Jack TV Antenna Vs Satellite

[Jerry_Roberts]

for those that have used both: which is better? the jack tv antennea would be a lot easier to use compared to the satellite dish, so if it gets enough channels then i won't even bother with the dish.

[SolidAxleDurang]

Satellite is better when I want to watch the History channel.

Over the air is better when I want to watch the local news.

There ya have it. The definitive answer. 🙂

[Bill_Satellite]

It does make a difference but where you are will effect how much difference you notice. The Wingman as as much as double the gain on the UHF frequencies (that's where 75-80% of the digital is these days). If you are real close in where the TV tower signal is really strong anyway you likely would not notice much difference. However, when you start getting 30+ miles away from the TV towers you will notice a substantial difference in performance.

[gapeachy]

does the wingard add on make alot of difference?

[RoyB]

I use to drag my spare SAT Receivers from my house DIRECTV account and use with a dual output head portable tripod dish setup. This worked out pretty good and was usually setup in less than 10-minutes.

I would run two RG cables from the portable dish and have one at the main Home entertainment center location and the second RG cable to the bedroom location. Then i would connect each RG cable to a SAT RECEIVER I brought with me from my house account. I would connect the VIDEO OUTPUTS (RED-WHITE-YELLOW cables) from the SAT RCVRs to the VIDEO INPUT of my two trailer flat screen TV inputs. This allows me to sit in my big easy chair and select CABLE TV or OTA ANTENNA TV using my trailer remote. Then I would have to switch to the SAT RCVR REMOTE to step thru the satellite channels. I did learn to always have my DIRECTV ACCOUNT infomation with at all times. My SAT RECEIVERS would sometimes lose their SETUP PROFILE and I would have to contact DIRECTV to turn it back on again. Without the account info handy sometimes it was hard to convince DIRECTV who you was hehe...

Then the NATL BROADCAST digital changeover came along a few years back and we are able to view usually 6-36 digital channels from our OTA BATWING antenna just about everywhere we go here on the East side of the US. Just point the BATWING OTA antenna to the local towns transmitting the digital HDTV signals and scan them into the trailer TV setup using the ANTENNA MODE.

The quality of the local town is HIGH DEFINITION full screen HDTV signals. Never got any of those using the camp ground CABLE TV hookup or the SAT RECEIVERS unless you had HDTV subscriptions and special dish setups.

The NATL BROADCAST is free to the public and its one of those you get a perfect picture or nothing at all. My small trick was when pointing to the local towns and starting to download the digital HDTV signal if you dont see any counting up on the screen then stop the scan and move the BATWING antenna a little bit one way or the other and restart the scan again. The high end VHF and UHF signals require you to be real close at pointing at the transmitter station not like the old low VHF Frequency days.

Changing over to the OTA BATWING has helped us alot without havng to drag along all of the SAT RCVRS and portable SAT DISH with us all the time. the HDTV is better to watch anyway. Of course we miss the cable channels that you dont get to view using the OTA BATWING but have been able to downstream some of these using the internet for those special occasions. We mostly watch NCIS and the CSIs and local news/live radar anyway. Sometimes however i have to get some WALKER TEXAS RANGERS over the cable channels which I can do using the computer downstreams.

We are happy with our setup here on the East side of the US. I suspect it probably less available OTA HDTV digital local stations to be picked up on the West side side of the US due to less towns spread out across the plains... When camping in the high country around here we get get many HDTV channels from all directions but the downside is they are transmitting he same thing hehe... You just pick the one that is the best reception.

just my thoughts of using OTA verses SAT

Roy Ken

[mikestock]

No ESPN. No FOX News. I can't live without them.

[lfeather]

I use both OTA for local and Dish for the rest. I do call "Dish-for-my-rv" and change my service location to receive locals through Dish when I'm in a location where OTA reception is limited.

Larry

[Bill_Satellite]

You should get 1 pretty good channels (NBC) and 3 more that might be weak ( ABC, PBS, FOX) but a bunch of others are listed if you have a clear view nearly directly N. If you have the Wingman add-on that will help as well since the towers are 33 - 50 miles away.
www.tvfool.com

[gapeachy]

ok I am going to buy a new flatscreen tv and hook it up to the new batwing wingard thing antenna on our camper cause it will be the first time using it new camper....you think i will have any chance in &$#@ of picking anything up? in cape san blas at the st joseph peninsula park

[Bill_Satellite]

If you have no kind of OTA antenna it should cost around $250 installed. If you already have something that's not working you my be able to use some existing holes and save some installation money. A complete Sensar (Batwing) crank-up assembly is about $150.

[Mr_LeMans]

What's the typical cost of a crank-up OTA antenna including installation?

Thanks,

[Bill_Satellite]

Yes, you need an antenna to receive satellite programming. You can use a household style antenna mounted on a tripod or there are commercial units designed for RV that are manually operated, semi-automatic or fully automatic. The automatic antennas can be ground operated portable units or permanently roof mounted. The more work the antenna does for you the more expensive it is. Manually pointed commercial units start about $150.

[gapeachy]

ok, lol, I am going to try this one more time, if i take my tv and my direct tv box I would need a satellite dish on maybe a tripod?

[wa8yxm]

Ok, I'll enter this fray.

Satellite: You can usually see the bird (less something is in the way) so you get consistant TV programming no matter where you are.. Usually no matter where you park all your shows, and if you have DNS all your networks are there.. NOTE If you plan on getting stat for house and RV, get an RV account and use the "Spare receiver" in the house.. That way you qualify for DNS. Most house accounts do NOT qualify for DNS.. Dish got burned over that , DirecTV should be equally toasted but alas,, There was some hanky in the panky behind the scenes.


OVER THE AIR.. My belief is the top end Winegard with the Sensar Pro module inside is hard to beat in the RV world. It can be beat, but not in the RV world. (Channal Master's top end antenna for example beats it, but that antenna is not one I'd ever use on an RV)

"I heard some people are getting like 80 channels" True, if you are parked in the right place.. And if someone says "I heard some people only get one or two" that too is true, just a different address is all (Lily, KY moose lodge).

"Only top tier (-1) stations are HD" Not true in all masrkets,, Where I am several stations broadcast multiple HD tiers, and at least one SD tier, Usually the SD tire is the same programming as -1 only in SD. for those who, like me, digi-convert to analog, "

This is one I have found.. Many Tier-2 networks (Which are usually SD cause... Well that is what the show was filmed in) including Antenna TV, Retro TV, MY TV, Cozi TV, This TV and more... May hot be on Sat or Cable, The ONLY way to get them is to type in ##-2

These are SD stations cause the shows were filmed in the 50's or 60's or 70's for the most part, and they were filmed for SD televsion, in SD. Shows like Charlie's Angles, Six Million Dollar Man, (And Bionic Woman, did you know she was his wife in real life), Lassit, Loan Ranger, Green Hornet, Roy Rogers, and so many more I can not list them all.. Many are black and white as well.

The good old days of quality Televsion.. Not like the false advertising "Reality" shows of today.

[LarryJM]

kab449 wrote:

gapeachy wrote:
if you take your direct tv or dish box dont you also have to have a satelite reciever?

Yes and you'll need to take a TV also.

:S

Only if you want to watch something ... LOL

Larry