Antenna, Satellite and Entertainment Systems: Cost, Hours and Process in Hacienda Heights

A batwing style rooftop television antenna is a passive device fed through a powered amplifier, usually in a wall plate inside the coach. When the amplifier loses power, the antenna appears completely dead, and owners climb onto the roof to look at a part that is working perfectly.

So the order is: confirm 12 volt at the amplifier, confirm the amplifier is switched on, then check the coax path, then look at the antenna. We mention this specifically because it is the single most common no signal complaint and it is frequently a fuse.

The coax path is the second candidate, and on coaches with several inputs there is usually a switch plate routing antenna, satellite and cable to different televisions. A switch plate with a failed position produces one live input and one dead one, which is the symptom owners describe as a bad television.

Satellite domes are mechanically busy devices: a motorized dish inside a radome, searching and tracking. The failures are motors, position sensors, the control board and water intrusion into the dome. A dome that searches forever and never locks is usually a motor or sensor rather than a signal problem.

Internet hardware has changed this category considerably. A Starlink or cellular antenna mount on the roof is now a common request, and it is a different job from a satellite television dome: a fixed mount, a cable run and a sealed penetration, with the electronics inside the coach. Mechanically simpler and just as dependent on the penetration being right.

One thing we do not do is manage your service account. We mount, wire, seal and verify the hardware works. Activation, plans and billing are between you and the provider, and a shop that offers to handle that is offering something outside what a repair facility should be in the middle of.

• Amplifier power and fuse, the first check on any no signal complaint
• Coax switch plate positions and interior distribution runs
• Crank up antenna gearbox, seal and rotation mechanism
• Satellite dome motors, position sensors and control board
• Fixed mounts for cellular and internet antennas with sealed penetrations
• Television mounts, lift mechanisms and in motion vibration isolation

This is the point we would make if we could only make one on this page. An antenna base, a dome base and an internet antenna mount are all holes in the roof, and they are lap sealant joints in a high UV region where a self leveling sealant chalks in three to four years.

We bed mounts in butyl, seal with the correct product for that roof material, and take moisture readings at the location before fastening. Where an owner arrives with a ceiling stain under an existing rooftop mount, the mount comes off before anyone can read the deck honestly, and that is labor caused by an earlier install that treated sealant as a finishing step.

The band on this page is one of the lower ones in the program. Labor is 1 to 14 hours at the posted mechanical and electrical rate of $260 per hour, and the estimate tier is the RV systems estimate at $150, credited against an authorized job. An amplifier, a fuse or a switch plate is at the bottom. A satellite dome install with a new penetration and interior distribution is at the top, with domes and internet hardware at 7 to 25 business days.