How to tell bat wing type

Moved from Tech Issues forum.

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j-d wrote:
Chris Bryant posted a note once "Upgrading to HD" in which he said: "Your tools are Ladder and Magic Marker. Climb up, find your antenna, write HD on it. Done. Climb down."

Love it! :B

Some alternate HD antennae have small "wall wart" converters to supply the power up the coax to the amplifier in the antenna. These have a particular "12v" amount of voltage.

I asked Terk, eg, if their antenna I bought a few years ago when the bat wing died, would work on the Wingard booster "12v" which uses the wide range of 12v an RV has. Yes it does. So you don't have to use the wall wart if it is not convenient to use with the inverter you have on anyway to run the TV set.

One I tried had a 6v output from the wall wart instead of 12v so that was no use unless you used the inverter. Read the info on that before you take it home from the store.

Lately, after the Terk got water in it somehow, I got the Jack which has a way to mount on the Wingard mast ( I bet Wingard doesn't like that!) and it too has its own wall wart, but you can just use the Wingard installed 12v booster set-up in your RV and the various amounts of 12v voltage don't bother the Jack antenna amplifier.

If you do want the Wingman for your batwing, note the warning they have in the manual that it sticks out and may not fit on your RV roof when lowered next to say the A/C shroud. The Jack is one way around that. (It also works quite well :) )

For fun, I tried one of those coax power boosters you can get and it didn't work. You can't boost the booster like that.

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, the man said MOST Flat Screens. If you can't access SCAN from its buttons or menu or remote, then it's an Analog Flat Screen. I've helped a lot of people in campgrounds with getting their TV set up, and ran into those a couple times.

The oddball was finding one, getting a spare converter box from our coach, installing it, and finding scan would only pick up one channel while we had 10+ in ours. There was a powered plate and I turned it ON. Had to in order to get more than nothing. Anybody got an idea why that was?

Chris Bryant posted a note once "Upgrading to HD" in which he said: "Your tools are Ladder and Magic Marker. Climb up, find your antenna, write HD on it. Done. Climb down."

firemedic08 wrote:
I've never had an RV with the crank up antenna. My new to me 5er has one. How can I tell if it is able to get the digital OTA signal? Will I need anything else to make it work with my tv?

The easiest question to answer ever.

You CAN get digital TV signals with the existing antenna provided the antenna is working as designed.. It is that simple. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A DIGITAL ANTENNA.. Even if they advertise them THERE IS NO SUCH THING, there are only Television antennas.

Antennas of say the 1960 Vintage were designed to pick up channels 2-13, and occasionally 14-82 Late 60s' all got 2-82, then they dropped a bunch of high end channels and suddenly TV antennas were re-designed for 2-69 (bit less expensive to make that way).

And that is what they are designed to do to this very day, 2-69.
Digital, analog or "Other" (If somenone ever comes up with an "other") makes no differnece, the only thing that matters is the frequency, is it within the range of 2-69 Inclusive? if the answer is YES, then your existing antenna is up to the job.. HOWEVER.

Batwings come in 4 flavors if made by winegard plus a couple of knock off flavors
Sensar 1.. Very rare, doubt you have one
Sensar II and III Can benefit from the addition of the Wingman This is most likely the type of antenna you have proided it is a winegard
Sensar IV Comes with the wingman in the box. This is the BEST of teh lot.

And there is are two other things

Inside the RV there is, most likely, a wall plate.. It has a switch, a light, a 12 volt outlet and an antenna connector (TV-1).

Replace it with a SENSAR PRO (If you have a matrix switch, (Box of many buttons of BOMB) let me knwo and I'll describe my system.

The second is the TV

Older CRT televisions (Squarish screen) are NOT ATSC digital.. MOst "Wide screen" flat screen types are.. You may need to either upgrade the TV or add a digital to analog converter.

firemedic08 wrote:
It does have a booster. I have a newer ( 4 year old lcd) tv. So I think I may give it a try tomorrow.

No it doesn't. ;) That wall plate everyone refers to as a "booster" has no ability to boost the signal at all but when turned on merely sends 12 vdc to the antenna head where the any antenna boost amplifier may be located AND switches the input of the wall plate from cable to antenna. Considering the vintage of your rig it would have originally had a non-amplified Winegard Sensar antenna on it but since you've said it has a "booster" - i.e. power wall plate - that suggests the head was at some time replaced with a Sensar head that does contain a signal amplifier. Assuming this to be the case you need to identify whether it also is equipped with a Winegard Wingman which will improve UHF reception and if not, add it. To further enhance reception you could replace that non-amplified wall plate with one that does offer 10 db of signal amplification / attenuation - the Winegard SensarPro.

ALL Winegard Batwing antennas will receive Digital signals. You may need to add the Wingman add on part for better reception. What most people do not understand is, the reception range is LESS on digital signals, so they think their Batwing is not working. Doug

All great Thanks For the detailed Info, and help. This is yet another reason I love this forum.

For local station information I prefer TVFool.com The radar plot gives more channel information including the actual transmission channel and both True & Magnetic azimuth.

I also added a Winegard SensarPro to our installation. It provides additional amplification if needed and signal strength readout so you can accurately aim the antenna.