antenna booster

[Dave Cunningham]

hey guys , still working away on my cable system, went and bought a tone generator , as I think Ed suggested, works great until you get a bunch of stuff all bundled together, anyway finally located the cable that comes from the shore hookup , also dismantled the coax cord retractor and fixed it with some dielectric grease , have good signal up to the antenna amplifier, but nothing after that, i think someone was saying the when you turn off the booster, it switches over to regular cable, if that is the case it does not seem to be working, maybe I need a new booster?
Also there is a strange looking ''A/B'' selector switch in the storage compartment next to where you connect the cable, it has two coax cables coming from it and one unused terminal, it is a radio shack switch but sure looks like it was factory installed, just wondered if anybody else has one? and what it is for.

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

Dave,
Not sure how yours is wired, but the RS selector switch normally allows you to select an input, either A or B and route it to a single output. I have one in my spare parts bin and the coax connections are labeled A, B, and TV (output). So, depending on which connectors the 2 coax lines are hooked to, you either have 2 inputs and are missing the  coax output cable or one input and one output. In the latter case, make sure the selector switch is set to select the  correct input.

If you could "tone" one of the lines it would help in determining the purpose.

Steve

[Dave Cunningham]

Thanks Steve, maybe it is for selecting the source for a basement tv, ( which I don't have) sure wish I had a wiring diagram for this thing, I will have to check with northwest rv to see if they have one.

[Edward Buker]

Dave,

Check the terrestrial antenna signal to a TV, even if you have to cobble one in temporarily using some coax. With the antenna amp off you should see a weak to no signal and with it on it should be much improved. If that is not happening then I would assume that the switching function is also not working.

Actually it was Gerald's good call on the tone generator, I usually have a sense where I'm going looking for cable ends and use the 72 ohm terminator resistor and an ohm meter. I think the best method is both methods hand in hand...

Later Ed

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

Dave,

Sometimes it's easier to hook up a VCR output to your shore cable input and play a tape. You can see when you have signal to the TV and it differentiates itself from the antenna.
Steve

[Dave Cunningham]

Thanks guys ,I agree with both of you but to my frustration today, I could not find my multimeter , and I could not find one single device that has a cable output on it , I did happen to run across an earlier post from Gerald , about the guy across the road from beaver in bend , Steve ,I think from rv renovators? Anyway I got hold of him and he seems like the guy for these matters, he gave me a few tips , and next time I am down that way ,I think I will go see him. I was not too impressed with the young guy at beaver coach that does the electrical, he spent about five hours tearing apart my overhead tv mech trying to find out why it was ratcheting in the full down mode. Finally I asked him if he had checked the limit switch, and i stuck a kitchen knife in it and that's all it was.

[Edward Buker]

Dave,

Do you have a button that you press or an electrical switch of some sort that is for your terrestrial antenna? If you do the 12V wires from that would lead to the box you are looking for. If you identify the terrestrial antenna on the roof, there should be an online manual that describes the component that you are looking for. In my 2002 Marquis it is in a small cabiinet to the right of the TV over the windshield. Our coaches are different designs, yours being Monaco, so it is probably a different layout but not that different.

This is the Bose Lifestyle 50 that looks like what is in my coach. If that is what is on your build sheet and the cabling is still in the coach then this would likely work. It seems over priced to me but you are not going to likely find partial system pieces that work.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Bose-LifeStyle-50-5-1-Channel-Home-Theater-System-white-color-rare-find-/120974364190?pt=Home_Theater_in_a_Box&hash=item1c2aa24e1e

You are working on a bit of a nightmare situation there, sorry for the frustrations. If you could post some photos of the wiring/boxes you are finding and which cabinets they are in, as you look in the different spaces, other owners who have been there before may be able to comment and possibly provide some insight. These are some photos from my AV wiring/component bay which was in the forward passenger side cabinet over the couch. It housed a VCR, DVD player, satellite receiver. Behind those were the IR interface box that comes from the "eye" and the Bose system low level input box. It is the black box in the upper left. The little black box in the upper left below the Bose interface box with the small black plug ins is the IR box. This was my wiring armageddon after everything was removed and before I installed some new components. Before I did that I neatened up the wiring. These components had to be in one of your cabinets, it only makese sense to centralize them. In my coach this was all behind a black plexiglass panel and a cabinet door.

 The smaller cabinet photo is the one over the windshield that in my case that had the terrestrial antenna switch/amp and a coaxial rats nest with a bunch of splitters which I replaced and used a distribution amp. We have different coaches but you should also have something like this somewhere. You can see the coax in from the antenna and cable connection from the rear of the coach and then an output coax that heads to splitters. There are some 12V wires there also. Hope this helps some.

Later Ed

[Edward Buker]

Dave,

I see one of the photos was a duplicate it should have been this one with the rats nest. The last photo shows that small cabinet and the distribution amp, the cover panel over that had the coaxial switch box and antenna booster amp on it.

Later Ed

[Dave Cunningham]

Hey thanks a lot Ed, those pictures show me a lot , I do have the or remote box and I can see by the back of your antenna booster that is it is identical to mine, as I mentioned it does not seem to pass the cable signal through when turned off, I have been able to locate the separate pieces that I need for the bose system on eBay , I will probably order them up this week. What is the white distribution amp in the last picture, what does that do?

[Edward Buker]

Dave,

My coach was wired with RG59 as opposed to RG6. In the HD digital world with the bandwidth required, RG59 has a lot of loss. Beyond that most all of the channels that went digital took the opportunity to migrate into upper VHF and UHF band which has even higher losses at those frequencies. So you have the issue of poor cabling and then you have the issue of multiple splitters that took the antenna or cable signal and divided it many times for the front tv, rear tv, vcrs, Fm signal, sat receivers etc. In the 4th photo down you can see a 1 to three splitter followed by a 1 to two splitter, really not much signal left on some of the legs.

 I simply removed all the splitters and used a distribution amp to distribute an amplified signal source to each leg. It made a particularly huge improvement to the bedroom tv signal. These amps are relatively inexpensive on Amazon and for a couple of hour project it yields a great result. The only issue is figuring out where all the splitters are coming from and going but that was not too much of an issue. The lead from the antenna switch that would either be the cable or terrestrial antenna signal, depending on the switch position, goes to the amp input and then the rest are outputs. You buy the amp that has just enough output ports for your needs.

Later Ed

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

Dave,
You've probably already been there, but just in case, 03 Marquis wiring diagrams are located in the Coach Assist section of Member Services om this web site. Part 1 covers the entertainment systems.
Steve

[Dave Cunningham]

Steve thanks so much for that, no I had not looked there, but I will be today.
Ed, that's interesting stuff on the different types of coax, and after getting quite a bit figured out yesterday, I think the booster, is exactly what I need, as I mentioned the antenna booster does not seem to be working ( although the light comes on) and it will not pass the cable signal through so I bypassed it, the signal is then transferred to the entertainment bay above the couch, so I located my cable box there. Finally found three coax cables hidden under the base of that cabinet that go to the small compartment over the drivers head(side wall) from there found the lead to the tv and got it working. I need to split the signal at some point to go to the bedroom tv, but when I tried, it degraded the signal too much, this is where the booster would come in handy.
Now I have to get at least a video signal to the tv from the entertainment bay so I can use a blueray player, I have located an s-video cable that runs up to the tv, but for now I would like to use a standard red, white and yellow connection so that I will have audio from the tv until I get the Bose system working, there is a set of these wires connected to the tv now and there is a set coming into the entertainment bay, but they are not connected and for the life of me I can not figure out where they go, I will refer to the wiring diagram and maybe that will show me.
The only thing I can think of is that the tv at one time had to be connected to the Alladin system, anyway maybe the wiring diagram will help straighten so of these things out.