Digital TV converter not working well

RonF

RonF

New Member
Oct 4, 2006
410
N. Palm Beach, FL
Boat Info
310 Sundancer 1999
Engines
Mercruiser Mag 350 MPI, V-drives
This past weekend I had planned to install an Artec T3AP Pro converter box, with analog passthrough. Before cutting or drilling, I just temporarily hooked it up to see what channels I'd get. Things aren't going well.

On the arch, I have a Shakespeare 2030 omnidirectional antenna. The coax goes through a 110v power supply, then through an A/B switch then to the TV set. (There is also a splitter for something, but I can't tell where the wires go.) When I hooked the converter to the TV side of the A/B switch, I only picked up 4 channels with programming that I would not watch. When I hooked the converter directly to the output line from the power supply, the converter found 26 channels, but could only deliver a picture from about half of them. Then I hooked the converter box to an old set of household rabbit-ears, and it found the same 26 channels and delivered a picture for all of them.

So this makes me think that something is wrong with my shakespeare omni antenna or the wiring. The wiring is original (1999) and the antenna dome is three years old.

Does anyone have any ideas what to check or fix?

Thanks.
 
My Artec only works properly when hooked to the coax line on the antena side of the A/B switch. I first hooked it up to the TV side and while it worked well for the on air TV, my cable would not work. Called the factory tech support and moved it to the other side of the A/B switch per their advice and all is well. In fact the performance is just short of amazing.
 
Try using red, white and yellow composite cables instead of cable from converter box to TV. Once I did that picture was just short of amazing. I am 16-18 miles line of sight from downtown Chicago and have picked up nothing short of 60+ channels.
Dan
 
Daniel P Thomas said:
Try using red, white and yellow composite cables instead of cable from converter box to TV. Once I did that picture was just short of amazing. I am 16-18 miles line of sight from downtown Chicago and have picked up nothing short of 60+ channels.
Dan
Click to expand...

Damn... Did they switch the color scheme on the cables while I was on vacation this year?

Composite video stinks... You are not going to get HD over composite video.
 
My bad Gary.
Give me a red ball.
Red, White audio and Yellow video RCA jacks.
If you have an LCD non HD TV and you use the converter box, you can pick up the over air HD channels. 60+ as I said in Chicago.
Of course to be PC incorrect about 15 of them are not in English.
 
Nah... I just dealt with a neighbor who was all upset because they got a new DirecTV antenna (HD) and box... then hooked it to their shiny new 55 inch 1080p LCD with a yellow composite video cable and yelled at me because the resolution was bad..
 
Four Suns said:
Nah... I just dealt with a neighbor who was all upset because they got a new DirecTV antenna (HD) and box... then hooked it to their shiny new 55 inch 1080p LCD with a yellow composite video cable and yelled at me because the resolution was bad..
Click to expand...
Are you a TV repairman too??:smt101
 
gredmer said:
Are you a TV repairman too??:smt101
Click to expand...


I'm pretty sure he's related to Tim the tool man from the old TV show Home Improvement as much as he gets hurt...:lol:
 
Cable/wiring from the converter to TV is not the issue, since the converter is not even decoding any picture. It think that it finds a signal on a channel, but no data because the signal is too weak. The fact that the rabbit ears do work, makes me think that there is a problem with the boat's antenna. It is not practical to have the rabbit ears set up in the cabin. (I am glad that I found this before spending several hundred dollars on a replacement LCD TV.)

sbw1, what factory tech did you speak to, Artec, Sea Ray, Shakespeare, other?
 
If you have a powered antenna on the arch, the power supply is behind the TV somewhere. It powers the antenna though the coax cable. The converter box may not be passing the voltage to the antenna.

Best regards,
Frank
 
There is an antenna power box, at least in most SR's. It needs to be turned on and up. Turn it off for cable.
 
Last edited:
If you are getting 26 channels with rabbit ears, and almost none with the powered antenna, be aware that you could also have too much gain. That will overload the tuner, and will result in no picture as well. If you are getting analog signals ok over the powered antenna (as opposed to just the rabbit ears), try turning the gain down. There is usually a panel somewhere (mine's in a cabinet) with a control.
 
My power box is plugged in and its red light is on. This old style box is behind the TV, and does not have a gain control. I have been trying the Artec conveter downstream of the power box. I have a spare new power box that came with the replacement antenna, but I did not make the swap back then because they were identical models. I will see if it makes a difference.
 
Originally Posted by sbw1
Artec guy.

Thanks, I'll try them too.

Well, I am getting nowhere. The Artec guy who I spoke to (Infong Chen I believe) said that he doesn't know anything about boat antennas. Then I called Shakespeare and spoke to a very nice person named Chris. He did not know anything about DTV converters, but he was going to inquire at the manufacturing facility. He did tell me to check for 17 volts DC at the connector that goes into the dome, but he also thought that a powered antenna might not be compatible with a digital converter (though that was just a guess).
 
My powered Glomex is compatible with the converter box.
 
We have a UFO antenna and I googled it to see if it would pick up the digital signals. Site said it would so I went ahead with the project. Why not google your antenna and read all about it?
 
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