What guage Wire?

[hickory]

Some time ago I posted about our TV losing signal when the door is opened and the lights come on or we turn on ceiling lights. We decided to do a little experiment the other day. The Monty, (a 2013 3400 rl) is resting in a steel pole barn on a farm. We went over and pluged in power from the wall outlet via a 12 guage ext. cord to the adapters up to the 50 amp power cord. We ran the ac (one unit only), a couple lights and the TV. we tuned the TV and pulled in about 20 channels,Madison and Milwaukee, and turned on lots of lights & the ceiling fan and the signal stayed on, this while parked in a steel building!!!! We figure that while we were up north, the reason we lost signal is because the stations we were tuned into were so far away, but it still doesn't quite make sense to my weak mind. When we unhooked from shore power, both ends of the ext. cord were fairly warm. Was the ext. cord too light?

[K0LCB]

A 12 gauge wire is rated 20 amps, 10 gauge will handle 30 amps. I have operated on a short run of 10-3 w/g on a 220 circuit with no problems. Antenna amp needs at least 11.5 volts to operate, in my opinion

[hickory]

Thanks Leonard, I'll Build a 10 ga. cord with some heavy plugs to carry with me just in case.

[BB_TX]

Amps plus resistance equals heat. There is always some resistance at any connection point such as wires under screws in plugs/outlets and the touching contacts when you insert a plug into an outlet. That is why the ends at the plugs will be the warm areas. Make sure you have good plugs and outlets and tight connections in all.

[psomers]

How long is your extension cord? Is power to pole barn a feed from your house? If so what gauge wire is that and how long? Longer the run more loses in power line.
If you really would like full 50 amp service you need 6 gauge.
At my house I use 10 gauge and a 30 amp receptacle. I use a 30 to 50 amp adapter. We only use power to cool refrigerator and maybe 1 A/C to load for trips.

[mlh]

My camper sits about a hundred yards from my home. I have an 8 gage wire to my camper shed. Running this far I probably have less than 10 amps of power. I will run the lights and keep the battery charged I'm sure I don't have enough power to run the AC.
Lynwood

[psomers]

quote:Originally posted by mlh

My camper sits about a hundred yards from my home. I have an 8 gage wire to my camper shed. Running this far I probably have less than 10 amps of power. I will run the lights and keep the battery charged I'm sure I don't have enough power to run the AC.
Lynwood

You could put a good volt meter at camper, turn AC on and take a voltage reading. If reading is 108 or higher I wouldn't be afraid to run for short periods. Eight gauge should handle 100 yards with 15 amp draw. That is about what AC pulls.

[NCFischers]

mlh,
You don't loose amperage, you loose voltage with long power cords. Low voltage (voltage drop)will cause damage to your equipment. Paul has a good idea.

[mlh]

Thanks guys. I don't need to run anything at the camper all I need is to keep the battery charged and turn on a light. I wired my machine shop both single and 3 phase and my single to 3 phase converter. I don't have 3 phase power so I haft to generate it from single phase.
Lynwood

[Recumbent]

Regarding your question about why the tv signal comes in so poorly when you turn on various lights. We have a similar issue with Cable TV having a poor signal when one bedroom light or one bathroom light is turned on, the others do not distort the tv picture. We know to make sure the Over-the-air booster is off when using Cable, but we still get interference when we use either of these two lights. Maybe someone will come along and suggest a solution. My assumption is that the cable coax is not shielded enough and is laying near this circuits wires. This does not happen using our Satellite or the crank up antenna.

[NCFischers]

Changing the threaded connectors on all the cables with good ones might help.