Winegard Sensar Pro tweaking

Question

I put the antenna up, turned on my Sensar panel, peaked the signal, set the gain for 20 (max) and scanned for channels. Found high teens.

But was missing some of the majors and could get some of their dot channels (.2 .3)

I Googled one of the antenna pointing sites and found that almost all the channels were sending from the same location about 30 miles away. I should be getting them all.

Not happy, I turned the gain down to 10 and rescanned.

Voila!

Now I get high 20's and all the missing majors were there.

So from now on I am going to start with the gain low scan and rescan a few times.

bill_satellite · Answer

Turning the Sensar Pro to 20 is not a good thing in almost all cases. That is a 10db gain (10 is zero additional gain and anything less than 10 will attenuate the signal (also necessary sometimes).
I recommend always starting a scan at 10 unless you see that initial signal strength numbers in the teens. Rotate for best signal and only turn the gain up if the numbers are still below 40-50. Do you scan and you should get nearly everything that's available. If you still have a channel that breaks up you can raise the gain a point or 2 to get it in solid.

johno02 · Answer

The instructions say that setting the gain too high might cause reception problems.  Use on of the signal finder apps to determine direction, point the antenna, set gain to 10(factory recommended), and scan.  Tweek rotation for best signal.  30-60 miles is no problem sor ours.  Keep in mind that maximum range for most digital stations is about 60 miles.

scvjeff · Answer

No suprise.. It's called "swamping the front end". Turn up the gain too far when in an area of relatively strong signals, including maybe local FM, and you will overload the receiver.

wa8yxm · Answer

It mentions this in the Sensar Pro Manual as I recall. but yes, TOO MUCH GAIN can overload the Television so you sometimes need to crank it down  at 30 miles, I would expect this, Gain of 20 is for 50-60 miles.

scvjeff · Answer

wa8yxm wrote:It mentions this in the Sensar Pro Manual as I recall. but yes, TOO MUCH GAIN can overload the Television so you sometimes need to crank it down  at 30 miles, I would expect this, Gain of 20 is for 50-60 miles.Its likely being swamped by transmitters considerably closer than that

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Winegard Sensar Pro tweaking

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