Entertainment Center Mods

Overview

The Allegro Bus comes equipped with a pretty decent entertainment system. It's not the ultimate for the audiophile but it's not a plain VCR either. The system is set up for a satellite receiver up front that can be distributed to the bedroom TV as well. The DVD player/surround sound system is front only but a bedroom DVD player is also provided at the bedroom TV. The various inputs, such as cable TV, off-air signals via the antenna, satellite receiver output, and VCR are input to a selector switch that selects which of these signals you want to view at either the front or bedroom TVs. If you want to add more sophistication to your system some modifications will be necessary. I've done a number of these on my 2007 42QRP and have detailed them in the following sections in case anyone else has an interest in doing the same to their coach.

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Mark Quasius - "Cruzer"

The Original Setup

This is the original front cabinet as it arrives from the factory. This cabinet is located right over the passenger's head. The area above the shelf is very deep but the area underneath the shelf is not very deep, therefore the deeper DVD player must reside on the top shelf. In the bottom of the cabinet is the video selector switch. This switch takes coaxial cable feeds from the TV Antenna, cable TV jack, VCR, satellite receiver, and an auxiliary input. It then sends them to the inputs of the front TV, bedroom TV, and VCR. In addition to serving as a routing switcher it also contains the preamp for the batwing antenna on the roof. Because these are coax cable RF connections, they are not the best quality. Therefore the DVD player does not interface with this selector switch but instead feeds component video to the front TV directly for a cleaner picture. The extra room in the lower cabinet can be used to place a VCR if desired as well as a satellite receiver. The KingDome on the roof does feed the SATV signal down to the receiver via another coax cable, which is also found in this cabinet.

The early 2007s came with a separate cabinet underneath the bedroom TV that held a second DVD player which was dedicated to that TV. Shortly after the 42QRP was introduced this was changed and the TV itself was replaced by a combo unit with built in DVD player and VCR so the cabinet was eliminated. This resulted in a bit more headroom over the vanity beneath it. The above images show both versions.

There is a satellite receiver cable supplied to the upper cabinet immediately to the right of the bedroom TV. There is also an AC power receptacle and A/V inputs to the bedroom TV in that area. This is the intended location of a second satellite receiver so that you can view one channel in the bedroom while another person is viewing a different channel on the front TV. However, this cabinet is not very deep, just like the front cabinet's lower section. This was the start of my problems with this layout.

In the lower portion of the front cabinet is a black plastic panel. This panel contains a pair of 120 volt receptacles as well as a number of coax jacks to connect components to. This makes it easy to plug things in and out all the time but it does take up valuable room.

The Problems

I have a pair of DirecTV DVRs. For those who are not familiar with DVRs, a DVR is a satellite receiver that also has a hard drive installed within it that is used to record programs. It features dual inputs so that you can watch one show while recording another. This of course requires two coax cable feeds from the dish - one from each LNB of a dual LNB dish. The DVR is also a larger unit than most simple satellite receivers. I found my DVR to be about 1" too deep to fit into either the lower compartment or the bedroom cabinet so that was the beginning of my problems.

The second issue was that I wanted to place one DVR in the front cabinet and one DVR in the bedroom. This requires 4 feeds from the KingDome in-motion satellite dome. But, the system was set up so that one LNB fed the front satellite receiver while the second fed the bedroom receiver.

Next, I wanted the ability to feed satellite signals from an outside dish as well as from the KingDome. The way it is set up, there are two coax jacks in the basement water service compartment. One is for campground cable TV, and feeds the video selector switch, while the second is for a remote satellite dish and runs to the black panel so that the RVer can swap cables from the KingDome to the outside dish. In my case I needed two satellite feeds, one from each LNB, ort else we'd all be watching the same channel. I also wanted to eliminate the cable swapping and install some sort of switching system.

The Solutions

The first thing to tackle was the depth situation. The rear bedroom TV was fairly simple - I could simply order a shelf setup from Tiffin just like they used in the previous version. I could then place my DVR in there. My other option would be to make my own shelf and mount it underneath. Either way there was plenty of depth and I would not have to utilize the upper cabinet, which was better suited for storage anyway.

  The front cabinet was a little more problematic. Part of the issue was that the coax cable that connected to the black junction panel stuck out an inch or two before they could bend. That in itself ate up 2" of room behind the DVR. So I remove the black panel to see how I could gain some space. I found that the top half of that area was fairly deep, and was part of the area behind the deeper upper shelf. The bottom half was not very deep because the cabinet was made shallow at that point so that the side shade mechanisms had room. However, that back partition extended up an inch more than it needed to. I reasoned that if I cut off that extra inch I would have enough depth to fit the tail of the DVR into that area.

The first step was to relocate the two electrical outlets previously installed in the black panel to the top half of the cabinet. I did this by replacing them with surface mount receptacles that I mounted on the back wall, just above and behind the DVD player. That was easy enough. Next I removed the coax lines from the backside of the black panel and ditched the panel. I would then connect these cables to the proper connections. The only time I would need to remove any of them is if I removed the DVR from the coach. I then used a sabre saw to remove the extra 1" of height from the back wall so that I had enough cavity height to allow the tail of the DVR to fit into that space.

The second step was to build a cherry shelf to support the DVR. Because the cavity was only open near the top of the opening it wouldn't be possible to set the DVR on the cabinet's floor so it needed to be raised up. Once finished, the DVR slide right into place and I connected the various A/V wires and cables to it. I also relocated the selector switch to the upper cabinet and Velcro'd it to the top of the DVD player. This leaves me enough room for a VCR underneath the DVR should I decide to add it later or else just a spot for remote controls and DVDs. .The results are pictured above.

The next task was to add some more satellite feeds so that I could run both DVRs as well as get them to the right place. I also needed to incorporate some switches to select between the outside dish feeds and the KingDome feeds. While it's not all that hard to run cables within the front end of the coach, it's virtually impossible to run new cables to the bedroom TV, at least not neatly. Fortunately, there were two cables already run to the bedroom TV, one was for the satellite receiver and the other was from the video selector switch to the bedroom TV's RF input jack. By using a pair of diplexers I was able to utilize the TV cable for two purposes so in effect I had three "virtual cables" while physically there were only two. For those who don't know what a diplexer is - it looks like your basic cable TV splitter except it will separate RF signals from the higher band SATV signals. They also can be used as combiners when installed backwards so you can install one on each end, in effect creating a single cable with a wye at each end. You connect an SATV feed and an RF feed on one end and then separate them at the other end. So, these two little items kept me from having to string a third coax cable for the second LNB input on the satellite receiver.

I also needed to get an extra SATV feed from the basement compartment to the receivers as well. In the same manner as the bedroom TV, I utilized the basement cable TV line with a single diplexer up in the RV. I can now use the cable TV line for my second satellite feed and the diplexer will separate the two signals up top, saving me from having to run another coax cable.

Now my luck ran out. It was time to run some new cables. Fortunately, it was all in the front of the coach so it wasn't too bad. Step one was to decide where to mount my A/B selector switches so that I could select between the KingDome and outside dish feeds. I decided that the best place would not be in the DVD/DVR cabinet because it would add clutter to an already congested area. I also reasoned that when switching to or from the outside feeds I'd be turning the KingDome on or off at the same time. So, I decided to mount my pair of A/B switches (one for each LNB) on the small shelf directly above the KingDome's remote control panel. This was pretty much wasted area anyway so it made the most sense. In the image above you can see the A/B switches mounted right underneath the yellow hose to the air horn. The hardest part was cutting a 2" hole behind the A/B switches in order to run 6 coax cables through to the switches. I couldn't get a drill in there so I used a 2" hole saw with a ratcheting box end wrench and that took quite a while to do.

Next I removed the front TV as well as the two wooden louvered speaker covers that hide the surround sound and radio speakers. This gave me access to the existing rat's nest of coaxial cable. I then ran 6 cables over to the two A/B switches. Two from the external feeds in the basement, two from the KingDome, and two outputs over to an area behind the front TV, where I connected them to the inputs of a 2x4 multiswitch. This multiswitch now gave me 4 outputs so that I could send a pair to the front DVR and a pair to the rear DVR. The silver multiswitch is visible on the second shelf level near the left of the opening. The diplexers are shown cable tied into place at the right, near the KingDome control module. The large flat white cable sets are the component video and audio that feed the DVR to the TV's Aux 1 inputs and also a set of S-Video and audio feeds to feed the DVR to the TV's Aux 3 inputs. I chose to take the TV's Audio Out jacks and feed it to the surround sound system's Aux inputs. That way I can utilize the surround sound system for anything that the 32" LCD TV is viewing.

Summary

It was fairly easy to fish the cables from the DVD/DVR cabinet to the right front corner of the RV. From there it was easy enough to feed them to the central TV area once the two speaker grills were removed. Then the cables ran under a false bottom shelf along the driver's side to the cabinet that held all of the remote control panels. It was a time consuming project but now I can supply dual feeds to either DVR and can supply them with either feeds from the KingDome or an exterior dish just by flipping a switch (well, actually two switches). Everything fits in it's cabinets and the infrared repeater system lets me run anything from a remote either in the bedroom or front living area as long as I program each of the DVR remotes to a unique identify. The system gives me maximum flexibility with little hassle. While everything was open I also took the time to tighten up all of the coax connections. Tiffin just finger tightens the hex nuts on the coax lines and many were already coming loose. I put a 7/16" open end wrench on them all and made sure they were tight. Now I have a nice clean signal everywhere.

This review written 12/2/06