Show off your Mods

[Moto4play]

Originally Posted by ATCguy

Am I to understand you had no electrical outlets in your garage? Mine has 4...

- 2 on the wall, one on each side by the ramp door...
- 2 under the wall mounted cabinets by the sliding glass door, one on each side.



My rig came with 3 FanTastic fans... 2 of them with wall mounted switches (LR & Garage), and 1 el cheapo push-button fan in the bath. I replaced that one with a remote controlled FanTastic fan with a rain-sensor.

I think a lot of the differences some of us see on our rigs is whether we have have the added upgrade packages or not...and the year they were built. In re the Voltage line of units, we have the base model and Epic packages. Epic 1... Epic II... Epic I & II together (2013 - early 2014)... Epic 3 (2014)... Epic 4 (late 2014 -current).

With all of these different option packages being offered so close together... sometimes even in the same year... it's no wonder there's very little consistency between our rigs.

Good point! Mine was built in Feb. 2014 and we have the Epic III package.

[calewjohnson]

Originally Posted by ATCguy

Am I to understand you had no electrical outlets in your garage? Mine has 4...

- 2 on the wall, one on each side by the ramp door...
- 2 under the wall mounted cabinets by the sliding glass door, one on each side.



My rig came with 3 FanTastic fans... 2 of them with wall mounted switches (LR & Garage), and 1 el cheapo push-button fan in the bath. I replaced that one with a remote controlled FanTastic fan with a rain-sensor.

I think a lot of the differences some of us see on our rigs is whether we have have the added upgrade packages or not...and the year they were built. In re the Voltage line of units, we have the base model and Epic packages. Epic 1... Epic II... Epic I & II together (2013 - early 2014)... Epic 3 (2014)... Epic 4 (late 2014 -current).

With all of these different option packages being offered so close together... sometimes even in the same year... it's no wonder there's very little consistency between our rigs.

I have those four outlets in the garage, but on a 30 amp pedestal, have to be mindful of power used, especially if heaters are involved. I can now be in a 30 amp spot and not worry about the power, for the most part. One of our favorite campgrounds is 30 amp only, gets near 100 in the summer, with the Voltage power management system, I can run two of them, now I can carry one for the garage when we visit.

Interesting, you have Fantastic Fans, we have MaxxFans from Maxx Air. There are so many different builds and the parts used are probably whatever the supplier can supply.

Cale

[donzinger]

Originally Posted by calewjohnson

No switch, my 5 foot even wife hates having to turn the fan on. I am thinking of putting an Air Maxx fan in the bathroom. It has a remote.
Cale

Cale- I install the Air Maxx in my bathroom and love it. I keep the remote mounted next to the bed in case I want to turn it on/off in the middle of the night.

[Grdrod1]

Where did you buy the lockers at?

[calewjohnson]

Originally Posted by donzinger

Cale- I install the Air Maxx in my bathroom and love it. I keep the remote mounted next to the bed in case I want to turn it on/off in the middle of the night.

Good call....I will be doing that myself also. Going to get the AirMax covers for the fans already installed.

I installed the King Jack antenna today...got rid of the whole Winegard assembly, since I have a habit of driving off with it up. Well, let me tell, they did a crap job on the install. Once I got the old antenna off, it was unsightly, three holes in the roof and one in the ceiling, yet the holes did not line up. I ended up tearing the roof, which was thin as heck, so I cut a square out and tidied it up with some Eternabond. Used a lot of Dicor, looks to be water tight and a nice looking antenna.

Next weekend, I am going to make a mount to screw onto the roof that I can put in/take out a three foot PVC pipe with my Yagi antenna. Will make for an easy setup of Internet...

Cale

[donzinger]

Mine wasn't too pretty when I installed my Jack antenna either, but not as bad what you have described, thankfully. That Yagi antenna looks interesting from the website explaining them.

[calewjohnson]

Originally Posted by donzinger

Mine wasn't too pretty when I installed my Jack antenna either, but not as bad what you have described, thankfully. That Yagi antenna looks interesting from the website explaining them.

Yagi antennas are a great cheap compact way to pick up a network from long ranges. I picked up one for about $30 and have used it with great success. Ideally you want one with high dB gain, but most manufacturers inflate their numbers...for instance, an omni antenna that claim 20 dBi gain...complete BS, unless it is 10 ft long. Mine was claimed to be 25, IIRC, it came with lobe information. I took it into our lab (I am working on a Masters in Systems Engineering) to test it, under ideal conditions, it was near 25 dB gain, but normal ops we saw around 18 dB gain, good enough, since most routers (WiFi Ranger included) only have 4...long story short, I usually pass the repeaters at campgrounds and shoot the source. Being able to aim is key, pointing at the source is not ideal, you want it approximately 30 degrees off centerline, sometimes antenna polarity comes into play, but not too often. I keep the booster and router hung in the garage with antenna wire running through the garage door, seals around the cable. Currently, the antenna sits on top of the garage AC, but that will be remedied this next weekend, I hope.

Cale

[Pirate]

So you've chosen to remove your Winegard antenna, so you no longer have access to Dish or DirecTV? Hmmm....wouldn't want that. What would I do with the four TV's in the Voltage?

Have found the WiFi Ranger that comes with the Voltage works very well at finding networks or just setting up a network inside the trailer so I can use wireless printing and several laptops/iPad.

Interested to know more about why you decided to make the antenna change.

Pirate

[donzinger]

I still use my DirecTV with my tailgater antenna. I went with the Jack after testing one at my house - I experienced a big difference - ended up mounting one on the house as well. My four TV's all still work just fine.

The only thing I don't like about the WiFi Ranger is when the campground requires you to sign into their netowrk thru a website - I can't get it work this way for some reason.

[Pirate]

We've never had any luck using campground networks, always too slow or too busy. So we carry a Verizon "hotspot" that gives us good internet speed. It connects to the WiFi Ranger very well.

Forgot to mention something on the 4 TVs. Can't believe they aren't all connected together with and HDMI splitter. My fix, upgraded to the Genie system with DirecTV. With the Genie HD DVR connected to the antenna and a Genie "wireless video bridge" and "wireless mini-Genie" devices, we have DirecTV at all four TVs.

Pirate

[donzinger]

We use my wife's phone as a hotspot when campground networks aren't friendly. All four of my TV's get DirecTV from the factory - I thought I may have to change the splitters, but didn't and it works great. Mine aren't HDMI splitters, just coax as we use the tailgater satellite antenna which does not support hi-def.

[calewjohnson]

Originally Posted by Pirate

So you've chosen to remove your Winegard antenna, so you no longer have access to Dish or DirecTV? Hmmm....wouldn't want that. What would I do with the four TV's in the Voltage?

Have found the WiFi Ranger that comes with the Voltage works very well at finding networks or just setting up a network inside the trailer so I can use wireless printing and several laptops/iPad.

Interested to know more about why you decided to make the antenna change.

Pirate

I do have DirecTV, same as you, wireless mini-Genies to all TVs, even a fifth one in the loft. There are times when a camp spot trumps the dish setup. We have ended up in a few places where the cable that I had was not enough to get out of the tree canopy, which we will use the antenna. There are also times when we are somewhere for only a night or two, I will not drag the dish out for that either. We use a full size dish on a tripod, so setting up is not trivial, leveling, plumbing the tripod, then fixing tilt, azimuth, and elevation (I am sure you know the drill).

What is nice with the Genie setup, I can still run over the air TV if the weather gets so bad we lose reception, which has happened a time or two.

The WiFi Ranger is the bane of my existence right now. It does not like to stay connected to the source that we link to, nor does it like to stay connected to the separate router that I have running off my own external antenna. Customer service has been good so far, just getting them to see there is a problem is frustrating at best...even the unit resets itself at times.

Cale

[Pirate]

The only thing about the Genie system that sux is that DirecTV won't let me have two. I keep trying to explain that the two are in two different places, the house and the Voltage, there is no way the two will try to compete on a single network...but nope, to have two of them, I have to have a second account...ain't goin' there!!! So we take the one out of the house and put it in the RV every time we head out. Just a bit of a PITA!

Now if I could figure out how to put the Sony BlueRay/DVD player on the Genie network so I could get it to all four televisions....

Pirate

[donzinger]

I still run over the air TV as well. One of the nicer things about the newer VuQube I have over my last one is that I opted for the automatic one. I set the antenna in an area with a view of the SW sky and push a button inside my rig - takes about 2-3 minutes and it locks on. Last one I had I had to use a remote and the signal strength meter to locate it myself. Both worked great in my Voltage as well as my last RV.


Agreed on the WiFi Ranger - can be a bear to use sometimes.

[donzinger]

The Genie's are pretty cool. I would consider going that route if I hadn't just recently went with the SWM whole home DVR setup.

[DR Buck]

So this whole 'mods' thread has become a TV hook up thread?

[calewjohnson]

Originally Posted by DR Buck

So this whole 'mods' thread has become a TV hook up thread?

It is a mod...I replaced the OTA antenna, plus I use a large dish because I us HD DirecTV, others use cubes, others don't watch TV. Some, like myself, utilized this thread to figure out how to hook the main Genie to the system and still run OTA to some TVs. Which I have to do occasionally. The wireless Genie can only broadcast to 5 TVs at once, less if recording. If that is happening, saylike one a Sunday during football season, I watch OTA football. It's a mod. No one is forcing you to read...

Cale

[ATCguy]

Originally Posted by calewjohnson

...It's a mod. No one is forcing you to read...

Ok, take it easy newbie... if you wanna start getting snotty, the previous guy brings up a good point.

Yes, your TV hookup is a mod. But the thread title is SHOW off your mods... not post & repost ad nauseam about a single mod. If you'll notice in the previous 350 or so posts... there are lots of pictures of people SHOWING their mods... which was the purpose of this thread.

The info you & others are posting about various TV & WiFi hookups is good info... very good info. But continued discussion about it might be better served in it's own separate thread and titled as such, so that anyone looking for that info in the future could find it much easier than digging through almost 400 posts in this thread to find it.

[calewjohnson]

Originally Posted by ATCguy

Ok, take it easy newbie... if you wanna start getting snotty, the previous guy brings up a good point.

Yes, your TV hookup is a mod. But the thread title is SHOW off your mods... not post & repost ad nauseam about a single mod. If you'll notice in the previous 350 or so posts... there are lots of pictures of people SHOWING their mods... which was the purpose of this thread.

The info you & others are posting about various TV & WiFi hookups is good info... very good info. But continued discussion about it might be better served in it's own separate thread and titled as such, so that anyone looking for that info in the future could find it much easier than digging through almost 400 posts in this thread to find it.

I will apologize for my short temper, as I have great disdain for people (my kids and the sailors that work for me included) that like to interject without substance. If people aren't getting hurt or dying, then move on. While not every mod has a picture, I wished I would have snapped a pic of the three holes in my roof, however, my neighbors kid had a spike go through her hand while we were moding, so it was buttoned up pretty quick.

I will be posting, this weekend hopefully, a roof mount for a wifi antenna.

Cale

[Nana & Poppy]

I have to agree with Tom - this should be in its own thread - otherwise it would be very hard to find this later when someone else is looking for TV help...