later.
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Old 05-24-2018, 10:42 AM   #6
68GS400
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Passport DISH installation

On our 2015 2890RL we have 2 TVs connected to 2 DISH receivers by HDMI I ran dedicated COAX from outside thru wall then to each receiver. In living room the hole was drilled by slide behind entertainment center. In bedroom it was run into bathroom wall then up to box near tv location where I added a shelf for receiver
When I get to campsite, my two cables are run from King Tailgater 2 with Main to Living Room. Tailgater sits on 19” folding table. I use DISHFORMYRV app to “see” satellites and identify tree issues
When done outside, I plug in living room receiver and let it do it’s thing. Ideally , when I get back from bedroom connection living room has found signal
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Old 06-11-2018, 12:47 PM   #7
Neverness
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Luckily, my brother in law is a cable installer. The first thing he did when we connected a Comcast cable box was rip out the satelite signal booster built into the backside of the Hideout's entertainment center's coax wall plate. Apparently those wreck merry havoc with the cable signal. Then he used a line tester to see which line carried the cable signal.

He has a dim view of splitters, so we taped off the outdoor TV mount wire and stuffed it back into the console. It can be reattached at a later date, should we decide to ever watch TV outside.

This let us bypass the coax line through the window option that some people have done.
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Old 07-14-2018, 03:36 PM   #8
Timberwolffe
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I thought I’d weigh in with my 2 cents worth on this issue.

The setup: I own a 2017 Raptor 355 Toy Hauler with factory Satellite Prep, Directv HR54 DVR, and a Winegard SK_SWM3 dish.

I had all kinds of problems with my reception…intermittent signal loss, pixelizing, skipping, one tuner always showed low signal strength, etc. The short answer is Keystone doesn’t know what they are doing when it comes to Satellite prep. They do use splitters in the line that are not DC pass-through, which is required on most Directv installations and to my understanding required on all Dish installations. The splitter in my trailer was the wrong splitter for satellite clearly marked 1GHz and satellite is at 2-2.5 GHz. My trailer has the power booster in the bedroom and that was where the splitter was located (fortunately). It was tucked up out of the way but I could feel it by following the cable from the wall plate up. It was a pain to get out without tearing up the ceiling.

Now for the lengthy explanation in hopes it helps someone else. I’m an electronics tech and a TV junkie. This was driving me nuts. I first replaced my SWM splitter, then decided there is a problem with the cabling. I ran a cable directly from the dish to my DVR and everything worked perfectly so it’s definitely cabling in the trailer. I tried to ohm out the connections from the sat prep in the service bay to the bedroom and livingroom. They showed no connectivity. OK there must be a splitter inline. When I opened up the wall plates in both locations I got lucky and found the splitter in the bedroom. It was a 1 input to 4 output splitter. Here is where they show their stupidity. After ohming the connections I figured out the sat prep from the service bay (2 cables) run to the bedroom and are hooked up to output 1 and 2 of the splitter, The Sat connection in the living room is connected to output 3, and the Sat connection for the bedroom is connected to the input.

The fix: THROW THE SPLITTER IN THE TRASH. I put a through connector (F female to F female) from one sat prep cable to the sat connection for the living room and the other sat prep cable directly to the connector on the wall plate for the bedroom.

The stupid thing is a through connector is cheaper than a splitter and they used a short RG6 cable from the splitter to the wall plate in the bedroom that was unnecessary. If they are doing this to save money or time it does neither.

Removing the useless piece of junk resolved my issues. Hope this helps someone.
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Old 07-15-2018, 12:34 AM   #9
craftguy
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We tried and tried to get the satellite hook ups to work for the dishnetwork wally and tailgater we had. A couple of times I had to resort to running the cable in through the outside door and closing it. I eventually had some time, so I fed the cable behind the entertainment system, on out Laredo 325, and found it just behind the outside kitchen walls, near a place the factory cut. I fed the cable through there and drilled a hole just next to where the factory had ran other lines. I did try first to get it through the same hole for the other lines, but no luck. The cable runs outside to the back and I attach it to the tailgater there. Works perfectly. For storage while traveling, I drilled a small hole in the bumper covers and inserted the remaining cable into there. It travels snug and nicely, now we have satellite in the fifth wheel.
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