Riggins with little brother Charlie and little sister Sadie.

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Monday, May 3, 2010

Monday, Monday

Here we are at the home front, up at 04:30am had coffee with Donna then she was out the door to the truck company at 05:30am, Adam was up at 07:00am and he just got out the door for the school bus. So now I am hard at work on the computer.

How many of you guys struggled with the change to digital TV, our 5th wheel had a large Magnavox in the Entertainment center, of course it was not digital, so when the trailer got dewinterized, all the stations had changed so it would not receive any local stations. I sent away on E-Bay and for a very low price bought a Magnavox digital converter. Well no matter how I hooked the TV to it from the antenna on the wall with the green light on and the bat wing up I could not get a thing on the living room set. If I carried the converter into the bedroom and put it in line on the antenna line in the bedroom with the little TV we use in there I could get the box to scan and would have about ten nice channels. Completely frustrated me, I don’t take rejection well. Anyway after reading the instructions a gazillion times and trying to see if I left some important step out.  I was just about resigned to the fact that before we hit the road it would be off to Wally World to get a digital HD flat screen for the entertainment center. I like the setup we have since it gives a great picture and I can play it through the stereo for surround sound with a movie, Anyway I also bought the digital antenna that several bloggers have had good luck with and installed it, still no difference in the living room although I picked up a couple more channels in the bedroom. So yesterday after looking again at the directions I saw where you could just run the antenna wire to the box from the antenna jack on the wall, and then run RCA cables,the red, white and yellow ones to the TV. I tried this and that worked, also the picture seemed better. so I ran RCA cables from the Converter to to a box that channels inputs from the DVD & VCR to the TV and now I can switch from one to another right at the entertainment center.

Trailer08-12-09b

So now with the living room TV working the plan can change, I will look for a small flat screen digital HD for the bedroom and mount it directly to the wall where it will be high and only stick out a couple of inches, then I will get rid of the TV stand and I will have more room to walk around the bed in the bedroom.

One more small step toward getting the trailer ready for our life on the road, does it ever end, probably not.

No plans for today, waiting for my orders for the Florida trip I have the itinerary, it looks like I will go south to the halfway point and then wait for the bus and take them into Panama City Fla. then return with them to the halfway point and get a nights rest and drive back.

Be safe out there, Sam & Donna.

4 comments:

  1. It's always great to solve an 'unsolvable' problem! Congrats on figuring that out, Sam.

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  2. We have gone through that very same mess of digital television type problems. That stuff can be sooooo frustrating. Back & forth, wires, wires, wires. Plug this into that & that into this. We're OK for now until some brainiac invents a new way of doing things & everthing changes again!!

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  3. Sounds like everything worked out in the end, and that is the main thing. And you are so right....it never seems to end. Once we get one thing fixed or settled, another thing pops up that needs attention. All we can do is "keep on truckin" as always.

    Have a great week.

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  4. My solution to the switch to digital was to get the help of fellow volunteers to help me replace the old tv with a new flatscreen. One of them also knew everything about all those wires. It's great to have friends! :-)

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