We have the typical old Wingard batwing amplified antenna and alternate cable TV connection. Watching "Going RV", there is a lot of emphasis on TV's inside and out. I'm wondering if most full timers and frequent RV users use Satellite TV and DVD players for variety and quality of reception nowadays. We are resuming RV activity after a long lapse. Advice is welcome.

OTA reception distance decreased with HD but with better quality. GC cable was often poor quality or didn't exist. The batwing rarely goes up anymore as we upgraded the DTV sat dish to HD. Also we use a Genie receiver which retains the recordings so driving, trees etc are a non issue. We almost never use DVDs. No outside TV and the bedroom TV is original OTA and hasn't been turned on for years.I'd label us as reverse snowbirds with 5+ months of RV travel. Point of View: I could say that with the RV sat dish paid for sat TV cost is $0 since we move the home receiver with it's recordings to the RV.

OTA TV reception has always repeat always been a hit or miss situation regardless of if in an RV or home. A lot of variables affect reception. The main difference is with the old analog you got snow, ghosting, nothing. Now you get pixelating, or no signal. Sat can be iffy as well due to trees, mountains, etc. Streaming can be an alternative if you have decent WiFi/internet service. if you really must have something to watch, bring it with you using your choice of media.

We use the batwing, if we get anything to watch, fine, if not, that's fine too, we've got about 200 DVD's, or sit outside & watch the campfire.

I use Dish but mainly watch the campfire and sip bourbon.

We fulltime and use Dish satellite, OTA where available for local channels, and we're finding streaming to more and more be our "go to" choice especially for overnight stops instead of deploying the dish. As cell Internet service and possibly Starlink satellite Internet at some point, keep improving, I expect we'll drop Dish in favor of all streaming at some point.

Television Reception in an RV | Good Sam Community

Bordercollie
Explorer
Feb 03, 2021
From what I was able to understand, the old Batwing, if all connections are good, and amplifier in the head is working, with Wingman added for improved UHF, is as good as, or better than, the others.

Also for infrequent RV'ers like us now, the cost of satellite TV may not be justifiable. I need to learn more about streaming TV. I subscribed to Discovery Plus, so am getting my feet wet.

Thanks for the replies.
Dutch_12078
Explorer II
Feb 02, 2021
Here's a review done by professional engineer and forum member, SCVJeff, comparing the King Jack and the Winegard Sensar OTA antennas using a high end spectrum analyzer.

Batwing vs. BatMan vs. Jack: The Results..
ron_dittmer
Explorer II
Feb 01, 2021
Any idea what the range is of the King Jack antenna?

I had thought of rigging THIS 80 mile range antenna onto the Wingard mast of our motor home but unlike the one on the top of my brick and mortar house, this one appears to be fragile.
IAMICHABOD
Explorer II
Jan 31, 2021
bobndot wrote:
You can update the old bat-wing for a new digital antenna head that's mounted to the OEM crank-hardware. Its a simple bolt off / bolt on exchange, without having to drill new holes.

Go to YouTube and search
"KING JACK DIGITAL RV ANTENNA REVIEW & INSTALLATION"

Here is a clicky to make it easier.

Worked out well for me
bobndot
Explorer II
Jan 31, 2021
You can update the old bat-wing for a new digital antenna head that's mounted to the OEM crank-hardware. Its a simple bolt off / bolt on exchange, without having to drill new holes.

Go to YouTube and search
"KING JACK DIGITAL RV ANTENNA REVIEW & INSTALLATION"
camper19709
Explorer
Jan 31, 2021
bukhrn wrote:
We use the batwing, if we get anything to watch, fine, if not, that's fine too, we've got about 200 DVD's, or sit outside & watch the campfire.

Ditto !!
ron_dittmer
Explorer II
Jan 31, 2021
Our 2007 rig still has the original crank-up Winegard antenna. I installed the Wingman to it which increases the range of the antenna by some amount. We rarely use the antenna because we almost exclusively camp where there is no free over the air wave signal. If we were full-timers, I could see investing in satellite technology, but for our limited time with our rig, we resort to DVDs. We enjoy watching movies anyway.
klutchdust
Explorer II
Jan 30, 2021
azdryheat wrote:
My trailer has a Wingard automatic dish on the roof. One button and it searches and then locks onto the three satellites for Directv HD. I use my DVR receiver from the house and two wireless Genies so we can watch 3 of our 4 TV's while we're roughing it.

Before sat TV we relied on the coax in the trailer and the picture quality was terrible. With the sat TV we use HDMI connections for crystal clear images.

Recently we've been looking into replacing Directv with a streaming service like Sling or one of the others.

I am interested in how one can use sling or other streaming services. I am dumping Direct because I just realized I am paying 150 a month to watch 3 channels and some music for the garage, The C has been sold, I had DTV in the coach using a receiver from the guest bedroom. If I added RV Direct they wanted to charge another subscription. With my new to me trailer there is a TV and an antenna.TV isn't a big deal to me, I enjoy local news and weather however if it can be had for a reasonable fee I might be interested.
Presently using ROKU in my bedrooms and wife uses everything BUT satellite channels, time to "dump the dish". "cut the cord" or whatever else is the recent lingo as satellite and cable TV goes by the wayside.
Old-Biscuit
Explorer III
Jan 30, 2021
OTA is just fine......
Depending on location we get some or several channels
If not very many then I hoist up the single array antenna and get more

OTA at S&B also

That is more then enough TV and it is FREE

Cable/satellite costs too much for JUNK or 160PLUS channels that hold no interest.
NAH!
azdryheat
Explorer
Jan 30, 2021
My trailer has a Wingard automatic dish on the roof. One button and it searches and then locks onto the three satellites for Directv HD. I use my DVR receiver from the house and two wireless Genies so we can watch 3 of our 4 TV's while we're roughing it.

Before sat TV we relied on the coax in the trailer and the picture quality was terrible. With the sat TV we use HDMI connections for crystal clear images.

Recently we've been looking into replacing Directv with a streaming service like Sling or one of the others.