Need to replace the coax going to my roof antenna

[daveyjo]

I have a 2005 HR Scepter and a crank-up TV antenna on the roof.  The coax cable between the inside and outside of the coach has broken (apparently the inner wire) but the cable seems to be intact.  The cable seems well sealed with sealant on the roof side.  I am trying to figure out how to access the coax as it goes from inside the coach to outside.  Is it possible to remove a/c covers to access it? 

If I can free up the cable, maybe I can just connect a new cable to the old one and snake it through.  I haven't tried digging out all the outside sealant and see if it can free up the cable yet.  I thought I'd post about it first and see if others have had any experience with it.  Any thoughts?  I am tired of climbing up on the roof and running a cable through the driver's window to the TV.

Dave Jones

[Paul J A]

Some ppl have used the Fridge roof vent to run "stuff" up/down to/from the roof. 

[Dr4Film]

I would abandon the factory antenna. Then install a new Digital rooftop antenna with a new coax.

[daveyjo]

But my issue is getting new coax in place.  I did see the writeups about new antennas and haven't decided what to do about them.  When I looked at the antenna recently mentioned and looked at some of the negative ratings about it, those folks were not at all complimentary about it.

[Scotty Hutto]

Dave,

2006 Dip and not sure how that compares in terms of antenna location, but my experience was using the existing cable to pull new coax.  On my coach, the antenna sits about a foot behind the front cap on the roof (just over in front of the passenger seat).  My coax routes into the front cap, straight to the font, and across (between the TV and the windshield), then into the AV cabinet above the drivers seat.  Mine wasn’t “secured” anywhere along the route.  There was a bit of a snag passing through the aluminum roof supports at the roof/front cap junction. 

Hope that helps. 
scotty

 

[Guest Ray Davis]

59 minutes ago, daveyjo said:

But my issue is getting new coax in place.  I did see the writeups about new antennas and haven't decided what to do about them.  When I looked at the antenna recently mentioned and looked at some of the negative ratings about it, those folks were not at all complimentary about it.

Dave, where is your TV located?  Most are up front near the windshield, and often wires go through the roof behind the TV.   Those wires don't go to your ant, they go to the satellite dome on mine, but that could easily be a place to run a new wire through the roof.

Oh BTW, pulling a wire with the old wire might be possible, but I don't think it's likely to work.

The coax could be shorted, and if it has been messed with on either end, it's pretty easy to have a tiny wire cause a short at a coax connector.  Water in the coax can kill the signal too.

 

[lake49068]

Had TV reception problem that turned out to be a bad connector between Winegard roof entry and coach coax.  Coax connector was accessible through ceiling map light.  Did some other ceiling rewiring and it was accessible by removing the ceiling speakers permitting full run across full front cap space.  And really surprised by the minimal amount of insulation in the cap area!

[dandick66]

I’d do extensive troubleshooting before running a new cable.  The problem could be elsewhere.  Your amplifier might be bad, or it’s another cable inside the RV.  There are a few splitters, etc.  

You should be able to locate the “coach side” of that cable on the amplifier.  Disconnect it and run a new cable outside the coach up to the antenna.  If everything works fine, then you know the existing cable is defective.  If it still doesn’t work, then you need to start looking internally.  I don’t know how many TVs you have, but you should check the coax connection on each one.  

[CTerry]

My coax got cut just at the base of the crank uo antennae, When I pulled the base up of the roof and dug out the sealant I found a connection. under the roof was a couple of coils of coax. Replaced the coax from the top part of the antennae down to the base. Left enough extra to put new connection and some coax down in the space under the roof, I doubt you can pull coax through coach, Mine is zip tied to anything and everything every six inches.

[daveyjo]

Thanks for all the suggestions.  I had verified that the cable was bad which is why I wanted to replace it.  From the roof side I dug out all the sealant around the cable and could see there was a piece of flat metal shoved up against the cable to act as a clamp.  But cleaning and poking around with a screwdriver from the roof loosed things enough that I was able to pull 8" of coax from inside the coach so I just attached a cable connector and made a new 3.5 foot patching cable to connect the now extended cable to the antenna, and all seems well.  That was way simpler than I expected.  Hooray!  Then came some other issues.  I hadn't used the TV since May and when I turned it on, there was no digital signal.  It took me half an hour to remember I had last used the tv using an HDMI cable instead of over the air signals.  Now almost everything works OK.  I will post the new problem separately, but suffice it to say I have no 12 volts supplying the Winegard signal amplifier and I can't figure out where the fuse is.

Thanks again for all the advice.  I haven't made up my mind if replacing the now functional Winegard antenna will be worthwhile.