Day 6 at Tiffin Service Center

Red Bay, AL

Not a whole lot to report happened during the weekend.  After waking up each morning last week at 5:00 AM to be at the bay doors at 7:00 AM we decided to sleep in a bit.  It's amazing how different the atmosphere at the service center campground is on the weekends versus the weekdays.  Our highlight Sunday was to take a trip up to Florence to shop for a few different things (food, new computer printer, and some other items).  Florence is about 45 miles northeast of Red Bay.

Today started off by us going over to speak to Billy (scheduler) in the service office.  All we currently have left on our original list of repairs is for the roof rails to be replaced and for our most important item, the interior water leak, to be fixed.  The roof rails are one of the "big" items being repaired by Tiffin at no cost, but appointments are not allowed for this.We found out that we are 5th in line for the roof repairs. This means probably Wednesday or Thursday before we get in a bay for this.  We requested a different tech to work with us on the water leak problem.  We heard nothing further today, so I decided to work on the OTA repair I first spoke about in last week's blog. 

With assistance from "Chas" on the TRVN forum I learned that I could contact the antenna supplier and order parts directly to effect the repair on my own.  The remainder of today's blog details the repair of the antenna, so if this would be of no interest to you, please feel free to "tune out" now.

Replacing the motor/drive assembly and amplifier circuit board on the Mini -State 5MS9000 VHF/UHF Antenna.

Step 1:   Remove the antenna from the roof by removing 4 screws holding the antenna to the roof brackets.
Step 2:   Remove 2 screws on the underside of the antenna to remove a small plastic plate which covers the coaxial cable and 3 controlling wires.
Step 3:  The entire circular antenna should be loose at this point.  GET OFF THE ROOF.

Step 4:  Separate the outer case of the antenna by removing 8 screws around the perimeter.

Step 5: Remove the drive/gear mechanism by unbolting 1 nut from the top of the gear cluster.

Step 6: Unsolder leads connecting the amplifier board to the metal band surrounding the styrofoam and either cut or melt the existing glue holding the amplifier board to the styrofoam.

Step 7: Position the new amplifier board and re-solder the connections severed in Step 6. Using a glue gun, replace the glue removed previously.

Step 8: Re-attach the drive/gear mechanism on the opposite side of the assembly by using 4 standoff bolts (same as removed originally).




Step 9:  Using the 8 screws removed in Step 4, re-assemble the two halves of the antenna's housing.

Step 10:  Lug everything back up to the roof and re-attach the wiring, coaxial cable, and 4 screws holding the antenna to the brackets on the roof. Hopefully, it will look something like this upon completion.


The entire cost of this complete reburbishing project for the antenna was $39.10.  The cost breakdown was $12.95 for the motor/drive assembly, plus $12.95 for the amplifier circuit board, and $13.20 for shipping.  Oh well, the antenna works again and it was quite a bit cheaper than buying a new one.

Thanks for stopping by to take a look!