Tech- TV in your RV….

May 21, 2008

A bit of a departure for me this week- the many, many changes coming down the pike on how you watch television in your RV.

New technologies are changing the way you watch, whether you get your signal from an OTA (Over The Air) antenna or a Satellite dish, and whether you want to watch High Definition (HD) or Standard Definition (SD) (trust me though- if, like me, you enjoy watching TV, once you see a “High Def” model you will be spoiled)

We’ll start with the transition to OTA Digital TV- Mark Polk gave a
great primer in his post Analog vs Digital TV – I’ll just add a few points….

First- I’ll give instructions for converting your standard TV antenna to a “Digital, High Definition” antenna. The tools you will need are a Permanent marker and a ladder.

Take the marker, get on the roof, and write “HD” in big letters on the antenna.

That’s it (You really don’t need to do this- it’s a joke!) The digital signal is broadcast on the same frequencies as the old analog signal, so no new antenna is needed, but…. with the digital signal it’s pretty much “all or nothing”, so if your existing antenna system was marginal, you will need to repair or replace it. The “standard” Winegard Sensar (what I call the “Batwing”) is an outstanding antenna- until the Smart Antenna is perfected, it’s really about as good as you can get.

Converter boxes- there is a good comparison of “coupon eligible” converter boxes at this site – giving a good list of features in one place. A couple of things to look for- external power supply (which usually means it could be possible to run the box directly from 12 volt power, though I really prefer to do a “double conversion”, and run them from a small inverter), and analog pass through.

It’s also good to keep in mind that Digital TV and High Definition TV are 2 different issues- the cheaper converter boxes are “standard” or “Enhanced” definition, not high definition, as illustrated by the 2 Wingard converter boxes, the standard definition RC-DT09 , and the high definition RC-1010 .

Now, on to changes in Satellite TV. With the huge increase in HD programming, satellite broadcasters are running out of channels on the standard “Ku” band (Ku refers to the frequency of the signal). The fix for this is to put up more satellites, and use the “Ka” band, which is a higher frequency, and the signals are lower powered than the Ku signals.

What this means for us here on earth is that the Ka band signals take a larger dish and a different “LNB”. As of right now, to receive all of the HD DirecTV channels available, you need a large dish with 5 lnb’s, and odds are because of competition, Dish Network will likely go the same route (my opinion- no inside information).

Unfortunately, with today’s technology, there is no way an RV rooftop domed dish will work with Ka band signals- the “reflector” (the “dish” part of the antenna” simply isn’t large enough). As of today, there are 2 manufacturers building automatic rooftop satellite dishes which will work with all HD satellites- the MotoSat Universal HD , which has a replaceable reflector and LNB mount, and the Winegard Trav’ler . A tip- the Winegard “Slimline” model with the 30″ reflector has the largest motor/gear assembly in the Winegard line… if I were buying one of these, I would go with this model, as I look for Winegard to release replacement reflector/lnb kits later this year to let them work with any satellite provider (right now you have to choose the provider before you buy the dish).

Well… this is a huge topic, and I have just scratched the surface of it this week.