Mid coach HD TV situation

Navy Flier · 12-02-2011, 06:30 PM

Bear with me here at there is some lead-in info that is necessary. I believe that through 07 almost every Winnebago DP had the main TV located in the cabinetary above the dashboard. By using flat screen units, by 08 many of those TVs had migrated elsewhere around the coach. However, there is at least one problem with the migration. The 07 Horizon had a front TV. My 08 has a mid coach TV as does the same model in 09. While the TVs got moved in 08 the wiring did not get updated until 09.
All of the above leads to my particular problem. We have a 08 Horizon with a front kitchen. The TV is in the middle, in a passenger side slide, but everything else (satellite coax outlets, DVD and the switch box) is in the front overhead cabinets. That means that to control the sat box I have to leave a cabinet door open. It also means that to have true HD the HDMI cable would have to be 20ft long. Or, I could move the sat box to the TV location (preferred) which still means that I need a 20ft coax cable. Normally, this might not be a problem but with a slide in the equation I am a little stumped.
Now for the long awaited question. Has anyone out there with this problem found a solution. If so, I could use the information.

bobmac · 12-02-2011, 07:39 PM

Do you have a sat connection in the bedroom? There is one in my 09 Journey and it is relatively easy to run wiring to the centre of the coach along the base of the DS wall. The bedroom bench seat has a removable bottom and there is already a major cable run there to the electrical panel. My floorplan is similar to the 08 Horizon TD. That would be simpler than getting wiing from the front of the coach. Good luck.

Navy Flier · 12-02-2011, 10:01 PM

There is no sat connection in the bedroom. I don't think they made the wiring changes until later in the year and into the 09 models.

Jerry J · 12-02-2011, 10:25 PM

Interesting. Mine was built 09/07 and has the dvd player and switcher below the tv in the cabinet, also the Direct Tv connection. I have the tv sat. connection in the rear, over the bed cabinet also. What was your build date? Must have been really early. Have you contacted Winnebago for suggestions?

Clay L · 12-03-2011, 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Navy Flier

SNIP
That means that to control the sat box I have to leave a cabinet door open. SNIP

Direct TV has a RF remote on their web site. I don't know which receivers it works with but customer service could tell you. I don't know if Dish has the same thing or not - I suspect they do.

Long HDMI cables are available at reasonable prices online. They can be up to 50 feet or so long without an inline amp.

You might be able to use cable ties to hold an HDMI cable to the exiting wiring going into your slide if you can get it down from the overhead cabinet and over to the slide area.

On my gasser the trim pieces on the windshield are used to conceal some wiring coming down from the cabinets.

Navy Flier · 12-03-2011, 12:36 PM

This coach was built in 04/07. I had one plumbing issue for which I had to use the 07 plumbing schematics. Sometime this winter I will probably call Winnebago. I have had this coach for three years and have put up with the current situation. It has finally bubbled up to the top of my list. The fact that the TV is in a slide is what has kept me from running a coax back to the TV position and moving the sat box. Absent the slide it would just be a case of putting the cable in place. Of course, the other thing I could do is to put a set of smoked glass doors where the sat box is currently located.

johnnyk · 12-05-2011, 08:55 PM

I just moved our front TV to the slide out on our Horizon. I pulled 25 feet of coax, HDMI and RCA connections underneath the slide where the electrical came through. On our coach there was an existing access that I was able to tap into.