Well after incurring wind damage to my Winegard antenna for the second time, I replaced it with a King Jack antenna which is designed differently and doesn't have the fins to bend in the wind. Seems to work fine but I was wondering what the experience of others have been. I'm tired of replacing antennas and can't see how the KJ would suffer wind damage.

That's a problem with the Batwing, very rare. Is this driving wind damage? There are other antennas around, but the advantage with the Batwing is performance. The Jack is simply nowhere near as sensitive as a Sensar, especially on VHF and there is no way to get around that. If you're a surbubran camper the Jack may work fine, but if you're a boonie camper, there is no better RV antenna than a Batwing. Sacramento has some challenges with receiption because of where most of your transmitters are located out on the deltaThere will be one or two that will likely show up here to contest that, but look around this forum and you will find pages of people backing up what I said above.

I replaced the BW with the King on my 5th wheel a few years back. For me the King picked up a few more channels, however they are more directional sensitive. I had one down side, the pins holding the KJ to the BW post kept coming loose.I have since traded fiver fot MH with KJ installed on roof, I got better reception when it was up.in the air alittle.

Jeff has tested both and the Sensar is superior so while the jack may do fine, you will suffer some performance loss.

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 47,but I had a clearance problem with the Wingman So I opted to put a Jack on and my channel scan went up to 85 The debate will go on and on, but I know what works best for me,in the real world.

Thanks for everyone's input. Yes the wind has now bent the fins of the BW and I'm just not going to buy another. Each time it occurred, and it happened twice, I was driving down the freeway with heavy cross winds. The KJ seemed to get quite a few stations while I was testing it with the rv in the garage and I will accept a lessor performing antenna for the peace of mind that the KJ won't fold like the last two BW's.

Replacing the Winegard Sensar with a King Jack antenna

Bill_Satellite
Explorer II
May 27, 2017
Jeff has tested both and the Sensar is superior so while the jack may do fine, you will suffer some performance loss.
craig7h
Nomad II
May 27, 2017
I replaced the BW with the King on my 5th wheel a few years back. For me the King picked up a few more channels, however they are more directional sensitive. I had one down side, the pins holding the KJ to the BW post kept coming loose.

I have since traded fiver fot MH with KJ installed on roof, I got better reception when it was up.in the air alittle.
SCVJeff
Explorer
May 27, 2017
That's a problem with the Batwing, very rare. Is this driving wind damage? There are other antennas around, but the advantage with the Batwing is performance. The Jack is simply nowhere near as sensitive as a Sensar, especially on VHF and there is no way to get around that. If you're a surbubran camper the Jack may work fine, but if you're a boonie camper, there is no better RV antenna than a Batwing. Sacramento has some challenges with receiption because of where most of your transmitters are located out on the delta

There will be one or two that will likely show up here to contest that, but look around this forum and you will find pages of people backing up what I said above.

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Replacing the Winegard Sensar with a King Jack antenna

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