Garry from Chase RV called over at 10.30 in the morning to remove the Maxview manual Satellite dish and fit the new Camos series 4 Auto seek Satellite dome and afterwards to redo the transformer to convert it to an automatic step up / step down change over system.
The sun beat down mercilessly on our heads as we both balanced precariously on the RV’s roof and alas the job turned out to be far more hard work and time consuming than either of us had planned. The existing Maxview unit was fixed into place with a square aluminium base sheet with no less than thirty two screws. These had to be removed as the new dome needed to be fairly flat with the roof. We would have liked to have removed the sheet altogether but this proved to be impractical, as the sheet was too well bonded with the roof and removing it would have caused a lot of damage.
The problem was that the bonding mastic was weathering, so most of the external mastic needed to be removed and the protruding four bolts cut flat then ground down to the roof level. After that new mastic was used to seal all the edges and any holes, including the centre 1” hole (that was also sealed with a plastic disk and plenty of mastic) as that hole went right through the roof for the internal controls.
Then the new dome was eventually fitted and new cabling put through for the Camos controller, all of which took most of the morning and well into the afternoon to complete. When we tried to locate the Astra 2 Satellite we had no signal as unfortunately a huge tree blocked the line of the satellite.
So we packed up the RV, moved the trailer and both the cars and then repositioned the RV. Success we now had a good signal and the TV burst into life, first job done.
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| Camos series 4 |
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| Fitted |
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| The Old system |
Now for job two, the Transformer !!!!!
Nothing ever goes as planned and after the mauling we had with the dome we should have expected it. Firstly the 2Kva Inverter had to be removed, that came out without too much hassle and boy did it weigh a ton!!! One benefit from the loss of that piece of equipment is that I now have enough spare weight to add my Cadac BBQ to the summer list that’s to be collected from storage.
Everything looked to be going fine with the Auto change over unit that was now fitted into the transformer's housing, I nipped inside and turned on the Onan 4Kva generator and the microwave inside worked a treat. So we now had 240 volt mains power automatically from the generator / transformer when not on mains hook-up without the need for me to go out a switch cables over etc.
Then we switched back to the mains hook-up and BOOM we blew the sites RCD’s and all the caravans on our side of the caravan site lost their electric (needless to say they were not happy with us).
Garry soon found out the problem who ever had done the original conversion had wired it in such a way as to confound even the most competent electrician, so he had to rewire part of the RV’s internal electric’s to get everything to work correctly!!!! by now it was seven o’clock and we were gradually losing the daylight and the will to live….
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| Completed Transformer |
We didn’t get round to replacing the locker plunger switches (all eight of them) but that we decided would be done later. Rhys kept asking every few minutes ‘whens the electric back on, whens the electric back on’ and sadly I got a bit short with him as I was getting quite tired, the girls who had been sitting outside in the sun wanted me to reposition the wind break as the wind direction had changed and they were getting cold (Ahh poor dabs, they never thought of doing it themselves of course.)
When Garry had departed and I struggled with aching back to get everything stored back into the RV’s lockers and singlehandedly drag a three hundred Kg trailer back for repositioning behind the RV, the girls (with Rhys in tow) did disappear and return some time later with a bottle of much needed red wine and a KFC chicken meal that didn’t touch the sides going down.
On the plus side the chap next door gave me a tenner for the now redundant Inverter, which was now useless to me and just so much extra weight that I didn’t need, all I have to dispose of now is the old Maxview Satellite dish.
Sleep came easily last night and this morning the old back still hurts a bit, so with grey leaden skies we said our goodbyes to our daughter and grandson as they headed back to South Wales, and even though I was constantly pestered by the little monster, I do love him and will miss him a lot. But it’s great to not to have to trip over him every five minutes as he tries to (and successfully in most cases) wind me up, as there’s not a lot of room for one active seven year old and three adults in an RV of this size.
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