Update on Jack Antenna install

SCVJeff wrote:

dodge guy wrote:

camperpaul wrote:

SCVJeff wrote:
You obviously replaced a broken antenna. A working Batwing will easily match that

With the Jack® you'll lose most of your VHF-hi stations and ALL of your VHF-low stations.

And what would those be? I have all the same stations now that used to be around before digital! I have the stations that i've always known as VHF and UHF. Not missing any.

As for a broken batwing, then it was broken since day one, and my buddy's has also been broken then since 06 ( when he bought his trailer new). He doesn't get any either.

If you look at the channels that were abandoned in your area for the digital change you might be surprised. Just because it's the channel you recognize doesn't mean it's still really on that channel.

As for the antenna, it's entirely possible you had a bad antenna since day one, who knows. What I do know it that the Jack doesn't perform as well as the Batwing on any band, and not at all on VHF-Lo as Paul mentioned. The best thing about the Jack is its size. That's also one of the reasons it lags behind the Batwing in performance, but it also fits places the Batwing won't go.

You are correct about the relative performance between the two and AFAIK the Batwing is a little more sensitive to orientation because of the narrower main beamwidth so for close in stations located spatially the Jack might get more channels from a single aim point than the Batwing. That is the only advantage and you can do about the same with an omnidirectional antenna too. This is why I believe folks like Dodge Guy and others who don't really understand how these antennas work technically think that less capable antennas like the Jack work better than some of the more capable ones like the Batwing with the UHF add on.

I haven't done a direct comparision but for UHF and decent VHF the "Antennas Direct C2-V-CJM ClearStream 2-V" does a great job and could easily be mounted in place of the Batwing head if one has the side clearance for the VHF arms on the ClearStream. I bought one because I thought something was wrong with my Batwing and after getting all the stations with the ClearStream I did some trouble shooting and found I have a BAD roof feed thru for my Batwing that I have to fix when I get back from our current road trip. My feed thru is one of the plate connectors and not the normal cable feed thru on the Batwing antenna base and is Eternabonded so I have to remove that to remove the plate and fix the connection on the bottom of the plate connector. Here is a pic of my feed thru to the left of the Batwing base


Larry