A few questions I need some advice

I just bought a 2000 Fleetwood Bounder class A MH last week.  I'm going thru the coach fixing all the items that weren't working when I purchased the coach.  Here's the advice I need help on:

1.  I serviced the 5.5 Onan generator yesterday(oil, fuel, air filers+plugs).  I noticed the generator started well and ran good.  However right after servicing I let it run about 45 minutes & shut it off.  I waited about 10 minutes later and tried to start it again, except the starter turned over very slowly and it sounded like the battery was weak and almost dead.  I hooked up the house batteries on my 10 amp charger and let it charge overnight.  This afternoon tried to start the gen. at the generator and again the starter barely turned over.  I tried at the dash also with the same results-the starter barely turned over.  I used the Aux battery button on the dash-I assume this is in case your main battery is dead and you need to start the RV's engine(triton V10)....I pressed this button along with the generator start button and the generator fired up within a second.  I turned off the generator at the dash and waited 10 minutes and it again started this time without using the Aux button.  Each time the gen. fired up immediately.  Now that all of that is said...What could have caused this to occur?  I was thinking, maybe the 2 house batteries were weak maybe.  The lights and slide out work fine and don't show any sign of weak batteries.  Does the generator hook to the house batteries or the main engine battery?  Could I have corrosion on the terminals leading up to the batteries?  The terminals at the gen. are very clean and tight.  I haven't been under the coach yet to follow the wires from the generator to where ever they are hooked to batteries or a ????  I didn't want to throw new batteries on this and that not be my issue.  I have no idea how old the batteries are on both the house and main engine battery.  Any idea what I should look at next to fix this issue.
2. My next issue and thankfully my only other problem found so far, is regarding the TV's in the living area and bedroom.  Both the tv's are the old glass picture tube type.  I want to mount a flat screen 32" in the living area and 24 to 32" in the bedroom.  Currently I can't get any picture on the tv's in either room.  THe MH has a Winguard ant. and also a Winguard sat. dish on top of the MH.  I cranked up the normal TV ant. and tried to see if I could pu any local channels.  No luck.  I haven't tried the sat. ant. yet.  Does anyone have a wiring diagram on how and what I need to hook up my flat screen tv's in this coach for both ant's to get reception? All the huge pile of manuals that came with the coach- none show anything on how to wire up the TV's in either area.  I know I'll need a Direct TV box for the sat. system but is anything else needed to hook up the sat. system?  I looked on You Tube for help on this but no real assistance.  If anyone has any diagrams or advice on this I would be forever grateful.

Sorry for the long post...hope I didn't bore ya with the post.  I'm pretty mechanical and can figure most stuff out with time, but I've also been known-just ask my wife- to jack up a steel anvil given a little time and effort!  These were the only issues I've found not working on my new toy so I'm pretty happy so far.  Any ideas or assistance would be appreciated.  Good day.  Glynn

As far as the generator, most start off of the house batteries. Did you check the grounds going to the genny as well as the positive wires. Sometimes a ground can get dirty, and cause as much trouble as a bad positive. Using a jumper cable to help ground the genny to the frame will help test the grounding if it happens again.

You gen start issue could have been a bad spot on the starter rotor. I had that happen on the motor for hydraulic jacks.
Is you ant. the old analog or is it for digital signals?
Your TV's need to have coaxial cable hookups to use over the air stations as that's how the ant. is wired and most likely the coach.

Koodog said:

You gen start issue could have been a bad spot on the starter rotor. I had that happen on the motor for hydraulic jacks.
Is you ant. the old analog or is it for digital signals?
Your TV's need to have coaxial cable hookups to use over the air stations as that's how the ant. is wired and most likely the coach.

Click to expand...

There are no "digital" OTA antennas, no matter what the marketing folks try to tell you. Radio waves are radio waves, period. The older Winegard batwing antennas are just as capable of receiving the current TV signals as the new ones, although there are newer add-ons that will improve their performance.

You may need a converter box for televisions that old.

There is a old style converter box by the TV.  I think it was the boxes folks were buying years ago to convert the analog to digital signals.  I'm throwing that and the TV's all away and buying a 32" HD flat screen and also a 24" high def flat screen.  I know the Winguard -local channels ant. will work with the new TV's or at least that what I've researched so far.  Will I need any other boxes or add ons to make the Winguard Traver Satellite dish to work?  I know I'll need the Direct TV box.  My question was how do you go about hooking all this equipment up.  I was looking for a diagram on the net that would give me a general idea on how the connections should be routed.  I think the generator is a bad ground possibly.  It rained enough here today to float Noah's ark!  I need a few dry days to crawl under the coach to check the generator leads.  I don't believe the starter is the issue as once the generator had a full amount of voltage the starter spun over numerous times I cranked up the generator.  But I won't completely discount the starter issue.  I'll try to completely rule that out later this week.  Any idea where I can find a diagram on the tv connections?  Thanks again  Glynn

Basically, you can't get anything on those old TVs because they don't have an ATSC tuner, the "new" digital protocol to give digital and High Def TV -- that's what those converter boxes do. Those old ones only recognize the NTSC protocol, the one use since back in the '40s. So replacing the TVs and hooking up the antenna coax to the new flat screens' antenna jacks, the same way as you do with those old CRT types in the old days should work just fine.

As for the DirecTV hookup, it depends on what satellite dish you have and what receiver you get. There are several different hookup mechanism, and the Winegard dish must be the one for DirecTV, not for the Dish network. You may have to get the satellite connection data from a DirecTV installer.

As to the satellite there are two (possibly a third) cables. One is the control and power cable that goes to the antenna control box. The second is a coax that connects directly to the receiver. Be sure that the antenna is Direct TV as there is a difference between that type and Dish. As I understand it (I have the Dish version) Dish may be set to work on Direct but not the reverse. Then run a coax to the tv from the receiver. This could also be a hdmi cable; check the directions. That should be everything required; then just turn on the Antenna control and receiver and startvthe antenna search. That's it!

The optional third coax would go to a second receiver for the br if used.

Ernie

Just to clarify a bit, the available Trav'ler conversion is from DirecTV to Dish only, and requires installing two kits that replace the reflector and the arm/LNB unit. If your Trav'ler is an SK-3005, a software version check is needed as well.

https://rvseniormoments.com/tech-docs/dish-tv-for-rvs/directv-to-dish-travler-conversions/