TV Reception??

TV is alive and well. The antenna will work on digital as well as analog, although if the RV has an older TV it's likely analog only and would need replacement of a converter (not recommended). For the time being most of the TV stations in the US are up on UHF, but that's about to change so if you elect to get a higher performing antenna, make sure it is designed for VHF as well. Right now the Winegard Sensar (Batwing) is the best out there on both bands.

After that and like before, it totally depends on where you camp.

If you have this type WINEGARD BATWING crank-up antenna with added dipole you probably have the best you can get.

This antenna has a built-in PRE-AMPLIFIER controlled by the Antenna WALL PLATE Panel by pushing in a button on the Wall Plate. You also have to switch your HDTV mode to ANTENNA and rescan again after pointing this antenna to the local towns.. I regularly get excellent HDTV reception from both Washinton DC TV towers and Richmond Virginia TV towers sitting here at my house in Northern Neck Virginia. Both towns are over 50 miles away from us.





The problem is the newer RVs coming out seem to be using the ONMIDIRECTIONAL stationary low profile antennas that are not getting good reviews by the RV community...

These round looking low profile antennas only work good when you are right on top of the local transmitting town.



Roy Ken

Moved from Forum Technical Support

ROY: Vanguard= Winegard
:S

RoyB, I really like your post. It needs to be a permanent fixture on this forum. Just hang on to it, and repost everytime the same question comes up.

JEFF - I was going to claim fat fingers but the W and the V are no where near each other on the keyboard...

Maybe I can blame the lack of coffee here...

So noted...

Roy Ken

Noel - I played with a bunch of the antennas early on with my OFF-ROAD POPUP trailer and the best one was one of those very long $100 YAGI's from LOWES. I had to plan my setup however to be able to rotate it - kept hitting trees in the way... Then finally I destroyed it by having to fold it up everytime we broke camp for travel...

You can see my yagie sticking out on both sides of my POPUP roof here haha..

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The worse one I played with was one of the HIDE-AWAY Antennas... Neat Idea however...

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The only good thing with this one was the mount that came with it. I use that for my easy-up pole when setting up...

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Then I found the 8 BOWTIE FLAT arrays made by Solid Signal and this one really pulls in the HDTV signals. It just isn't a good mounting type antenna for my OFF-ROAD POPUP setup......

Looks like this one for $60


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Roy Ken

RoyB; When the cable company dropped all analog signals, thus requiring a cable box for each TB in the house, I realized that we could receive all the local channels with our Sensar IV and Sensar Pro in the RV parked outside out house. So I got one of the Flat sheet antennas with an amplifier and stuck it up in one our our windows. Works almost as well as the RV antenna. Thought about one of the outside mounted UHF ones, but the cheaper solution works well enough for our use. BTW, know where Clydedale is?? Thats where one of our kids reside. But we can't get the RV in her driveway.