Winegard Sensar Amplifier

[BobKrogstie]

Has anyone ever had the amplifier go bad in the Sensar III head? I get no reception of the OTA channels others in the RV park are getting after multiple scans on the TV. I have 12VDC on the wall plate, the button is pushed in and the green light is on theoretically sending 12VDC to the amplifier in the antenna head.

[enblethen]

Thanks for the update!

[RJsfishin]

If you did not upgrade the wall mounted power supply to the "sensor pro", doing so just could find more channels,.....if nothing else you will find them a lot faster in unknown areas..

[BobKrogstie]

To tie off this thread, I replaced my 8 YO Sensar III with a Sensar IV after verifying 12vdc at the head and am now receiving 13 OTA channels. Thanks again to everyone for your valued input.

[wa8yxm]

Short answer to the original question: YES, but not often

More likely .. Over time the coax cable (roof to head) goes bad due to effects of Sun and Weather.. The connections also tarnish and loose contact

replacement every decade or so is (Possibly far sooner) is indicated, also when you disconnect treat the connections with DE-OX-IT or better yet DE-Ox-IT followed by De-Ox-It Gold.

There is a connection in the roof, mine is under a "Clamshell" plate... That was toast on my RV, had to remove connector, replace the cable ends with a better ones and put in a new connector as well I mean it was in sad shape.

That is my #1 suspect in fact.. Took ma a good amount of time to scrape off the Dicore,m unscrew, lift and seperate then about 1 second to inspect, a few minutes to renew the cable ends and replace the barrel then it was put it all back together time and seal far better than factory did.

[Tom_M1]

Here's an excellent article by Chris Bryant about tuning up your antenna:
Tune up your TV antenna

[RJsfishin]

Dump it all !
Update to the sensor 4 head and the sensor pro amp/power supply w/ digital readout giving you location of the strongest signal, w/o even turning the tv on. No more doing 4 separate scans in 4 different directions just to find a tv channel.....that maybe isn't there. Worth its weight in gold.

[Bill_Satellite]

Paul G. wrote:
I would take a 25' section of coax cable and connect it directly to the antenna and run it through a door or window and connect to tv. This way you can quickly tell if its the amp or the cable. My bet it is the short cable from the antenna to the mounting plate.

That's all I got.

Paul...

This will not work. The Winegard antenna requires 12V power to operate. You could run the coax from the antenna, through a window and connect it to the power supply but a direct line to the TV will result in little or no reception.

[Chuck_thehammer]

cables do NOT like being moved..

and there you have the issue.. raise up antenna... lower antenna with a wire (cable) that does not like being moved... over and over and over.

a major failure point.

plus 2 connectors subject to weather.. at the head unit and at the roof.

I had to glue the boots .. as they kept slipping off the connectors.

[Dutch_12078]

D.E.Bishop wrote:
I'm glad no one told me that the short(a relative distance) cable from the antenna to the power supply was easy to replace. In my Bounder, there were three pieces of cable from where the cable from the antenna entered the Bounder to the power supply. FOUR pieces in all.

As I said, the piece from the Sensar head to the roof connection is a common failure point that's easily replaced. That's just one short 3-4 foot piece of coax. The roof connection routing inside to the power injector is anyone's guess, and can be a real can of worms to replace in some rigs, but seldom fails.

[BobKrogstie]

Thanks all for your input.

[D_E_Bishop]

I'm glad no one told me that the short(a relative distance) cable from the antenna to the power supply was easy to replace. In my Bounder, there were three pieces of cable from where the cable from the antenna entered the Bounder to the power supply. FOUR pieces in all.

[Paul_G_]

I would take a 25' section of coax cable and connect it directly to the antenna and run it through a door or window and connect to tv. This way you can quickly tell if its the amp or the cable. My bet it is the short cable from the antenna to the mounting plate.

That's all I got.

Paul...

[enblethen]

The amplifier is in the head. The unit on the wall or ceiling is a power supply that induces 12 volts onto the coaxial cable.
As suggested earlier, check for 12 volts DC on the coax.
Does you wall/ceiling unit have an LED and is the unit turned on?

[Johno02]

Go up on the roof and check. a bad connector is the most likely problem.