Help for an electronically challenged owner

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RedT

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 12, 2008
Posts
563
Location
Glendale, AZ
I own a 2004 Itasca Meridian. The entertainment system consists of 2 TV sets and two speakers. There is an external port for a TV, and a port for cable signal input. There is a batwing antenna on the roof for over the air TV. A component switch box (Box of Many Buttons) with coaxial connections controls the TV inputs and outputs. The coaxial used is RG59.

The main cabin TV was replaced a few years ago with a Visio 23 inch flat screen. The video input for the flat screen is HDMI. The initial cable input port has been rewired with RG6 coax from the input port to the Dish Network receiver. This is a single cable run from the port ? no couplers or switches are used.
The cable run from the BOMB to the bedroom and to the external TV port remain RG59, and are at the moment unused.

My objective is to replace the BOMB (containing the BatWing TV antenna amplifier) with another component. (A switching system?) The coaxial input from the batwing antenna needs to be converted to an HDMI signal to the TV. 

As stated in the subject, I am not electrically proficient enough to determine what components I need to update my current system.
 
Red doesn't your TV have a connection for the coax from your batwing.I don't think hdmi will help your picture quality.
When I use my dish traveller I have a coax cable I ran to the exterior then I ran hdmi from receiver to a splitter one to front TV and one to bedroom.
  I ran a 5 0' hdmi thru the cabinets to get it to bedroom.  both TV can only watch same program but not a problem for us.
  On our last trip which we just returned from we used YouTube TV  and the batwing and it worked good. We use Visible phone Hotspot for our unlimited data. We also use Roku's on the TV 's and it looks like they have a sound bar system now,I just use Bluetooth speakers

I'm sure others with more elaborate system will chime in
 
Red,

As I get your story, The new flat screen has only an HDMI input - Correct? 

If that is the case, your new TV has no capability to receive/tune in to any thing at all.  That means will need a TV/cable tuner with an HDMI output.  That may be tough to find.

Years back, when the US was converting to digital transmission, these were offered at low cost, but none that I had did have an HDMI output.  They did have S-Video.  With the right box, you can probably do this.  If you find one of those, you should be able to score an S-vid- HDMI from Ebay for 20~30$us.

You may want to keep the BOMB. 

Good Luck

Matt
 
I have been shopping for a new tv and have not seen any that don't have a coaxial antenna hookup.
 
RedT said:
The cable run from the BOMB to the bedroom and to the external TV port remain RG59, and are at the moment unused.

My objective is to replace the BOMB (containing the BatWing TV antenna amplifier) with another component. (A switching system?) The coaxial input from the batwing antenna needs to be converted to an HDMI signal to the TV.
JMHO, but I think you may be making this more complicated than necessary. If you have a batwing, run a cable from the batwing amp to the coax input on the TV. No need for HDMI. OTA HDTV works fine on an antenna and coax. Use a splitter to send the batwing signal to the bedroom via coax.

Is sounds like you are going to be using DISH Network, too. It's been a few years, but when I had dish in my coach, the receiver box had HDMI output for the primary TV and coax for a second TV. If yours is the same, you should be able to use the existing RG59 for the bedroom TV. (IIRC you could only get SD TV (on channel 3 or 4) on the bedroom TV with that setup.) Your DISH receiver is probably newer and may have HDMI for both TVs. If so you will need to run an HDMI cable from the DISH receiver to the bedroom. As for switching, your flat panel TV should handle that. Just choose the input ("Antenna" or "HDMI") via the TV remote.

Of course, it is possible I have misunderstood what it is you are trying to do. If so, disregard what I have written above. I wish you luck with figuring all of this out. It can certainly be frustrating.
 
If your TV is a TV then it has both a Tuner capable of decoding ATST (over the air) Televsion and a COAX input for the cable from the BOMB.  If it does not have that input then it's not a television, it's a monitor.  I think VIZO makes both

There are add-on tuners should you have a monitor. I have two of them lying about. Coax goes to them and either HDMI or some other interfact to Monitor.

I also have two analog DVR's that were able to control the Digital interfaces via IR-Blaster
And you have seen those ads about the expensive subscription system that let you record shows. play back part in one room part in another. Download to portable devices.  Start/stop/pause/rewind and so on..  25.00/year for the electronic program guide and I did all that.

Now I use a crappy cable company DVR that's a pain in the you know what for most TV (Still have a few shows on the Replays)
 
I think maybe some here have read too much into the HDMI video input statement.  RedT is probably talking about the video signal from an external tuner to the tv. Probably the DISH receiver, which likely has only HDMI output.  I'm guessing the antenna coax only goes to the BOMB and is therefore not currently in use as a tv signal source.
Assuming the Vizio tv has an ATSC (digital) tuner, it must have a coax port for attaching an antenna lead.  Antennas like the batwing don't do HDMI. If it doesn't have a OTA antenna coax port, then an external ATSC tuner will be needed between the antenna Something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-HOMEWORX-HW130STB-Converter-Recording/dp/B01EW098XS/and the front tv.

You can get HDMI switches (Bombs) to handle HDMI signal sources. Here's one that switch either of two HDMI inputs to any of 3 HDMI outputs.
https://www.amazon.com/Switch-Splitter-Switcher-Remote-Support/dp/B07B8YQPMB

You didn't say what you want to do with the rear tv.  You can replace the rear tv with a digital model but getting an HDMI cable to the rear tv can be a challenge. It might be easier to stay with coax and use an HDMI-to-coax converter box, but then you are stuck with the old lo-res tv in the back. Better to upgrade the rear tv and use wireless HDMI or a pair of HDMI-over-coax converter boxes to get the signal to the rear. Not cheap, though.
 
RedT said:
I own a 2004 Itasca Meridian. The entertainment system consists of 2 TV sets and two speakers. There is an external port for a TV, and a port for cable signal input. There is a batwing antenna on the roof for over the air TV. A component switch box (Box of Many Buttons) with coaxial connections controls the TV inputs and outputs. The coaxial used is RG59.

The main cabin TV was replaced a few years ago with a Visio 23 inch flat screen. The video input for the flat screen is HDMI. The initial cable input port has been rewired with RG6 coax from the input port to the Dish Network receiver. This is a single cable run from the port ? no couplers or switches are used.
The cable run from the BOMB to the bedroom and to the external TV port remain RG59, and are at the moment unused.

My objective is to replace the BOMB (containing the BatWing TV antenna amplifier) with another component. (A switching system?) The coaxial input from the batwing antenna needs to be converted to an HDMI signal to the TV. 

As stated in the subject, I am not electrically proficient enough to determine what components I need to update my current system.

I am confused... So let's try to summarize

TV #1 - Vizio Cabin - Dish tv only is wired in directly - no other inputs
TV #2 - Bedroom old school - Nothing is hooked up?

The question is what are the desired inputs.

TV #1 - Dish and Broadest antenna inputs.
TV #2 - Dish and broadcast antenna inputs

As stated the new tv should have built in tuning and be able to use the Dish and antenna inputs. I don't see a need for an external switch as you just select source from the tv remote.

TV 2 - If the Dish only puts out HDMI and the TV has no HDMI port then I think Gary said you need a converter. It should (obviously) take an antenna (coax) input.

If it were my RV I will upgrade TV #2 to start with. Then it gets a lot easier because you can simply select sources from the TVs. I remember the days of "The Bomb" and it was a PITA especially when you had VCRs, DVD, Laser disks etc, etc. and you wanted it all hooked up to one lousy TV RGB input - LOL...

If both TVs were smart TVs life would be easier. The next question is what is the situation with the 2 speaker switches?  Maybe they just get rewired to separate TVs with no switching. Most TVs also have audio out these days. Either wired or Bluetooth

 
I'm facing the same situation so here's my take.

There is no end to what you "could" do with multimedia in an RV.  Install a DNLA server/NAS, ethernet to every set, OTA stream and store, on and on.  If you're a propeller head and like messing with windoze or linux, routers and TCP/IP, and software configuration from hell more power to you.  I bought an RV to go camping, not to be a netadmin to watch stoopid TV.

The PO of my RV "mucked" with the factory TV cabling and installed a dish receiver with I think a sub-receiver ("joey").  When they sold it they removed all the boxes and just left a collection of unlabeled disconnected cables.  So the factory wiring documentation was no help and I had to ring out everything there.  After going through all that and a few trips out making notes about how I want it to work "someday" the following is my target goal.

Ditched the box of buttons.  It made some sense when there were separate set top boxes but nowadays TV's are "smart" and the need to play VHS tapes and record off-air anymore is minimal.  A simple cable splitter takes care of the batwing OTA feed between the front and rear TV's.  Very few (any?) contemporary peripherals use RF modulators anymore, most everything is HDMI in/out.  So let your TV become the box of buttons by using its' source control.  At some future date I may extend an HDMI/ethernet run to the back TV but right now that sees such little use it's low on the priority list.  As others have posted I'd be surprised if the OP's TV didn't have a tuner but if that's a true statement, my path would be to ditch that TV and get one with a tuner.  TV's are cheap and it's a lot easier to go that route than to mess with an HDMI output tuner box. 

I have two HDMI connections to the front TV.  One to a DVD player, another to a streaming media box called GoFlex.  This is an older device that will play saved video and audio content and is a small unit.  I use it mostly for music files and some photo slideshows but it will play non-DRM video files. I'm sure there are more modern/better units like it out there today, but I had it and it works.  Someday when I figure out how to rip my DVD movies to MP4's I can nix the DVD player. 

Haven't tried satellite or cable yet but the plumbing is there.  I would amount to RF in from the outside dish, then HDMI between the receiver and the TV.  The TV selects which HDMI input to use.

Audio/music is the dash radio with the AUX input going to a Radio Shack (!) selector switch that chooses between the DVD player (movie sound/music CD's), the TV line out (OTA TV audio), and a bluetooth receiver (phone/tablet/MP3 player sources).  And of course, it's an old-fashioned AM/FM radio.

What I'm working on now is adding a small travel router as a wifi hub, then casting phone/tablet content to the TV's via a "stick" (chrome, firestik, roku, miracast, et al).  Turns out my chromecast stick is too old so I'll be buying a new one, so hopefully will come up with a workable solution with that.  The plus there is just about any device out there can stream with chromecast so that's my goal.  The wifi could also be a path into a NAS but I'm resisting that urge for now.  Just because you "can" doesn't mean you "should".

So this is the path I'm taking.  The phones/tablets/laptops we bring along will be the primary source of content whether it's stored files or streamed via wifi or cellular, and the systems in the RV are largely stupid, just being a display monitor or audio amplifier.  By using common/basic hardware-based building blocks I'm hoping to avoid a complex installation, plus the configuration and update hell I'd have running a heavy operating system on a PC or having to roll my own dedicated media server. 

Mark B.
Albuquerque, NM
 

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