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Old 06-05-2017, 06:44 AM   #21
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2017 30' Classic
2022 Interstate 24X
Carlisle , Pennsylvania
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Hi

The "super duper" antennas they use these days have an amplifier built into the guts of them. With no power to the amp, it blocks the signal from the antenna. The signal does not go to zero, but it isn't very good at all.

12V from a wall wart into a "gizmo" may not be quite the same as the 12V your trailer electrical system supplies. Your battery can get down to 11V. It can run up to 14.5V. That's well outside the +/-5% a gizmo might be designed for. In addition, things like pump motors or the starter motor in your TV can put some crazy spikes on the 12V system. An industrial spec for automotive 12V power normally includes something like 65V spikes as part of the requirements. If your gizmo was designed for a wall wart rather than vehicle power ... be careful !!!!

The idea of running the TV amp off of 110V is to eliminate a parasitic load on the 12V system. If you *do* rewire things, make sure you remember to always turn the amp off. Small loads over long hours will nuke your battery just as much as big loads for short periods. A fancy way to do all of this would be a multi position battery disconnect switch. Needless to say that's a *lot* of messy work.

Bob
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Old 06-05-2017, 10:42 PM   #22
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Uncle Bob, I think you make a very good point about an inadvertent load on the battery due to an antenna amp. An antenna amp is something easy to forget. Nevertheless, I may need it if the antenna is ineffectual in capturing a signal without it. I hope to do a test this week.
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Old 06-05-2017, 11:19 PM   #23
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Originally Posted by larry9000 View Post
We just got a 2006 16' Bambi. It has an older TV that doesn't even get digital channels, so we are swapping it out for a 12v model. There's an accessory socket nearby we can use.
larry9000, I also have a 2006 Bambi and have not upgraded the T.V. I also want a 12v replacement. Have you found a T.V. model you like?
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Old 06-06-2017, 07:28 AM   #24
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Chose a 24" Supersonic

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Originally Posted by spenfolder View Post
larry9000, I also have a 2006 Bambi and have not upgraded the T.V. I also want a 12v replacement. Have you found a T.V. model you like?
spenfolder, we have the same AS. Nice to know. We've had ours for barely a week, and I'm updating some of the electronics. I ended up ordering a "SuperSonic 1080p LED Widescreen HDTV with HDMI Input, AC/DC Compatible for RVs and Built-in DVD Player, 24-Inch" from Amazon. It is essentially the same dimensions as the current TV. I ordered it with the DVD player for convenience. If that eventually failed, I'll just run a HDMI cable from my laptop. I'm thinking that the TV will be used more for movie viewing than OTA.

That said, the TV is due to arrive tomorrow, and a new articulating arm Friday. I ordered the longer arm to be able to swing the TV for viewing from the dinette. AS could have chosen to do this originally, but didn't. 24" fits just inside the "hallway" between the closet and the bath. I'll report back once I installed and tested it. The TV uses 4A of 12v according to the specs, so that's not too bad.

My remaining concern is that I have done nothing to the antenna or amplifier. The amplifier needs 110v to be switched on. Ironically, it's really running off of 12v power- so I may have to figure out how to get battery power to the amp as well. It isn't clear what I need to do to do this.
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Old 06-06-2017, 09:24 PM   #25
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Quote:
Originally Posted by larry9000 View Post
We just got a 2006 16' Bambi. It has an older TV that doesn't even get digital channels, so we are swapping it out for a 12v model. There's an accessory socket nearby we can use. But here is a strange situation: the antenna amp switch only goes on when connected to 110v. Though the amp runs off of 12v, it must be powered by a transformer (or converter) from the trailer's 110v circuit. I guess Airstream did it this way by assuming that no one can run the TV unless connected to 110v anyway. So, my question is this: will the TV work with an unamplified antenna? If not, I will need to figure out how to get native 12v for the amplifier too.
Larry, you are attempting to do what I have done. The only differences is ..I'm puzzled over your ant amp being switched by 110v power. That makes no sense to me, as surely it's a 12v amp. My own '08 Sport had the same issue: An old analog Tele which was useless without a converter...and I bought a cheap Tele from Walmart which happened to be a 12v unit supplied by a power cord transformer which puts out 12v DC. So I simply plugged the tele into the 12 outlet at the ant amp and it runs just fine.
Contrary to what "uncle Bob" wrote... we've boondocked with ovhd lights on (LEDs), the furnace running, and we've watched a couple of full-length movies off the 12v DVD/BluRay player we also run off the 12v plug (hooked to the HDMI input of the tele)
BTW, it's a cheap tele, a 19" "Element" from China. Cost $79 on sale at WM and perfectly fit the existing swing-arm. (Lucky, heh?)
I did not have enough volume, however, over the AC running, so I also bought a Bluetooth "booster amplified speaker" from Target for another $49, which will blast you outta there! Plugged it into the audio/headset outlet on the tele. It's also 12V and gets it pwr also from the tele.... so.... at least for us, we've had absolutely no problem with our ordinary flooded-cell battery running all night the furnace, tele, DVD, amplifier, and lights. After 3 days we did drive a couple hours and the TV re-charged the trailer battery, of course.

I suggest you research your ant amp switching. There's no reason I can see why that should require 110v.
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Old 06-06-2017, 11:36 PM   #26
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Here's some results!

So I got my Supersonic 24" 12v TV today for my 2006 16' International CD. Here is my very short report:

-It's great from the 12v plug. It drew just 2A while playing a DVD.
-No upscaling of DVD resolution, but not bad from a meter or more.
-I scanned for TV stations from my driveway in Steamboat Springs, CO. We have only one nearby broadcast station, sponsored by PBS. I did a total channel scan every 45% (Rotating the Winegard antenna) without amplifier on and with amplifier on, connected to 120 and not connected. Here's what I determined:

-I could not pick up KRMX without the antenna booster on. At all. Every 45 degrees scan.
-With the amplifier on, I could get KRMX, when I scanned every 45 degrees, but in a narrow degree window, maybe 20 degrees wide. I could get it equally well 180 degrees in the opposite direction. But either only with the amplifier ON.
-The ampler worked whether off of 12v or plugged into 120v. But my LED didn't light in either position.

So, I give it a thumbs up. Only 2A drain, plays DVD. I have a mini plug extension cord so I just put it into the original radio input, so Andrea Bocelli sounds really good instead of the tinny TV speakers. I should get the longer articulating arm Friday, and see how that works. In theory, the TV will be positionable to be viewed by both sides of the dinette.

Only 4.5 amps drawn with front and back cabin lamps on, door light on, stereo on, and TV on playing Andrea Bocelli disc through the stereo. Ha ha ha! The halogen front cabin lamps required 4 Amps all by themselves, before I switched to LEDs.

I also plan to use it as a way to view photos and video from the day, probably though HDMI.
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Old 06-06-2017, 11:51 PM   #27
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So, what's the deal with the amp?

Oh, there's one other interesting tidbit when I tested whether the TV needed the antenna amp on (Yes, it did), and whether the amp can run off of 12v (Yes, it can. My LED doesn't light up though, indicated the amp is on).

But here's the deal- there was no measurable power consumption difference, amp on or off. I tested several times, turning the amp on and off. Yet, you must depress the amp switch for the TV to operate. I could have detected a 20mA current difference, but there wasn't even that much. Go figure.
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Old 06-07-2017, 03:30 AM   #28
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The larger combo tv and computer screen run on 19Vdc, e-bay has 12volt to 19volt up converter For about 25.00 works great.
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Old 06-08-2017, 07:35 AM   #29
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The up-converters I see on eBay have wires coming out of them. Where and how do you attach it?
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Old 06-09-2017, 05:31 AM   #30
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The up-converters I see on eBay have wires coming out of them. Where and how do you attach it?
Hi

It depends a *lot* on which converter you happen to buy. There are a bunch of them. Hooking the input to a cigarette lighter plug is fine (but not very useful). Where do you plug that in? If you are doing a rebuild of the trailer, not a problem. If not tearing things apart, grab the +12 off of the light switches in a cabinet. There's a wire nut that feeds +12 to each of them. Yes that has some issues.

The output wires hook to the cable you cut off of the TV's AC adapter or to a similar cable you buy. Getting the *right* cable is a bit tricky, there are roughly 1,000 different (but similar looking) DC adapter plugs out there. Some are close enough that they *almost* work perfectly (1.8 mm inner diameter vs 1.9 mm inner diameter ...).

Bob
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Old 06-09-2017, 02:07 PM   #31
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4 wires red to 12v pos black to ground- yelow to 19v pos black to ground.took lap top into
electronics store asked for cord that fit it, then used 2 sided tape and stuck to back of tv
used 2 wire lamp cord to wire in to 12v of trailer = done
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