Over-the-air digital TV reception?

laplatarosa wrote:
We are heading to AZ. for our winter stay. Our site is under a steel cover. We want to pull the Class A MH in front ways, instead of backing in.

First, go to https://www.antennaweb.org/ to find out where the station you want to receive are located relative to your location. It will also give you an estimate of what kind.size of antenna your should have.

laplatarosa wrote:
This puts our bat-wing style TV antenna way under the cover. No (very limited) over-the-air reception. If I added an external antenna, ...

Second, I ASSUME by EXTERNAL you mean out from under the steel roof. That is the only real chance you have of pulling in a large number of stations. Trees/leaves can have a negative effect on reception. The higher the better.

There are a lot of good antennas out there. Several good designs.

Link 1 Link 2 Link 3

Note that the third one is just double the second one !

laplatarosa wrote:
how would I get the signal booster on the existing antenna to improve the signal strength? Can I run a coax cable from the external antenna (mounted to the steel cover) to the MH cable-in? How do I boost the signal strength?

If you have a good antenna at adequate height you won't need a booster. Just plug into the jack that you would normally use for cable TV and you should be good. If you need an amplifier, the easiest place to insert it is outside the MH, but there are 2 problems. They are not weatherproof and they require power. Unused ports should use a F-connector terminator.

Of course that assumes you have good wiring inside of the coach ! If the wiring is questionable and if you have more than 1 TV, then I would run new wire inside and an amplifier splitter like this onelike this one.

laplatarosa wrote:
I have a switch in the MH that says On - antenna - Off - Park Cable. There is a coax connector on that switch. What is this for?

I can't really help you here. My SWAG is that it switches all the internal TV port for one to another and may power up an amplifier splitter.


Last tip. Use RG6 wire. A bit thicker than RG58 so it is more durable. Also use Snap-N-Seal connectors, SNS1P6, color code blue for RG6 and SNS1P58, color code orange for RG59. These are cheap, as is the wire, on eBay. 50mis a lifetime supply and you will have plenty for the neighbors too ! These do require a special tool to install. Several different versions are available. I like the IT-1000 tool because it also strips the end of the wire to the proper length.