Every now and again a spanner gets thrown into the works when you’re caravanning but hopefully with pre trip planning and maintenance, the troubles are minor. On the last caravan trip when the weather was too cold for spending time outdoors past sundown, we had the consolation of the TV on board so at least we could catch a football game in the evening.
Disaster struck though when there was no reception, despite being in a caravan park and noticing other vans with television reception. With limited knowledge other than to turn the antenna on the van in one direction or another, check plugs and switches inside, all to no avail, it was time to call on the experts, good old Jim’s Antennas.
Service was spectacular with the technician happy to come to our site in the caravan park at a specified time and sort out the problem. He had some great advice for TV antenna novices like us too. For starters he recommended that people should go for black cables not white (yes I know the van is white and it looks better) because it stands up to weathering better. That was our first problem. Some water had also got into the splitter on the antenna, (problem number two) so some waterproof tape can help with that issue. Next our friendly Jim’s Antennas man showed us a little trick that we weren’t aware of. His advice was to not always wind the antenna up to the full 90 degree angle. He showed that even if it’s set up at a 45 degree angle (or less) the reception can be better. So there you have it, lessons learnt. The last tip he imparted was on the television tuning setting, here you can see signal information and see how the strength and quality of the signal is rated out of 100, so you can tell whether it’s an antenna issue or a signal issue.
Problems solved on the spot with a faulty splitter and weathered leads replaced, waterproof tape over all connections, tuned just right and all for a little over $100. Money well spent to save the day!
Did the football team win after the trouble we went to? NO they did not. But thanks to Terry Manser of Jim’s Antennas Mount Gambier for sorting out our issues and he might have just picked up some more work with other interested caravanners noticing his repair van and approaching him for assistance.
Cheers
Glenys
Caravan Correspondent 
We had a draw bar mounted aerial on our first van. We got half way home from Qld before Woody realised that he was installing it backwards. Gosh there was a lot of grumbling on that trip! Have you tried the Antenna Mate app for finding the signal?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ha ha the joys of DIY. Yes husband uses something to find closest signal, but usually doesn’t have to look too far to find scowling wife next to him. 😂 One day we will probably look into satellite dish, but I will leave that up to him.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nice little promo for Jim’s! We don’t have a tely in our van so we don’t have that problem but great tips. We’ll keep it in mind for the next van.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The ‘Jim’s’ man was very helpful and Harry would be lost without his TV even on holidays sometimes. 🤦🏼♀️ That’s why I prefer to be in places with no reception sometimes then there is no choice but to leave electronics aside.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We often have problems with television reception and we think there is a problem with the connection somewhere between the antenna and the point inside the van. We just run a cable directly from the antenna to the TV. Good you got your problems sorted.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yep husband couldn’t last if we didn’t have decent reception. 😂
LikeLiked by 1 person