Monday November 20th 2017

The overnight temperature was in the high 30s again. Unfortunately, there was cloud cover this morning. The sun was not able to warm the interior of the RV quickly. I had to turn the heat on for a couple of hours. Around 10am the sun was out in full force warming the inside air. The temperature topped out at the seasonal normal high in the mid to high sixties. Tomorrow and the days to follow are forecast above the normal temperatures flirting with record highs through the weekend.

Desert P\plant picture of the day.

This morning I picked up an Amazon delivery at a local Amazon locker. I could of had the package shipped here to the RV Park, but tried the locker for the novelty of the experience. It might be an advantage if the normal carriers are backlogged. I think shipping to the lockers is handled by Amazon and not FedX, UPS or similar shipping services.

The delivery contained two HDMI splitter extenders to solve my satellite TV distribution problem. The splitters that came with the RV got bounced around to much. They have been out of service since June. Consequently, I have only had satellite TV on my bedroom TV and I haven’t had any access to my Blueray DVD player. With my purchases I now have satellite TV on both the bedroom and living room TVs. I will live with no satellite or Blueray on the outside TV for this simpler, hopefully more reliable, solution.

The original HDMI splitter. It takes 1 HDMI input and has 1 HDMI and 7 CAT6 outputs. Four of the CAT 6 outputs weren’t used. The need for one HDMI output is what made finding an alternate solution difficult.

This afternoon I got the big old hardware out of the cabinet and the new little hardware installed in it’s place. There is more room for air circulation and I should be able to anchor it down better than the old units. Testing everything out I have successfully got satellite TV in the bedroom and living room. The Blueray is another problem. It isn’t working on either TV.

The new HDMI Splitter Extender (I forgot to take a picture of the actual unit, so the box will have to do). This unit only has two outputs, one HDMI and one CAT6, but it is also only as big as a deck of cards. The other one was more like a heavy dress tie box.

I made a trip to Walmart, Home Depot and another Walmart looking for a connector to help diagnose the problem with the Blueray DVD player. Ten miles and an hour plus later I had the means to isolate the problem to the DVD player itself. It turns on and displays the start up messages on the LCD display, but nothing seems to be coming out the HDMI cable in the back to feed the TVs. Unlike the HDMI switches the Blueray is a quality LG unit that should stand up to the bouncing in the RV. I need to do some more testing before I look for another unit. I don’t use the Blueray much anyway.

The good news is I can now watch ESPN, HGTV and all the Hallmark Christmas movies in my living room. When I retreated to the bedroom to watch programs I usually fell asleep on the bed somewhere in the middle of the program.