Poor television reception

[mustang92]

When I am hooked up to cable, the tv in my living area is poor quality. TV in the BR is fine, as is the tv that I have outdoors. I know the tv's are analog. Will getting the digital converter box help, or is there something else I can do to get better reception. I have checked all of the cable connections to make sure they are tight.

[racerjoe]

We have the same problem with ours, We have a 27" Toshiba in the living area and a 13" in the bedroom, and the bedroom one is 100 times clearer than the other. No matter if we are on cable or antenna,same result. My guess is some low quality cable to the set. Or maybe a poor switch that switches it from antenna to cable. Never looked into it any further.

[bw2]

I have a 3400 and the cable connection is behind the audio equipment above the TV. There is a splitter to allow for connecting the living room TV and connecting the splitter to a wall mount connection for the bedroom. Make sure in your Montana, where ever the cable connection comes in from the outside, the connections are made for both TVs.

[Pete Hanson]

Make sure you turn off the Booster switch at the antenna connection when your hooked up to cable.

[dsprik]

My setup has the same problem. My cheap analog oem TV in the bedroom has always had just a little better signal strength than the LR set (with the booster on). We now have a 32 in Sharp Aquos 1080p in the LR and it is approx 15 times the set technology (price) than the BR set. Still does not have the signal strength of the BR set.

I will break down and pay Best Buy Geek Squad $125 (last year's price) for a service call one of these days. They did a good job last time they made the trip. I may wait for this "oil bubble" to break first. Price may be $250 now...

[ols1932]

We've always experienced the same thing but I have never said anything. Being an "old" electronics guy I should be able to figure out what the problem is but I've never looked into it. At first I thought it was the antenna amplifier switch being on. No, that wasn't it because the switch was off. I'm just now wondering if there isn't some type of interconnection from the antenna amplifier that loads the line somehow. It'll take some figuring and I'm just not desirous of doing any troubleshooting. I watch DirecTV mostly anyhow.

Orv

[Okie Guy]

I have this problem. When I pulled out my living room television I noticed one of the cable ends was not crimped onto the wire properly. I replaced the end and crimped it tight then screwed all fo the ends on the splitter tight. This helped my signal but it is far from perfect now. I have one of the Zenith TV's in my 2007 3000RK.

[cmp-shooter]

I had a lot of problems with my cable when I first got my montana...I had the cable vision guy come to my home and go thru my house checking the wireing out, and then in the montana ..he found the factory wired in the cable routed wrong behind the tv, he replaced the lousey cable with new ones and checked it all out with meters....now all is perfect reception.[front & back]

[mustang92]

Wow, if this is a common problem, has anyone ever contacted Keystone to see if they would make rapair (replace cable/fittings) if out of warranty?

[sreigle]

Having grown up with a father who owned TV repair businesses and was a whiz at repairing them, I know the smaller the screen the sharper the picture. Maybe that has something to do with what you're seeing or is the disparity far worse than that? If so, sounds like a connection is not tight somewhere? Or the coax in the walls is cheap and is too close to electrical lines?

[richfaa]

We have always had poor reception (TVI) on the lower channels,2,3,4. We have checked or replaced everything we can see with no results. We ran a line directly from a antenna on the house roof to the input of the Camper Tv and the picture is perfect so the problem is internal to the camper and internal to the walls.(we did replace the camper antenna and amlifiers.)

[Delaine and Lindy]

I have found in most cases of poor reception, the problem will be in the wiring RG6 cables etc. We now use the Direct-Tv Satellite dish for HDTV. We also have remove every Tv that has came with the last 4 5th wheels. We now have a 32" Jensen and a 19" HDTV's and haven't replaced them yet. But are waiting on Samsung to get the 32" 1080P on the market, suppose to be in stores in June. If anyone is going to put a new HDTV system in make sure you go with the 1080P. We build a new house and have a Samsung 46" in the living area and a 42" in the bedroom. The picture and colors are awesome, we are very pleased in our decision. We had Sony's before but decided on the Samsung after much research. We very seldom watch any channel that isn't HD. Good Luck. GBY.....

[SlickWillie]

Seems most have hit the nail on the head....crappy cable(the wire not the CATV) + crappy connections = crappy picture. I've never found a good connection on our RV cables, and that includes our SOB travel trailer. I would love to rip all the cable out and replace with good cable, but don't watch TV enough to justify. I ran good RG6 under the floor up to the entertainment center,so our LR tv is fine on the dish.

[dsprik]

The problem is not Sat or cable TV. We had both setups and we have also had two different LR large TVs. One was the OEM tube that came with the 2007 3400RL and the 2nd one was the state of the art 32 in Aquos LCD 1080p. NO difference between BR and LR TVs on cable/Sat.

However, BOTH of those TVs in the LR had poorer signal strength than my OEM 19 in. tube in the bedroom when on "air" and with the booster on.

Has to be the cable/connections between the booster and the LR TV...

[richfaa]

The cable in our 3400 is not even marked as to if it is RG-6 or RG-58..it is that "cost effective" It should be RG-58 for Tv and RG-6 for Sat but it is all one cable..whatever it is...the runs are to short for any real loss of signal. RG-58 is OK to use from the output of the Sat receiver to the TV set but should be RG-6 from the St antenna to the input of the receivers. The problem is just low cost cable, or a nail or staple run through the cable. Since I cabn maje it work with direct cable runs I know it is internal to the camper.

[H. John Kohl]

quote:Originally posted by richfaa

The cable in our 3400 is not even marked as to if it is RG-6 or RG-58..it is that "cost effective" It should be RG-58 for Tv and RG-6 for Sat but it is all one cable..whatever it is...the runs are to short for any real loss of signal. RG-58 is OK to use from the output of the Sat receiver to the TV set but should be RG-6 from the St antenna to the input of the receivers. The problem is just low cost cable, or a nail or staple run through the cable. Since I cabn maje it work with direct cable runs I know it is internal to the camper.

Actually Rich it should be RG 59 or RG 6. Both are 75 ohm and that is the impedance for the television connection. RG6 is better cable (less loss/more expensive) and can be used for both SAT and TV.
RG 58 is 50 ohms and used for CB and Ham Radio.
Coax Cable Impedance

[richfaa]

OOpps..RG -58 is a cable we used in micro wave systems at work..Old habits die hard.. RG-6 has superior shielding over RG-59 there by reducing signal loss on the longer runs. We have used RG-59 on 25 foot runs for the sat with no ill effect.

[Waynem]

Oh what I would do for some RG-11!!!!

[Exnavydiver]

When we got the BS last fall I tested out the cable system and found the same situation. So I pulled every cable outlet off and cut the crap crimps off. I re-stripped the cable and put linear crimped fittings on, just like the Hughes and Directv guys use, I had ordered a hundred connectors and a linear compression tool. I ended up ordering another 150 connectors before I was finished. Now all the cables read the same and my signals are all sharp. Since I got the HD dish from Directv I decided to set it up in the new Big Sky. I pulled the fireplace and drilled two sets of two holes in the exterior wall and mounted two duplex weather resistant cable outlets on the outside of the slide, ran new RG-6 up to the DVR in the entertainment center. Rather than trying to fiddle with the internal crap cable for the bdrm tv I just mounted a single weather resistant cable outlet on the curb side of the front right under the dresser. That gave me a dedicated cable for the Directv receiver in the closet. Now I have HD front and back and even with the garbage cable inside I still have a great signal fromn the antenna.. Dave

[dsprik]

You're the MAN, Dave! I wish Lake Michigan was not between us. I'd make a run over to you to help me do similar.