Replacing the Winegard Sensar with a King Jack antenna

mike-s wrote:

BFL13 wrote:
The Jack and the Winegard powered antennae..

These are antennas, not insects. 2 zebras aren't zebrae, either.

:) I had to look that up just now. Never heard of that insects-only rule. I went to school in the 50s when we used more British than is used now. Americans are taking over it seems.
I still refuse to say "Chevy" instead of "Chev" though. Got to draw the line somewhere.

http://grammarist.com/usage/antennae-antennas/

BFL13 wrote:
The Jack and the Winegard powered antennae..

These are antennas, not insects. 2 zebras aren't zebrae, either.

Bill.Satellite wrote:
I believe the gizmo you refer to is the Winegard Sensar Pro. While it's not necessary, it is an awesome add-on to the Sensar with not only an additional booster but a signal strength indicator to let you know when the antenna is pointed in the optimal direction.

Mebbe unnecessary but sure is nice to point antennas with no guessing

Bill.Satellite wrote:
I believe the gizmo you refer to is the Winegard Sensar Pro. While it's not necessary, it is an awesome add-on to the Sensar with not only an additional booster but a signal strength indicator to let you know when the antenna is pointed in the optimal direction.

Yes that's it. So what is the proper way to switch over from (full?)Jack to Winegard depending on what you already have?

I believe the gizmo you refer to is the Winegard Sensar Pro. While it's not necessary, it is an awesome add-on to the Sensar with not only an additional booster but a signal strength indicator to let you know when the antenna is pointed in the optimal direction.

The Jack and the Winegard powered antennae are ok with a wide range of "12v" (like you have in an RV) up the coax.

You don't have to change the Winegard panel down below to go from Batwing to Jack, but AFAIK, you would have to swap out the down below Jack stuff for Winegard stuff if you got the extra channel-finding gizmo Winegard has now. Without that gizmo perhaps you can keep your old Jack stuff and use that to save some work?

I don't know about the full Jack kit though. I only swapped the broken Batwing antenna for a Jack antenna.

The "big hole" isn't that big to install a Sensar. I think it's a 1" or 1 1/4" hole that allows the shaft to come inside the coach with room to get a tool up there to tighten the inside nut. You will be able to connect the Sensar to your current incoming coax and install the power supply in that existing line. You just need to be careful that you lay everything out of the roof to ensure clearance for the Batwing plus the 90 degree UHF offset antenna.

Based on the evidence, our experience with poor performance with our Jack and the fact that we usually boondock and usually pretty far out, I've decided I want to replace the King with a Sensar.


Unfortunately I haven't seen any walkthroughs or youtube videos. Do any of you know how much of a pain this replacement is going to be? Do I have to drill all new holes(except for the big one)?

(Dup)

BFL13 wrote:
It is obviously silly to compare the Jack vs the Batwing without the Wingman for UHF and say the Jack does better. Of course it does, but so what? Apples and Oranges.

im not sure if that's true.. I did two tests "real world" in the RV. The first one was with and without the Wingman, the second was with the Jack. I'll have to go back and look at what happened, but IIRC the non-wingman Batwing still did better by itself than the 'Batman'. And VHF was always significantly better, the Wingman had no affect on that anyway.

These days "extreme" doesn't mean what it did in the analog days. If your TV can't get over the digital "cliff effect", then you're done, there is no noisy picture to live with, it's black. All that may take is an nice temperature inversion across the bay you're camped on to drop the signal out of the tuner.

(Much Later) I just went back and looked at the Batwing, Batman, and Jack on the test. Remember, LOWER numbers are better..

On the analyzer the stock Batwing is looking at the carrier from Mt. Wilson at -62. ADD the Wingman (Batman), and that number jumps to -59. That's a 100% increase, so the Winegard sales hype is correct. 3db is 100%. Sounds better than 3db..

Now, go back and look at the same carrier (M1) on the Jack.. It comes in at -65db, 2db worse than a stock Batwing, and 6db worse than the Batman. That, according to Winegard hype would make the Batman 200% better on UHF. The difference between the Batwing and the Jack on VHF is significantly better (Jack being worse) than that even.

And a personal gripe: There have been people for several years trying to poo-poo this test saying it's "not real world", even making fun of them which is ridiculous and really shows how little they understand nor care to.. This test was done "in the field", on a motorhome (mine, crappy coax and all), in exactly the same place, under an hour to make sure the weather didn't influence anything. To them (not anybody on this thread) I say simply they have no idea what they're talking about.. period. The numbers don't lie and I ain't got no way to skew them. That's why the screenshots were provided.