Why Have We Lost All TV Signals In Our RV?

by Gary Hamrick
(Beaverton, OR.)

After installing 2 digital converter boxes last year, I received incredibly good reception at several locations. Then, I started getting a "no signal" message after running a channel scan. This is happening on both sets and at each location we've been to since it started happening. I've checked all the cables and none are loose. Is my antenna dead?

ANSWER Greetings Gary thanks for submitting your question on our Ask An RV Question Page.

I do not believe your antenna is bad. You said something in your question that caught my attention. You said that you installed your Digital TV Converter Boxes last year. I am going to assume that the Digital TV Converter Boxes you have are equipped with the analog signal passthrough option. The Analog Passthrough option allows analog TV channels to pass to your TV and the box would be able to receive those channels and send them to your TV.

If you remember not all TV stations switched over to Digital transmissions until June 12th 2009. If you started noticing the lack of reception after that date then the problem is that you’re not pulling in the new digital stations. The good reception you were getting prior to that were probably TV Stations that were still transmitting Analog signals. Unfortunately the new digital transmissions are a lot harder to pull in then the old analog signals. But there are some things you can do to improve your digital TV reception. Please read the answer I gave to the question below to find out what these options are.

How Can We Improve The Digital TV Reception In Our RV?

In fact we have received so many questions on RVing and TV that we have dedicated a whole section of our website to that subject. I urge you to visit our Digital TV Tips For RVers Page which has a wealth of information on what RVers need to know about Digital Television. I urge to take a look at the Troubleshooting Problems With Your TV section of that page.

Hopefully all of the information above will help you in resolving your TV problems.

Happy RVing

RVing Al