Is it the television or antenna or both.

rbpru wrote:
This certainly was an interesting experiment. I spent several hour swapping TVs and antennas until I had tried about every combination possible. The result are a bit long winded. I do not have any LED lights.
• I was at home in a strong signal area no more than 20 air miles from several strong TV stations.
• Two TV’s. The five year old Jensen HD that came with the TT and an RCA I bought last Christmas.
• Two antennas, the Winegard and a set of VHF, UHF, rabbit ears set on the roof of the TT.
• Because of my proximity to the TV stations, both antennas gave a reading of maximum signal strength to both TVs when coupled through a splitter.
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As I sat and watched, both TVs would drop the signal, when coupled to either the Winegard system built into the TT or the signal from the second antenna brought in on a separate coax through the door.

Both TV signal indicators have four strength levels bars red, orange, green & blue from bad to best. On both TVs the signal strength would drop from blue to orange or even red for perhaps a half second. This would cause the signal to drop out of either TV regardless of which antenna was connected to the splitter. I even connected each TV to a separate antenna and the result were the same; a random drop in signal from best to good or even bad.

I repeated the test with a station signal that was of marginal signal strength and the results were worse in terms of the number of signal dropouts. The results were more severe on the older Jensen TV because it took longer to re-sync to the signal then the newer model TV.

Now we know that broadcast TV signal transmission does not vary, so my conclusion is the low antenna heights of the RV antenna (perhaps 11 to 15 feet) allows for more ground influenced interference. Reflections or disruptions of the signal path by “ground clutter” cause a dip in the signal strength strong enough to cause a loss of signal lock, particularly noticeable in the older TV because of it longer recovery time. This would also explain many of my campground experiences

My solution since I am not going to carry an antenna pole, or switch to a satellite, or bounce some high dollar TV down the road; is to upgrade the antenna so sufficient signal remains through the signal dip. I know I can install the bat wing option, or one of the other antenna heads on the Winegard arms, but I may opt for one of the new home antennas with built in amp.

I wonder if other have had similar observations.

I would still suspect the TV's. All the units you mention (Jenson, RCA) are price-wise susceptable to having the same era faulty chip-set that my Best Buy Insignia (not Signature!) suffered from. I took the Insignia back, as did my buddy, the one that got the scoop on a batch of poorly designed chips used in low cost TVs.

Still intending to save a buck, my next choice was a fire-sale price-leader RCA that Target sold. Except the saleman told me up front that well over half of those came back and he did not recommend one. All he had left was a large supply of open box units that seemed to work under a shallow test. I finally reluctantly paid a few more bucks for a mid-grade Samsung that works.

I did watch chip-set development when digital receivers were still in their infancy, not content-protected and non-standardized. PBS and CBS were early transmit adopters in this Bismarck area. I still have an HD set-top box and some computer based tuners. Next came the early digital TVs worked, but tuned slow. Apparently some of the next versions tuned faster, but were unreliable. I suspect a certain chip manufacturer gave them away.

Wes
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