Satellite Prep. What a let down.

Satellite prep, far from it.

I just installed, well last year, my sweet Winegard Travl'r. That part is awesome. What isn't is the complete lack of any sensible wiring within my Cyclone 4100 King. Chaos doesn't even register on the what the ****-o-meter.

There is some good news, well not really, but it could have been worse. Again not really. The roof coil was exactly where they said it would be, unfortunately it is completely unusable.

After trying for hours to 1. figure out what wire was what (none were labeled, none were connected) I didn't expect labeling, but connections would have been nice. 2. which one was the coil. 3. where they could have run them. I threw in the towel.

First off, there are five places that there should be satellite wires going to (BR, LR, Pass through, loft, garage). Lo and behold there were only three black Coax behind the panel in the passthrough.

Well one had to be the roof coil, so I bought a coax tester and attempted to route the others. Out of the three, one was LR and one was Passthrough, the other never could be identified. One would assume it was the roof coil, but it tested SHORTED and would not pass any signal. The best part of the deal was that I got to cut a 2" hole in my roof only to find that out.

****, it may not even be the roof coil, but there was nothing else to test. Where is the BR, Garage, Loft?? Nowhere to be found.

The question is what to do. Even when I identified the LR connection to be the correct wire, it still would not carry SAT signal to the SWM. That one I couldn't figure out. Maybe even the plate connectors are incompatible with DTV or anything else for that matter.

I am just sick of running coax from my dish, through my LR window. Looks pretty crappy for an otherwise nice coach. Any ideas or thoughts would be appreciated. Also some success stories would make me feel better. Hours and hours wasted.

There are plenty of posts on this forum about cable, SAT and coax runs, including my thoughts about how the wiring is done.

The best thing you can do if you want a reliable and quality TV picture is do it yourself.

Run all new quality SAT rated coax with quality compression connectors.

With DirecTV's SWM system and the DVR with the Genie clients (wired version, the newest are wireless) you only need 1 coax run from the SAT dish to the DTV splitter. From that splitter you need dedicated runs to the main receiver and to each Genie client location. That splitter is also where you connect the DTV power inserter (red colored port)

Many of us run the coax from the SAT dish down to the UDC connectors. That way you can use a 6" jumper at the UDC to connect to the roof or disconnect the jumper and use a coax from a portable dish.

Your rig may have a bunch of splitters in the satellite cabling to support more than 2 areas. That might work with the older round dishes that only get you standard definition, but I don't think it'll work with a high def Directv SWM dish.

You'll probably have to bring your Trav'ler coax to a Directv splitter that should have come with it, and then from there run new coax to 1 or 2 locations depending on the number of receivers you have. If you want the signal on additional tvs, using a wireless transmitter/receiver set may be the best way to go.

This post on my SAT thread starts with DirecTV in the Cyclone

And this is the coax I used

Belden 7915A RG6/U Duobond Plus 3GHz Tri-Shield Broadband Coax

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Belden-1829A-009-RG6-U-18GA-3GHz-Duobond-Dbl-Shield-round-Coax-White-/331757245178?hash=item4d3e45d2fa:g:dM4AAOSw-W5UxfDS

You can also call Heartland and ask for a coax layout for your model/floorplan. This may not be exact where it's located but it should be good enough to figure out what wires go where.


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TravelTiger said:

You can also call Heartland and ask for a coax layout for your model/floorplan. This may not be exact where it's located but it should be good enough to figure out what wires go where.


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That's the best laugh I've had all day. I have 4 different layouts for the Cyclone. Two of them have exactly the same rev number and date on the drawing. None of the 4 match my Cyclone. None as in ZERO. On the back of the Sat In connection in the UDC was a splitter rated for cable tv, max freq of 900 MHz. No-where close to Sat frequencies. The connectors used are garbage as is the cable. I am slowly rewiring mine correctly using the correct components. No big hurry as we don't watch a lot of TV, even at home.

avvidclif said:

That's the best laugh I've had all day. I have 4 different layouts for the Cyclone. Two of them have exactly the same rev number and date on the drawing. None of the 4 match my Cyclone. None as in ZERO. On the back of the Sat In connection in the UDC was a splitter rated for cable tv, max freq of 900 MHz. No-where close to Sat frequencies. The connectors used are garbage as is the cable. I am slowly rewiring mine correctly using the correct components. No big hurry as we don't watch a lot of TV, even at home.

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I understand you've had issues, but Heartland can send something which might be a help rather than guessing. They sent me one for our 2016 and although it was sort of correct in that we have wires going where it says, the coil in the roof was not exactly where it indicated.

I'm pretty sure that no rig has satellite to every tv location. Cable, yes, maybe.


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Thanks for the replies, it looks like it is going to be a beer and some cable to get this thing up and running.

Last question, in everyones experience, what is the best way to get from the roof to the UDC? Just not a fan of randomly popping holes in the roof. Thanks.

The only idea I have is to run a 6 foot drill bit up the wet wall for the shower which has an access point through the roof and then one down that wall into the under compartment. Thoughts?

TravelTiger said:

I understand you've had issues, but Heartland can send something which might be a help rather than guessing. They sent me one for our 2016 and although it was sort of correct in that we have wires going where it says, the coil in the roof was not exactly where it indicated.

I'm pretty sure that no rig has satellite to every tv location. Cable, yes, maybe.


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Did you find satelite wires coiled on the roof (actually under the roof covering) ? I found what appears to be a dish control wire in the front closet of our rig. I just received a wiring schematic from Heartland showing wires coiled on the roof, 22 inches and centered from front vent, whatever that means. The description of location has me scratching my head. I want better clarification before anyone cuts into my roof.

My wiring from the UDC to the LR and BR were spot on. I put the DTV splitter in the UDC and ran two 6 inch jumpers from the DTV splitter to the LR and BR connections. Both of those cables worked without modification. If I were running wireless clients I would only need to run to the living room. Now as for the roof top connections, I have two coax lines coiled up in about a 12 inch coil in the roof behind the cover plate that go to the UDC BUT, no control wire. I checked the hole in the roof behind the cover plate best I could without making a bigger hole. Could it be up there buried in the Styrofoam, maybe. For sure there is no control wire in the front closet. Heartland thinks it could be behind the front cap and not pushed through the wall. For most that would be a deal breaker. Who is going to make a hole and go fishing...blind. But, I am having the front cap replaced right now and have asked the repair facility to check for me to see if its there. We'll see.

Our Bighorn has a blank electrical cover in the bedroom ceiling, that's where the sat coax and traveler control wire is, but the wad of wires was not easy to get out of the whole under the cover.

osims said:

Our Bighorn has a blank electrical cover in the bedroom ceiling, that's where the sat coax and traveler control wire is, but the wad of wires was not easy to get out of the whole under the cover.

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Yes, go by the blank cover inside, take that off and pull down the wires. Then you can drill up from there, puncturing the roof membrane, and feed the wires through it.


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TravelTiger said:

Yes, go by the blank cover inside, take that off and pull down the wires. Then you can drill up from there, puncturing the roof membrane, and feed the wires through it.


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Thanks everyone. Mysteries are solved. I'd previously removed the cover but saw nothing. Guessed it was for some other reason, but tonight I fished around up there and found all the wires. Yeah pulling them out of that hole sure wil be a work of art. I think I'll enlarge the hole to the max.

Now im just waiting till our next trip to see if correcting the tv wiring at the splitter in the basement corrects that issue. Here's hoping ��

BTW what dish do you have ?

Tanks ��

farside291 said:

My wiring from the UDC to the LR and BR were spot on. I put the DTV splitter in the UDC and ran two 6 inch jumpers from the DTV splitter to the LR and BR connections. Both of those cables worked without modification. If I were running wireless clients I would only need to run to the living room. Now as for the roof top connections, I have two coax lines coiled up in about a 12 inch coil in the roof behind the cover plate that go to the UDC BUT, no control wire. I checked the hole in the roof behind the cover plate best I could without making a bigger hole. Could it be up there buried in the Styrofoam, maybe. For sure there is no control wire in the front closet. Heartland thinks it could be behind the front cap and not pushed through the wall. For most that would be a deal breaker. Who is going to make a hole and go fishing...blind. But, I am having the front cap replaced right now and have asked the repair facility to check for me to see if its there. We'll see.

Click to expand...

My control wire, I believe it is, is in the front closet and comes through a plate right next to the antenna signal amplifier. It was hanging out about a foot when we got the rig. I'd just pushed it back into the wall until just the plug was sticking through. I had no idea at the time what it was. It's a small square plug with 6 or so female connections. At least I think that's what it is, if not I have a new mystery on my hands. 😱

Cables For Satellite in Roof Road Warrior

Had to find the cables in the overhead. Remove the inner skylight in the shower. The cables are coiled in just aft of the skylight. To access more cable remove the small shelves next to the medicine cabinet. This will also allow you to pass the control wire into the living area.View attachment Sat Cables Shower Skylight.jpg