RE: satellite
I'm just tired of setting the dish up every time. And since I'm not going with HD anytime soon, I figured a dome dish would make life a little easier.
I really can't think of any reason to go with a dome, unless you want in-motion. If you don't care about the in-motion ability, and you want something on the roof, I think the fold-down style of dishes are better: they have a larger dish area, which should give them a stronger signal; they can see multiple satellites at once, which means you can more easily hook up multiple receivers (or a dual tuner DVR); and the dome doesn't have to switch satellites as you switch channels.
As a dome owner, I can only see two reasons to go with a dome: you want in-motion ability, or you subscribe to Dish Network and you want HD and you live in the Northeast or far South and can't see the satellite at 129. (In that case, you need to use the satellite at 61.5 for HD, and I don't know of any single dish (RV mounted, portable, or fixed house mounted) that can see 61.5 and the other satellites at the same time on the same dish. I have two dishes mounted on my house, and the one benefit of the dome is that it can see 61.5 and the regular satellites at 119 and 110 - something that no other single dish can do.)
The roof mounted dishes can range from the low end (manually crank up and aim, but less expensive) to the high end (fully automatic but more expensive - just push a button and watch TV.)
In my case, I'm in the process of doing the opposite as you: I'm tired of dealing with the dome's issues (weak signal, rain fade, delays as it switches satellites) and I'm switching over to a portable ground mounted dish. That should tell you something.
RE: I-86 in new york
I just drove the section between the PA line near Erie, to Lake Chautauqua this spring. Much of it is old concrete with lots of patches and uneven pavement joints. It felt like the motorhome was litterally being shaken apart. The speed limit is 65 in that area, but there was no way I could maintain that speed. The left lane was a little better, so I could move over and slow down to 50, and it was mostly tolerable. Most of the big rig trucks I saw on the road were doing the same thing. Fortunately, there wasn't much traffic on a Monday morning when I passed through, but I still kept an eye on the traffic and moved back to the right when other traffic was coming so they could pass. Many of the trucks were not so considerate, they let the faster moving cars pass on the right.
I have also driven the section of I-86 from I-390 North of Bath, down through Corning and on the PA line. There are some sections there around Bath that are almost as bad. Again, moving left and slowing down helps. Around Corning, it's a mess from all of the construction, but I can deal with that since it's a sign of improvement.
I have taken the section near Bath a few times, and will reluctantly take it again. But I'm not going to take the Western section again any time soon. I will stay on I-90, and then take 394 down to Lake Chautauqua. The I-86 shortcut just isn't worth it.
I can't speak of the section between Jamestown and Bath, Ive not driven that road in the motorhome.
As far as grades, twists, turns, or traffic, I see no issues. My only complaint is the jolts and jars. :M
RE: How to test brakes...left to right
Another possability may be the wiring. It could be that the brake wires run from the hitch, down the right side to the right brakes, and then continue on across to the left side and left brakes. If this is the case, and the wires running across to the other side are too small, then those brakes on the "far" end of the wire (the left brakes in this case) may not get as much power as those brakes on the "near" end of the wire (the right brakes.)
There might also be a poor connection or bad ground on the left set of brakes that are preventing them from coming on with full power.
One test would be to use a volt meter and measure the actual voltage at each brake magnet when the brakes are active.
Of course, there are also a number of mechanical or loading issues that could be involved, as others have mentioned above.
RE: daming of niagra falls
Very interesting tale.
Devoid of facts but, interesting never the less!
Well, I guess it's like the old game "Telephone." You tell somebody something, they tell the next person, and so on, and by the time it gets all the way to people in California it's a completely different story. At least us folks that live nearby understand the real story. ;)
I particularly liked the comment about using Love Canal as a diversion channel! If that were the case, why did they spend so much money digging tunnels under the city on both sides of the border, just so the power plants downstream could get water? And why did they spend so much money trying to clean up Love Canal? We're talking so much water used by the power plants, that I bet it would sweep Love Canal clean in a day! If it were a diversion channel, Love Canal would never have become a superfund site. Of course, then Lake Ontario might be a whole other story...
RE: Weight Police: Does this look right to you?
Everyone keeps saying Vectra, however the front cap sure looks like a Tour model cap.
You can't see it in the picture because the tree is in the way, but it very clearly said Vectra on the side, with a great big V. By the time I got the camera out, he was behind the tree, and I didn't think it was that important to take pictures from multiple angles. Of course, I could still be mistaken. and it could be something other than a Vectra. (And I suppose he could've put a Vectra decal on a Tour model. :W )
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I said earlier that there is no way I could get away with a setup like that on my rig, because I'm already at the rear axle weight limit. Well, sitting out by the rig after dinner tonight, and looking at all of the golf carts whizzing by in camp, my DW started asking how much I though they would cost. Then she started rattling off all of the dog shows we've been to in the last year (and several coming up soon) where it would've been real nice to have a cart.
But then I asked her how she proposed we haul it around. Her answer was how about one of those platforms on the back like we saw recently at that dog show? She was, of course, referring to the rig that this whole discussion is all about! :S
RE: What is this wire?
If you bought your M/H at Colton RV. go and ask for a repairman, Paul,,he would probably no what the wire is...
Thank's for the tip about Paul. But how do you talk to repairmen directly? I always have to go through John or Colin, the service writers.
I could also call the Holiday Rambler tech support line. But it's just not that big of a deal. I posted this mostly to have some fun, and to see what ideas people could come up with.
I liked the phaser bank idea. I'm surprised there weren't that many off the wall ideas. (I thought I would set the tone by the flux capacitor comment in the first post.)
RE: Weight Police: Does this look right to you?
WHAT YEAR IS THE VECTRA?
I don't have a clue. :@ Are there any external discernable spotting features that could be used to determine that? All I've got to go on is that one picture, and a quickly fading mental image of what it looked like.
RE: King Dome & DVR?????
I don't want to get too involved as you guys are using DISH and I'm using DirecTV and there may be some confusion going on here.
The basic technology is pretty much the same, but there are some implementation details that are different between the two providers.
It appears that my Dome is duplexing the signal from the dual LNB onto a single coax - that enters the MH and goes into the Tuner
Yes, it does appear that way. This is the part that is both surprising and intriquing.
There is no way that you can have a dual receiver DVR up front AND a single (or dual) receiver in the bedroom, all receiving independent feeds - plus the control voltages would screw it all up anyway.
It would take a bunch of switches and special wiring, but you'd still be limited to everybody watching the same satellite.
I'm really suprised that splitters were mentioned as I was told never to use a splitter in the feed line from the dome to the receiver - but then maybe that was a DirecTV thing.
Correct. Splitters are a no-no. You can use a diplexor to merge in an over the air antenna feed, and split it out again, but you cannot use a splitter to connect a single coax line to more than one receiver.
The only exception I see to this is the Dish Pro Plus receivers, which have dual tuners that can be fed from a single coax. It looks like a splitter, and it pretty much works like a splitter, but Dish Network is very careful to call it a separator, not a splitter. It lets you hook the single coax to both tuner inputs of the dual tuner DVR. It's used like a destacker, but it's not a destacker in and of itself. Most of the destacker hardware is built in the receiver. You can think of the separator as more of a front-end to the destacker.
What I do not have is auto switching between 101 and 119 - I seem to remember that I did once, and I have to have the KingDome set to 101/119 instead of 101 or 119 and that's meant to make it autoswitch. Wasn't reliable and so I just manually switch it now as needed.
That help explains some of the mystery. I assumed you had it set for automatic switching. Therefore, there is no need for the dome to receive any satellite switch commands from the receiver. It still needs to get the odd/even transponder signal, but even the second output port can respond to that.
But in your description, it sounds like you said the wire from the tuner goes to the second port of the dome, not the main port. That still confuses me. I've been inside the dome recently, replacing parts under warranty, and only the main port has the tie-in to the logic that controls the dome. The other port is simply a straight-through passthough from the second LNB output. So I'm still confused how it works. As I said before, maybe there's some non-standard wiring involved.
Interesting. Very interesting.
RE: Weight Police: Does this look right to you?
Well, aparently people are more comfortable with this setup than I am. Maybe I am being paranoid. I guess it stems from from my own CCC calculation and actual weights. I find that I have to be very diligent about putting heavy things up front, because I'm right at the weight limit of my rear axle, and that's with a lot of inside rear cabinets empty, and nothing hanging from the back. On my rig (which has almost the same gross weight ratings as that one) if I were to hang that much weight off of the back, I would have to store nothing but helium in the cabinets or lower compartments from the kitchen on back so that I could free up enough CCC for that setup.
Someone mentioned that the toad adds NO weight to the back of the rig. While it's true that none of the vehicle weight is on the hitch, the hitch still needs to support something like half the weight of the tow bar. (Yes, yes, I know... that's hardly any weight at all. That's true, specially compared to a cargo trailer tongue weight, bit it's still some weight! :W )
The bigger issue I see with the tow bar is the long overhang of the cargo platform. That's adding a long lever arm to the tow bar pivot point. As the MH goes over bumps, and the back end moves up and down, that's going to be quite some movement on the end of the tow bar. That could cause some added strain. Furthermore, in a panic stop, when the MH nosedives and the back end goes up, the pivot point of the tow bar is really going to go up, just as the nose of the toad is going down. That could add to the posability of the toad going under the MH. Using the toad as a cargo trailer won't help that situation, either. (But then again, maybe he has to put that cargo on the Jeep, as he has no CCC left to put it in a storage bay in the MH.)
To those that say it's a side radiator, do you know that for a fact, or are you going by the radiator grill behind the rear wheel? The specs I've seen seem to indiacate it's a rear radiator. If you're just going by the grill, that might be confusing, as I have a very similar side grill on my rig, and it's just a small condensor radiator for the dash air, while the main engine radiator is in the back. Are you sure that's not the case here? Again, you can't see it in this picture, but when I saw it in person I thought I saw a rear radiator grill.
Well, I don't know how close he is to his ratings, all I know is that I could never get away with doing that on my rig. Half the reason for posting this was to get other's opinions on if it looked like a valid setup. I guess the majority have no problem with it. Good for him.
If that one bothers you, wait until you see the guys towing a jeep with a 20 foot bass boat behind that. I have seen that setup more than once.
LOL! I've been telling my DW that I need to hook my toad to the back of the MH, and then my flatbed utility trailer to the back of that, and load the trailer up with the quads. I want to take a picture of the resulting 82 foot long "freight train" and post it as a joke. It would be absolutely illegal here, and I would never drive it that way, but I wonder what kind of reactions I would get if I posted that picture! :B
RE: King Dome & DVR?????
OK, the dome has 2 connectors labelled Aux and Main and a single coax goes from the AUX connector (no idea why it doesn't go from Main) and enters the coach. The single coax then enters a black tuner box that connects to the LCD control panel and a single coax leaves this and enters the destacker (NAS SCD 1UT2) and this has 2 coaxes that run through to the 2 inputs on the DVR.
This is really interesting, and I don't understand at all why it works for you! I must be missing a key piece of information.
First off, I assume you are switching between multiple satellites? If so, my understanding is that the receiver's switch commands need to be sent to the dome via the MAIN port, and that it isn't listening for such commands on the other port. So I don't understand how that works, unless the wiring in your dome is non-standard.
I had asked the KingDome people if they had a frequency stacking LNBF so that I could run two tuners on one cable. They said they had looked into it, but they don't have a workable solution.
Secondly, I see where you have the destacker, but I don't see anything that stacks the two LNBF outputs in the first place. Once again, my mind is drawn to non-standard wiring in the dome. Maybe it's got a special LNBF in the dome with a built in stacker? If so, maybe it's not compatible with the dome's built in RF circuitry, and that's why it's routed out the second port? I just don't understand.
wa8yxm, do you have any theories on what's going on here and how he got it working? (I'm not an RF engineer, or a ham techinician, but I am an engineer that understands the basics of RF, frequency ranges, and superhetrodyne frequency block conversion. I couldn't design a system like this, but I could point to a block diagram and talk semi-inteligently about what's going on.) Any chance you (or anyone else) can explain this to me?
OK, now you guys are confusing me again! LOL
When I install this 9762 I'm going to have ONE cable going to the so called TUNER that KING DOME provides ( and maybe get that "adjusted" to look at right birds...in this case DISH networks 110,119, and 129) then ONE? cable to my receiver?
That's where I'm at right now. I was just about to run that second cable, but ran into enough dome and tuner issues that I'm not sure I going to waste the effort.
Right now I have ONE cable but it has a spliter (two actually) or duplexer? that is in the line from outside attached to the back of my 722 receiver. Where it is attached it is split by the duplexer or spliter and attaches to SAT 1 & Sat 2 on back of receiver.
The you must have a Dish Pro Plus LNB on your dish. Looking at the back of the LNB on the arm in front of the dish, it should be plainly labeled.
The Dish Pro Plus (not to be confused with Dish Pro) technology puts a switch and a frequency stacker in the LNB. This requires a better quality cable that can go to 2150 MHz (instead of the normal limit which is 945 MHz, I think?) but it allows two independent satellite signals to be stacked on one cable. Then, that one cable goes to the Dish Pro Plus Separater (fancy term for a splitter, this particular one is not really a destacker) which allows the signal to go to both satellite inputs. Finally, The Dish Pro Plus compatible receiver you have has the circuitry inside to destack and properly convert the frequencies. This is the setup I have at home: one cable to each dual tuner DVR.
Whitout doing that spliter/duplexer thing then I would think that I would run TWO cables, on to the SAT one and one to the SAT2 on receiver...but then what about the TUNER from KING DOME???? Where does that come in???
The diagram is in your dome manual. Without some sort of stacker/destacker arrangement, you do need two cables from the dome. One goes from the MAIN output of the dome, into the little black tuner box, and out from there into the satellite 1 input of your receiver. The other cable comes from the second port of the dome, and goes straight to the second tuner input of the receiver.
I understand that recording...or watching...two different stations is only possible if that are both on the same satellite, I'm just still a bit confused on hooking up the dual room DVR thingie.
Will be wonderful if I can hook up without having another BOX in back of coach...or will I????
Geeeeez soooooooo confusing!
Forum has been, and still is interesting reading!
Thank,
John
The way I understand it, without some sort of frequency stacking, you will need two cables from the dome to feed two tuners. It doesn't matter if it's a dual tuner receiver feeding two sets, or two single tuner receivers. The folks at KingDome say it will be more reliable with two single tuner receivers. I don't understand why, but given how much I've banged my head against the wall with my dual tuner receiver, I can't prove them wrong.
The best solution might be two single tuner receivers, just so the KingDome folks will support you with no questions asked and no finger pointing. But Dish does not make a single tuner DVR. If you want a DVR, then you get dual tuners, and I don't think it makes any difference if that dual tuner recevier is a 722, 622, or 612, as we discussed privately. You might as well use your 722 so you can control both sets independently. Using any dual tuner receiver, and then adding another box for the back bedroom (a third tuner!) will really complicate things. You think it's complicated now?
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BTW, I'm really enjoying this conversation. I would love to be able to get everyone involved gathered around a campfire to talk about this, drink a few cold ones, and maybe draw a few diagrams in the sand with a stick! (I was going to say make some drawings on a whiteboard, but we are camping, after all. :B )
RE: King Dome & DVR?????
No destacker required.
Correct, because you ran two cables. stevelv is apparently driving two tuners with only one cable. That requires some extra work.
At home, I'm driving both tuners of my two Dish Network DVRs with one cable each. That's because the dish has Dish Pro Plus LNBs that have the stacker built in, and the receivers have the corresponding destacker built in. The folks at KingDome say they do not have a Dish Pro Plus compatible LNB that would allow me to use the receiver's built in destacker.
So I'm curious how stevelv did it with just one cable.
RE: Weight Police: Does this look right to you?
As for his radiator in that photo, it looks to be a side radiator.
It's hard to see in this picture, but when I was looking at it directly, it appeared to be the same setup as on my rig: large rear radiator for the engine, small side radiator for the dash air conditioner.
I'm less worried about the hitch rating, but more about the CCC. If it's anything like my rig, there isn't a whole lot of CCC to spare. With that much weight hanging so far off the back, it would appear to me that not only is is loading down the rear axle, but because of that long lever arm it could be taking weight off the front axle, which of course would end up being transferred to the rear axle.
I see it as being the opposite of a weight distribution hitch. With a WD setup, torque is applied to the hitch to take weight off the rear, and transfer it to the front. This platform seems like it would apply the oppposite torque to the hitch, thereby transferring weight in the opposite direction.
So, how much does a golf cart and platform weigh?
I wasn't the only one to notice this rig. I saw several people shake their heads and roll their eyes, point, and make comments as it went by.
Weight Police: Does this look right to you?
I saw this guy pulling out of a dog show recently. Not a real good shot of the motorhome, but it's a Winnebago Vectra (don't know the year.)
http://www.ssav.org/RV/HeavyLoad.jpg
A quick check of the current model specs shows that it's a DP with a GVWR of 34,320, and a rear axle max weight of 20,000 lbs. The GCWR is 44,320, so I guess that gives you the basic ability to tow 10,000 lbs. I don't think his towed load is over that limit, but... With that golf cart cantelevered on the back of the rig like that, how can it possibly be within the weight ratings of the rear axle? That much weight, hanging that far back... well, it just doen't look right to me. I didn't see how much equipment he had loaded onto his rig, but he did have several dogs (two of them Great Danes) and that usually means a fair amount of collateral equipment.
Any comments from the weight police?
And does having that cart so close to the rear radiator affect engine cooling?
I never got close enough to see any details on the toad, so I have no idea about safety cables, braking system, break-away, or anything like that.
(I wasn't sure where to post this. I suppose it could be dinghy towing, but I don't see the dinghy being the main concern, other than the length of the tow bar extension. It's not really towing, so it doesn't belong there. There isn't a weight police forum, and it's a class A, so I put it here.)
RE: King Dome & DVR?????
Thats weird - we have a 9762 as well and we have a single cable running from the dome into the RV and then the de-stacker inside the MH and that then feeds the 2 receiver DVR - works fine on recording 2 channels concurrently.
I know that's right because I installed it.
I'd like to hear more about this. Can you give any more details? What destacker are you using? How exactly is it all cabled up? What receiver? Dish or Direct?
So many questions... :B
I helped you figure out your electical questions yesterday, now it's your chance to help me! :C
RE: King Dome & DVR?????
Our King Dome os a 9762 Automatic with Dual LNB..
Thanks
Yep, dual LNB with dual outputs and two cables run to the receivers, if you want to use both of them. KingDome offers no stacking options to allow a single cable, I already asked them that.
RE: Question about 50amp Cheater boxes
In spite of your rigs 50A capability your panel is set up so that you cannot install a dual CB or use any 240V appliances. So if you wanted for example a 240V dryer, to bad.
My understanding is that this is quite typical for an RV, and may even be intentional.
Yes, when plugged into a 50 amp socket, you do have 240 volts entering the rig, even though nothing is wired up to use it. But when using a 30 amp adapter (or adapting that down further to 20 or 15 amps) there will be no 240 volts available because the two hot legs will be tied together and in the same phase. You will still get 120 volts between either hot leg and neutral, bot nothing between the two hots.
Furthermore, all of the generators I've seen in RVs, including my own Onan 8000 watt Quiet Diesel, are actually 120 volt generators. Mine has two 33 amp outputs, but they are in phase with each other, and no 240 volts are available. There may be rigs out there with a 240 volt generator, but I've not seen them.
There are some all-electric coaches out there with no propane, and they may have 240 volt appliances. In that case, I assume they would have 240 generators. But it would seem to me you would then be limited to 50 amp hookups, or the generator, and that's it. 30, 20, or 15 amp hookups would be usesless.
RE: What is this wire?
If you look closely at the wire normally Monaco tatoos all their wires with what it is used for. If there is no name on it maybe it was left there by your selliing dealer.
An excellent suggestion! I'll pull it down again tomorrow and see if it says anything. You know, I've seen the labels on lots of other wires (especially on the seemingly hundreds of plain white wires under the dash) but it never occurred to me to check this wire for labels. D'oh! :S
Well, I pulled the light down again this morning to see if there was a Monaco circuit number printed on it. Nothing, just the wire manufacturer's labeling that basically said it was a 16 ga UL approved wire.
Here's a picture I took while it was down:
http://www.ssav.org/RV/YellowWire.jpg
The 16 ga wire looks absolutely wimpy next to the heavy 10 ga wires feeding a small fluorescent light.
Shape Shifter......It's a 12 volt lead for a sat dome. The coax should be there too.
That is another possability. The coax line goes up through the roof between the light and the air conditioner. My dome doesn't need a 12 volt source, as it gets it's power through the coax. This wire is long enough to be able to reach where the coax goes through the roof.
But all the other 12 volt circuits I've seen also include a ground wire. Maybe Doug can answer if some of the accessories are directly grounded to the frame without using a dedicated ground wire?
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I still like the idea of it being a pull wire. Yes, I would think they would use a cheaper polyethelene pull string, but it might be cheaper for them to just pull another wire off their bank of wire spools, rather than add another spool of pull string to the rack. My big concern with it being a pull wire is that from the opening, it goes off to the curb side of the coach, and I loose sight of it when it passes over the A/C duct. If it is a pull wire, I would've expected it to go straight forward to the TV cabinet, or over to the street side and then on to the A/V equipment cabinet. Curious. Of course, if I could find the other end of the wire, that would help. A quick glance does turn up a few yellow wires in the TV and A/V cabinets, but they all appear to be part of built-up harnesses. Still, I think I remember seeing a similar taped off wire there, I just wish I could remember where it was!
Doug, you seem to know your stuff. There's a few wires I want to try and run through this rig. I've had no issues running wires in houses and cars/trucks, but this seems to require a different kind of finesse. May I PM you for some hints and tips for my specific tasks? :B
RE: What is this wire?
If you look closely at the wire normally Monaco tatoos all their wires with what it is used for. If there is no name on it maybe it was left there by your selliing dealer.
An excellent suggestion! I'll pull it down again tomorrow and see if it says anything. You know, I've seen the labels on lots of other wires (especially on the seemingly hundreds of plain white wires under the dash) but it never occurred to me to check this wire for labels. D'oh! :S
RE: What is this wire?
I have spent the last 20 years in the electrical business--If this fluorescent fixture has a ballast then don't woory about it--lots of times there are extra wires coming out of the ballst that are used in different applications--just a thought.
The light itself is completely self contained, with a power and ground line that are accounted for. This wire is not connected to the light, and it appears to be completely independent of it.
BTW, you ask "if" it has a ballast. Don't all fluorescent fixtures have to have a ballast?
RE: What is this wire?
To put it in perspective, here's a (not very good) picture of the area I'm talking about.
http://www.ssav.org/RV/FrontLight.jpg
The air conditioner is even with the front edge of the sofas. The light that's on is the one which hides the wire under question. A/C vents are on either side of the light, surround speakers are beyond the light, and the antenna crank beyond that.
Up on the roof, the location of the air conditioner is obvious, the back edge of the dome is even with the light, and extends forward towards the center speaker. The wires for the dome enter through the roof between the light and the A/C. The air horns are on the front left corner, above the left side cabinet. The CB antenna is above the TV.
