Jack Digital HDTV Antenna Replacement Head

YC 1 wrote:

SCVJeff wrote:

n7bsn wrote:
Good point, since almost every major metro area has at least one station that "stayed" on VHF (actually most switched to UHF, turned off VHF analog, then switched to digital VHF)

That was an amazingly expensive project. And if the FCC gets their way with the re-pack, we get to do it all again. And it'll be even worse this time.

Been dealing with this in the Two Way Radio field for ten years. Only so much spectrum and technology improvements have made bandwidth better. This is not the first time the spectrum has been modified or split.

Never to this extreme. And the difference this time is that it's all driven by the government trying to pay down the debt by selling the spectrum off. Last time each broadcaster paid on average $1million+ for replacement transmitters and antennas, with additional parts and labor easily hitting several hundreds thousand per install. And here we go again, they want to compress the band for the wireless providers who have admitted that the 700 MHz spectrum they have lobbied for really won't propagate the way they expected..

As for the Winegard vs. Jack. You're obviously an RF guy so mechanical or personal preference aside, the only thing that matters when comparing antenna performance ARE the numbers, right? The Batwing outperforms the Jack in all ways, period. If you don't want or need that performance, I get it. But also being an RF guy, and TV guy to boot, the one thing i can't stand is my neighbor watching a picture I can't. I need and use that performance anytime we camp on the beach watching San Diego almost 150 miles across the water, and the LA stations through several mountain ranges. The Jack simply won't work. Even the Batwing without the Wingman struggles where we are.