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Off Air Digital TV
We are purchasing a 07 Marathon and wondering what people have done with this vintage coach in terms of being able to recive and tune in off air local digital tv stations. The equiped VCR will not tune digitial channels.
My understanding is that a digital tunner can be added and fee the modulated signal thru the VCR and be controlled by the crestron remote if the remote is reprogrammed?
Any thoughts on this?
Thanks
Bill
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5 Replies
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I bought a digital converter from Best Buy that work great. Has its own remote though so I don’t know how you could tie it into the crestron system. It is IR though so you could tape a repeater signal in front of it. I hooked my antenna cable to it first and then the output goes to my switches that you select for various incomeing signals.
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Takes this as a great time to replace those obsolete TVs. I replaced the bedroom TV in the same location. I replaced the front TV with a 40″ and moved it from it’s original location. Keep in mind that new TVs are wide screens, so you may sacrifice some height if you are going to fit a new TV in the same cabinetry originally used. The PO mounted a new TV just in front of the original cabinetry in front. So take a look at that option as well. I went with Samsung TVs because their narrow frame around the LED display and shallow depth. Yes, go with LED versus LCD or LCD-LED and you’ll get a shallower TV that doesn’t drawn as much power as the LCD TVs.
Don’t forget to replace your rooftop antenna. Most stations are now in the UHF band and most of the older TVs were tuned for the VHF band. I took my rooftop antenna off of its mount and mounted a small omni directional antenna directly to the old antenna’s mount. This way I don’t have any new holes in the roof. I also don’t have to worry about stowing it when leaving.
If you’re looking at satallite systems, don’t buy a domed antenna system. They will receive digital (which all Dish and DirecTV stations are digital). They will not receive HD. Both providers use more than one satellite for HD stations. In the case of DirecTV, they use Ka Band for HD channels; the domed antenna systems are Ku band only.
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I just realized you said the coach was an 07. In 07 all TVs should have had digital tuners. Can you get off the air broadcast directly from your TVs rather than going through the VCR? Why are you going through the VCR, maybe to record off air broadcast? Unless you are wanting to record off air, your fix may be as easy as bypassing the VCR.
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I suspect the coach is already set up to receive TV input from over the air digital, DVDs, satellite, and cable. The problem is not that you need to set it up to do things it already can, but that you need to know how to press the right buttons on the Crestron or whatever control Marathon used to make it work.
This is where training and pre-purchase inspections become critical. You will either find out how to make it work, or you will find out it doesn’t work as intended and needs repair.
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My ole batwing brings in HD TV just fine and I usually don’t even put it in the up position.
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