Wingman too directional?

Rather than removing the Wingman you might want to try rotating your antenna 180 degrees and receive off the back side of the antenna. If it works it would save you a trip up to the roof.

Another thing that might help is to lower your antenna. I live about 20 miles from the TV towers and was having problems with a couple of VHF channels. Lowering my antenna about a foot helped.

I have "TV Antenna Helper", and use it. I think it is a combination of things, not just the Wingman. The Sensar antenna has rather coarse adjustments, for one. It is impossible to get exactly between the two stations. I may be asking too much, but I like to see signals in the 90% range although 50-60% will usually work.

As others have said, 10 miles away and 5 degrees apart should not make a difference. My locals are much further than that from my house and I don't even have to raise the antenna in my driveway to receive all of the channels. Sometimes, I do have to raise it just off the rood before they come in, but not often.

If you have a smartphone, try the app "TV Antenna Helper". It's a free app and will show you exactly where each station is located. However they are some real TV experts here, of which I am not one, but sharing what works for me.

The OP claims the station transmitters are only 10 miles away. He should have gotten both stations by just turning off the amplifier.

Odds are that some manufacturing plant, power substation, etc., is causing RF interference that got eliminated when he removed the Wingman. The guy on the next site with higher RV with air-conditioner, or microwave going might be your worst enemy.

As far a directionality goes, with both of my amplifiers powered on full I can get stations up to 60 miles off the side of the antenna (no aiming needed).

Problems like these have nothing to do with the antenna, but everything to do with the specific "RF" interference caused by some business, person, between you and the transmitter.

With the Wingman, I would get one station (or the other) up to 100%, but the other would drop off to the 50% range. Without the Wingman, I can get 90% on both stations simultaneously. These are the readings off a one year old tv set. It "appeared" to me that that the Wingman was being very directional. I have always liked the way the Wingman increased the number of useable stations I could receive and this is the first problem, imaginary or otherwise, that I have noticed.

The question is what was the signal from the station you were NOT pointed at, and/or what was the signal between the two when you split the difference as you are now? I need to go back and look at the plots I did on that antenna, because I do think I can even see a 5 degree skew off the station. It will be interesting to hear if this works consistently or its an atmospheric fluke?

Bill.Winegard wrote:
That antenna should be more directional with the Wingman installed but from a TV tower 10 miles away you should not be able to notice any difference with the Wingman installed or not. I am not saying that you won't, only that you should not.

Thanks. I am now getting close to 90% signal strength from both stations without turning the antenna after removing the Wingman. I could get 100% before from each, but had to turn the antenna. I like this better.

RCMAN46 wrote:
If you are unable to receive both stations with the Wingman pointed between them I suspect the signals are so weak that you most likely could not receive either one without the Wingman.

and I think this will be the case. The Wingman is simply not THAT directional. But the gain that it does derive is probably what's making either station work by itself. And if its that close to threshold I suspect weather will play a part as well.

That antenna should be more directional with the Wingman installed but from a TV tower 10 miles away you should not be able to notice any difference with the Wingman installed or not. I am not saying that you won't, only that you should not.

TomG2 wrote:
Good strong 100% signals (by turning the antenna slightly) from both stations about ten miles away. They are about five degrees apart (estimated). I will remove the Wingman to see if it resolves the issue. I thought I would ask the experts first. Logic tells me that the antenna will be more directional with the Wingman than without. I have been wrong before.

interesting experiment. I would expect that your reception of the weaker station (the one 5-deg off from the one with the clear signal) will either be worse or non-existent without the wingman. the wingman gathers in more UHF signal and focuses it to the UHF receiver in the head of the winegard antenna. if that's the case...and winegard says it is...you should have less, not more, UHF signal hitting the UHF receiver in the antenna head and thus poorer reception. but it will be interesting to see what happens.