Tuning TV using Winegard Antenna

Go to http://www.tvfool.com/ to find where the local channels are located. Pick one and aim your antenna in that direction. Many TV's have a signal strength meter to help fine tune your aim.

I have found that using TV antenna helper useful in finding where to point the antenna.

Then run a scan on the TV and adjust as needed.

Thanks for this info. I was asked just this past week by a camper what broadcast stations were available locally. I use satellite and had no clue. I couldn't even find any locals that knew since they all use either sat or cable.

JohnG4706 wrote:


Turn TV on, turn on amplifier, raise antenna and rotate. What channel do you start out with? I'm looking for the quickest and most direct way to do this.

Thanks

Did you set the tv to 'antenna' and run a channel scan while on 'antenna' ?

I upgraded my setup to the Winegard SensarPro control box and installed an app on my iPhone called Tv Towers. The latter will show on a map where the local tv towers are, the channel number, and the "real number". With knowing the real number, you can use the SensarPro to fine tune the antenna direction for a given channel. In many cases the tv channels share a tower or are co-located so once you fine tune one you get several.

Even then, other conditions such as weather, trees, buildings between you and the tower may affect reception.

If you have a smart phone try Antenna Helper (Free), it reads the phone's GPS, then it connects to the FCC databse, gets the TV stations tower sites around you based on Geo-Cordornates, and lists them Giving an indication as to station, channel (display) channel (Frequency) direction and miles.

tap the map icon and it shows a map, centered on your location, with lines to all the stations,, Line color indicates signal strength.

Best app I've see for the job

Most private campgrounds as well as some state & national will show the available channels on the campground map or other info they hand to you as you check in.

I usually raise the antenna and leave the amplifier off. Turn the antenna to see if you get a signal from a station and then flip the amplifier on. Turn the antenna to fine tune and then check other channels and fine tune until you get the best signal on all the available channels. I've even lowered the antenna slightly to improve reception in a couple of spots.

wa8yxm wrote:
If you have a smart phone try Antenna Helper (Free), it reads the phone's GPS, then it connects to the FCC databse, gets the TV stations tower sites around you based on Geo-Cordornates, and lists them Giving an indication as to station, channel (display) channel (Frequency) direction and miles.

tap the map icon and it shows a map, centered on your location, with lines to all the stations,, Line color indicates signal strength.

Best app I've see for the job

Sounds great! Does it have another name? I can't find it.

The NATL BROADCAST SYSTEM will include the basic NETWORKS ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, and PBS which is provided by the US FREE to the public...

Each NETWORK station is allowed to transmit up to six sub-channels where you will get maybe a LOCAL 24/7 RADAR broadcast, a whole list of TV SHOWS and MOVIES like ME-TV, CW TV, ION TV etc...

When we setup we usually get 6-36 channels just about everywhere we go here on the EAST side of the US and the big thing is they are ALL in high DEF full screen DIGITAL HDTV mode (PERFECT HIGH QUALITY TV SIGNALS).

The only way to view the stations is set your TV MENU for ANTENNA MODE and scan in the channels. If you don't see CHANNELS being added to the scan in about 15 % of the scan mode it is best to stop searching, move the antenna a tad one way or the other and restart the scan search again. If you are not pointed right at the TV STATIONS you will not scan in a viewable TV signal. Not like the old days where you might get something snowy and then you can move the antenna to MAX up on picking it up.

This is LIST of available HDTV signals you should be able to pick up depending how far away you are from the local town town that is transmitting them.
LIST OF AVAILABLE US NATL BROADCAST OTA TV NETWORKS

As you can see from the list there is whole bunch of CABLE TV NETWORKS missing from the list like CNN, TWC. etc...

We use to bring out the SAT TV STUFF and mess with all of that but leave all of that at home now and just use our crank-up BATWING antenna that has the UHF DIPOLES mounted on it.

Even when we are at campgrounds with CABLE TV we use the crank-up BATWING antenna alot picking up the stations from the local towns as the quality is alot better than most campgrounds make available using the CABLE TV hookup. Some of the CABLE TV hookups are just now being provided from the various campgrounds in High Definition DIGITAL MODE quality.

Having the local 24/7 local town RADAR going is sure a big hit with us camping in our OFF-ROAD POPUP trailer. Need all the prior warnings of bad weather approaching we can get (Especially the HIGH WIND type bad weather).

Roy Ken