Television Question?

[KeithG]

I'm brand new to this site, only having discovered it late yesterday afternoon.

My first camper was an older, used 25' Jayco 5er that my wife and I absolutely loved. We camp at least one weekend a month and after 8 years of lots of use, we were looking for a larger trailer with more bells and whistles (including a slide) and purchased another brand from some friends who were also upgrading. Well, a year and a half later we've decided to return to a Jayco because of the quality and all the little extras that Jayco offers, and are now looking at a 2005 Eagle 281RLS.

I noticed this camper has a built-in television, and since we frequently stay at state parks (no cable) I'm curious if we will be able to watch the new digital "over-the-air" stations or if we will need either an adaptor or to replace the tv.

Thanks in advance for any information anyone can provide,
Keith

[Doug]

Stations switched to digital Jue 12th, 2009. You'll have to check your TV model to see if it was digital ready. 2005, good chance not.

Best regards,
Doug

[RoyBraddy]

It behooves you to get a new High Def TV if you have the old analog type TV mounted in your trailer and not go the digital conversion box way. The digital conversion box will convert the digital TV signals back to the old analog TV signals and you will NOT get any of the benefits of the new digital TV now being offered over the National Broadcast TV system using the digital conversion box.

We use the 22-inch VIZIO HDTV from WALMART which is less than $200. Does an superb job showing the full screen full mode high definition television using your trailer OTA BATWING antenna. We get 6-36 HD digital TV stations just about everywhere we go here on the East side of the US.

Keep in mind the HDTV digital TV signals you will get from the LOCAL towns will be in full mode full blown HDTV where those that you pick up from the camp grounds using the CABLE CONNECTION are not. The camp grounds convert those signals back to analog mode at the camp grounds.

We actually use the OTA antenna when we visit the camp grounds with CABLE TV to view all of the local town NATIONAL TV stations and then switch to CABLE to see those channels. Once you start viewing TV in full HDTV mode hard to go back to the old analog viewing mode haha...

Roy Ken

[KeithG]

Thanks for the responses. The current owners of the trailer use a satellite dish so whether or not this tv is digital or not doesn't impact them. I purchased a digital tv shortly after the switch that we use in camper, but since this is supposed to a built-in tv I'm hoping it is digital but I'm not holding my breath. If it isn't, I'll cross that bridge once I get to it. (After I own the camper and have it in my yard.)

[norty1]

What does "built in" mean? It has to be a commercially available tv cause Jayco never made one. I am thinking you will want to replace it with a DTV or purchase one of the converters that were so common when the changeover occurred to digital. Most of us have 2 or 3 laying around.

Have fun with the new rig.

[RoyBraddy]

This is photo of your main TV. I really doubt it is a digital one but the previous owner may have upgraded tv's...

There is nothing special about the TV to being a built-in one. This is just a standard TV like you find at WALMART and runs from 120VAC. When you look at it you will see what you need to get it to be a digital type. In addition to being digital when camping off the power grid you will always have to use an small 300W INVERTER or so to produce 120VAC from your battery setup.

You may not want to change it out but you will miss out on the great quality of TV the new digital HDTV give you now... The analog type using the digital conversion will pick up the local digital TV just fine but the quality wont be as good as it could be. It will be the same quality as what you will see when connected to CABLE TV coming from a camp ground when using the digital conversion box...



Always fun getting something new and making things like you want them to be... Enjoy it...

Roy Ken