TV Cabling
I'm Buster Brown, I live in a shoe. This is my dog Tige, he lives there too.

TV Cabling

Red Rover, Red Rover, Come Over
Last changes 7/12/2007

We planned ahead for satellite Internet and for using a ground satellite TV dish by adding three coax feeds on the outside of the trailer.  This is in addition to the normal satellite and cable feeds that came standard.

When we received the trailer, we found that the feeds from our roof mounted Winegard AS-2003 satellite TV dish went one to the living room and one to the bedroom.  We needed both in the living room  for our Dish VIP622 DVR satellite receiver.  The Winegard dish cannot have a splitter in its feed from the receiver to the dish.

While the VIP622 wants two inputs, it will operate with just one in a severely limited mode.  One of the functions lost with just a signal feed is the ability to record a program while watching another.

If we had known this, we would have had some extra coax cabling installed to give us configuration flexibility.

Dish VIP622 We eventually solved the coax feed issue by installing a conduit from the bedroom to the living room under the trailer belly  We can now route the bedroom signal to the VIP622 in the living room so the VIP622 has two feeds.

We used the same conduit to run the Cat-5 wiring for our WISP radio.
Cable Run
 
TV This is the cabling for our TVs.  To facilitate moving the Dish 622 between the Winegard AS-2003 and the ground Dish 1000 Pro, we used a set of switches designed for satellite level signals (same as below).
 
Dish VIP622 The VIP622 can drive a second TV, each watching its own programs.  We took the second TV output of the VIP622 and ran that to a coax switch.  The other leg of the switch came from the antenna/cable connection for the bedroom TV.  Now the coax that used to carry antenna/cable to the bedroom can also carry the second TV output of the VIP622 depending on the switch position.

There is a provision to run the antenna/cable signal through the VIP622 but we choose not to do that for simplicity reasons.
Click on images to enlarge
Dish VIP622 We carry a Dish 1000 Pro dish mounted on a tripod.  This replaced the original Dish 500 Pro.

When the VIP622 is connected to the Dish 1000 Pro dish, we have full flexibility of programming.  We use the roof mounted AS-2003 for quick overnight stops where we don’t want to spend the time to setup the tripod.  The tripod setup also gives us flexibility when we are parked in trees.  There is a chance that the tripod can be located clear of the trees.

For the setup procedure, see TV Dish Setup.
Click on images to enlarge
We bought a 500' spool of dual RG6 coax cable with solid copper core.  This costs a little more than standard RG6 coax which has copper plated iron core.  It looks the same, check the label to be sure.  Home Depot and Lowes usually carry the plated core wire.

We cut the wire into 100' foot and 50' sections.  We already had a 25'.  We use the same sections for the TV ground dish and the Internet dish.  The solid copper wire should be good for up to 250' from the RV.  We only have had to go 150' to get a clear shot at the satellite because of trees.

Coax Tools You should also plan on replacing the ends of your coax cables.  You rely that the cables ends will wear out or become damaged.  An initial investment in a few tools makes life a lot easier.

For cable ends, the only thing to use is compression fittings.  They make better contacts than the screw on type and are far more weatherproof.

A coax stripper means you will get the proper removal of outer cover, the shield, and the inner insulator.  This can be done with regular wire strippers but the results are rarely correct.

Disclaimer: The information in this site is a collection of data we derived from the vendors and from our personal experiences.  This information is meant as a learning guide for you to  make your own decisions  Best practices and code should always be followed.  The recommendations we make are from our personal experiences and we do not receive any compensation for those recommendations.