King Jack or Wingman antenna

Assuming the coax and connectors are still good the "Stock" batwing outperforms the Jack on all channels.. Add the Wingman and the UHF performance goes up.

Add the Sensar Pro (It works with jack as well) for even more improvement and additional functions.. W/o that I'd not be watching TV right now.. but I am.

Which reminds me hold on be right back. Shows are set to record on DVR 2

THe trade off.. For a DIRECTIONAL antenna GAIN (The ability to see distant transmitters) is at the cost of "Beam width" The ability to see transmitters not precisely dead ahead) An omin antenna is best if stations are all around you.

THe Jack if they are like a 45 Degree "Arc"
ANd the Winegard with wingman if they are say 50 miles away but "Clustered"

Tv Stations tend to "Cluster" (They want the highest spot for their towers) and tend to be many miles from campsites.

RoyB wrote:
When the frequencies changed a few years back my 2008 BATWING without DIPOLES ... the newer BATWING ANTENNA with the DIPOLES ... the BATMAN with DIPOLES

The Winegard Sensar ("batwing") has always been a dipole design, that's what the "wings" are, a folded dipole for VHF frequencies. There's also a UHF folded dipole hidden inside the plastic cover.

The upgraded one (or the Wingman upgrade) adds yagi-uda type directors for UHF. That improves the performance on UHF, but also makes it more directional. With the move to DTV, a lot of stations moved to UHF frequencies. There is currently a process underway to move stations around again, which will result in some moving back to VHF.

The King Jack is basically a UHF antenna. It will pick up strong VHF stations, but it's simply not large enough to be very effective on VHF.

Technically, the Winegard *should* be better. I have to wonder if any difference in performance is due to the difference in amplifier gain? The Winegard amplifier has 15 dB gain whereas the Jack has 20 dB VHF & 25 dB gain UHF which is a lot higher. Note that amplifiers are located right at OTA antennas to compensate for losses in the co-ax to the TV and not to boost already weak OTA signals. A Winegard SensarPro has a built-in amp which further increases gain and I wonder how that would then compare to the Jack antenna.

I bought a Channel Master 4-bay batwing antenna this summer and 6 x 4' detachable fiberglass mast sections. It's fairly easy to transport and collapses flatter for storage. At 24' above the ground, it has significantly better reception than our Wingman. Haven't had much time to test it because we use sat TV whenever we can. I want to get an RCA or Channel Master antenna-mounted amp which should improve performance even more. The very best antenna would be a yagi style but ain't an option for RV-ing at 8' wide and over 8' long.

Not sure what RVs usually have for co-ax type. If RG9 it might help to upgrade to RG6? Coax runs in RVs aren't very long compared to a house but I suppose every dB of loss you can avoid the better.

Antenna science is pretty simple. The bigger the better, if tuned to the sympathetic frequency trying to be received. The taller the better. The batwing exposes more surface to the signal.

Richard

Some of us believe that your Jack may be working well for you in your location, but the Sensar/Wingman has worked better in many more locations and has the scientific backing to prove it's superiority overall. Also, as the current FCC mandated channel repack continues, with more stations moving to high and low VHF from UHF, the Jack will be even less effective in many areas. Where I am right now for instance, our neighbor's Jack can't even get a sniff of the low VHF CBS station that our Sensar sees just fine. His wife was very unhappy until I showed her where she could stream her daily soap operas from.

When the frequencies changed a few years back my 2008 BATWING without DIPOLES was not doing too well picking up the channels...

I experimented with the JACK antenna first and it really picked up the new channels just fine. Indeed added a bunch of channels to watch high def TV stations.

Then I added the newer BATWING ANTENNA with the DIPOLES and it also performed great picking up the new HDTV stations being transmitted in the UHF bands.

I decided to stay with the BATMAN with DIPOLES as in my case where I was testing to see which antenna to use the BATWING worked out the best as I did not have to be so precise in moving the antenna to be exactly pointing to the transmitting TV station. Here is King George Virginia the Washington DC TV stations are some 60 miles away from me. These stations are on both sides of Washington DC. Using the JACK ANTENNA I had to move the antenna to pick the East side of DC and then move again to pick up the West side TV stations. I was able to get all of the High Def TV stations just fine. Switching to the BATWING I can find a position where I get all of the same HDTV station without have to make slighty different Antenna repostions. I get all the same high def TV stations from Washington DC with one pointing position using the BATWING Antenna with DIPOLES..

I suspect the JACK Antenna is slightly better in performance but have to keep moving the antenna to pick up the station was a pain in the neck for me haha...

This is my HDTV setup for my OFF-ROAD POPUP Trailer using an outside TV pole setup with the BATWING with DIPOLES mounted on the top... We get great HDTV TV Stations where we go camping.


Roy's image

I also experimented with the dual BOW TIE antenna array and this outperformed both the BATWING and the JACK antenna. But I am sure this antenna life expectancy would be very short having to take it up and down alot and packing up for transport in my case...


Google image...

This antenna array with an added PREAMPLIFIER at the base of the antenna is what I use now here at my house for ANTENNA TV reception. I can move the two bays like shown and makes it broad beamed enough to pick the spread of transmitting antennas in the Washington DC locations. Great reception here at the house for ANTENNA TV...

Roy Ken

The other big difference, not with a towable but is with a motorhome, is being able to use while going down the road.

My Jack works the same rolling down the highway as it does while parked.

I wouldn’t want to try that with a crank-up unit.

IAMICHABOD wrote:
When I bought my RV it had a Winegard Batwing that was not working, I cleaned up all connections and tested to see if it was broken, it was,so I replaced it with a new bat wing then ran a Channel Scan I was not impressed with the amount of channels that I got. This was done in my driveway here in the south bay of So Calif about 30 miles from the transmitters, using my SensarPro.

I then went out and got a Wingman add on, that put my channel scan up to 85,but I had a clearance problem with the Wingman

I always get beat up by the techies, The debate will go on and on, but I know what works best for me,in the real world.

Beat up is right but I have had the same experience. Sorry thing about this forum is some cant disagree without attacking and acting rude.
Anyway, I installed a King in the last TT to replace Batt wing and picked up channels in the remote locations we camp at.
Liked it so much I removed the new ant on our new YY and installed another King. Same results, more channels.

When I bought my RV it had a Winegard Batwing that was not working, I cleaned up all connections and tested to see if it was broken, it was,so I replaced it with a new Batwing Head then ran a Channel Scan I was not impressed with the amount of channels that I got. This was done in my driveway here in the south bay of So Calif about 30 miles from the transmitters, using my SensarPro.

I then went out and got a Wingman add on, that put my channel scan up to 85,but I had a clearance problem with the Wingman,it hit my A/C.

So I opted to put a Jack Antenna and my channel scan went up to 174





I always get beat up by the techies, The debate will go on and on, but I know what works best for me,in the real world.

What they said! Winegard is the best of them.