Won One - Finally!

Our Journey is a great home and a very complex machine at the same time.  I am very fussy about keeping all of its systems well maintained and functioning at peak performance.  Yet, no matter how much TLC I put into the Journey, things break, and usually at a very inconvenient time and costing money to repair.  The joy of RV travel, we've all been there.

We have a King Dome In Motion Satellite Dish, it is a great feature.  We've used it often driving down the highway to entertain the grandkids with their favorite TV shows, or keeping a "weather eye" on the upcoming weather.  When we park, if the sky is clear of trees, a push of the button and we're enjoying our DirecTV channels.

The last time I used at the New Jersey "home" campground, when it started searching for the signal, it locked on, but made a strange grinding noise.  Not good.

I couldn't do anything about it then, but now that we're here in our South Carolina "home" for a few weeks, I thought I'd go up on the roof and take a look.  If there was something that I could fix, I'd do it, but with the complexity of the dome mechanism, I didn't hold my breath.  This would be the place to have the dome replaced if it was suffering a fatal malady, there is a nearby Camping World where I could go and have another chance to use my extended warranty.  Of course that would entail breaking camp, going down there with the Journey for how many days it might take to replace the dome.   Plus, even though the extended warranty would fix it, I still would have to pay a $100 deductible plus the sales tax on the new dome.

I grabbed my electric screwdriver and several other assorted tools and climbed up on the roof.  Of course, the one thing I forgot was my camera (sorry, no pictures).  I took the top of the dome off and peered into the workings of a device that must have been related to the engines on the Space Shuttle.  And...there it was.

A little shiny electrical part, about the size of a pack of matches, with three wires and a plug was laying in the bottom of the dome mechanism.  Looking around I found where it had been glued to a bracket and where the wires plugged into a tiny socket.  Evidently, the glue had failed, the little electrical part fell down and got caught in the mechanism as it turned looking for a satellite signal.  The turning brackets pulled the wires out of the plug and dropped it to the bottom of the dome where it finally caught and made the grinding noise as the mechanism searched.

I found a safer place for the part, glued it down where it won't have a chance to come loose and plugged the wires back in.  I called down to Marti to turn on the dome and it began to twirl and elevate skyward like it normally does.  The best part is no more grinding sounds.

I can't do a test to see if it finds a signal due to the heavy tree cover here at the campground, but just watching and listening to it, I'm very sure the problem has been solved.

It is nice win one for a change.  :c)

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