Best Digital TV Antenna

[plumber802]

Hello fellow RVers.This coming summer will be our first "seasonal" at Lakewood CG in West Swanton,Vermont.We would like to know which Digital TV antenna will be best.Will the Winegard "batwing" that came with the camper be sufficient? There are several stations broadcasting within a 60 mile radius.Thanks for any advice.-Andy.

[wa8yxm]

Ok, First "Digital antenna" is a myth, all antennas are Radio Antennas,, ALL OF THEM.. They do not care if the radio signal is Morse Code, Voice, Single Side band, AM, FM, Digital Voice, Digital Data, Analog or digital Television, They only care about Frequency.

Digital TV uses the exact same frequencies ANALOG TV used to use. Just Digital favors the UHF band more than Analog did.. Good reason for this.

Page 2: Which antenna is best.

If you have an RV, nothing, and I mean NOTHING beats a Winegard Sensar IV up on the roof with a Sensar PRO inside the RV to provide power and switching and many other features.. I'm running a Sensar III with Wingman and Sensar Pro here and seeing stations 50 miles out no problem.. In fact we just had a TV problem here (Cable went out) but my overnight shows recorded in studio quality since they came in via the antenna.

If you have a house.. Channel Master has some impressive hardware.. Put it oh, say 100 feet up in the air, and you'd be amazed what it can see (I've done over 100 miles on one of those). However.. That's not practical for the RV, dang antenna is almost bigger (Actually was bigger) than my RV.

[rk911]

Dutch_12078 wrote:
There are no "digital" antennas except in the minds of an antenna company's marketing department. A good working Winegard batwing works well, and even better with the addition of the Winegard Wingman UHF booster and their SensarPro signal finder/amplifier. If the King Jack worked substantially better for someone, there's a good likelihood their previous amplified batwing had failed in some fashion, or was the low end non-amplified model supplied with some low end RV's years ago. A licensed broadcast engineer and respected member of this forum has scientifically tested both antennas, and determined that the batwing/Wingman was superior to the Jack, particularly for the VHF channels.

Batwing vs.BatMan vs. Jack: The Results..

correct. any antenna cut for OTA TV frequencies will receive digital TV signals...new antennas, 50-yr old antennas or anything in-between. makes no difference. the antenna cannot determine the transmission mode (analog, digital). it simply sends any received signal to the TV which can and does detect the mode and displays it on the screen in the form of a usable picture. the same is true for high-def vs. standard def. HD/SD is not something the antenna can detect. the TV receiver does that job.

what does make a difference especially in an RV environment is the height-above-average-terrain (HAAT) of the transmit and receive antennas, amplification of received signal, age and condition of the coaxial cable connecting the antenna to the TV and any obstructions between the transmit and receive antennas.

[RoyB]

I have great success using the BATWING antenna that has the dipoles added...

My BATWING looks like this google image...


I also have used the KINGS JACK antenna and it works well also. The biggest difference for me is the JACK ANTENNA has to be more precisely pointed at the local NATL BROADCAST Clear stations to work.

I too live along way (Over 50 miles) from the NATL BROADCAST stations which are located in Washington DC or RICHMOND VA. I pick up over 60 stations from the two long distant locations...

The KINGS antenna has to be moved abit to be able to watch the two different group locations of the digital transmitting station in Washington DC. The BATWING can be positioned in the middle of these group locations and doesn't have to be moved anymore to pick them all up.


The beauty of Digital TV is they either work outstanding or doesn't work at all. About the only way I can tell my digital reception is somewhat border line is I may start seeing a degraded picture when aircraft are flying directly over my house here in Northern Neck VA.

The worse antenna I have used in the Winegard HIDE-AWAY dual dipole antenna that pops out of it case when you push it up and then has rotating dual sets of dipoles.


The best antenna I played with back then was the long TV YAGI (LOWES $90) with lots of antenna dipoles etc...


I used this antenna on a pole outside my POPUP Trailer for a long time but it eventually destroyed itself by having to be taken down and folded up for travel. This was being used before the NATL BROADCAST changeover to digital TV. When all of the VHF stations went away this long YAGI still worked great on the UHF digital station but all of that mass of dipoles wasn't needed any more. This antenna dwarfed the top of my POPUP trailer haha...

This is my POPUP Trailer using the BATWING antenna up on pole outside the trailer. I reach outside through the window flap to rotate it...


I presently uses eight BOW TIE dipoles on a flat vertical panel surface that has two banks that can be slightly moved. This is up on the peak of my house roof and is the best antenna I have ever used.

This is my PLAN B antenna setup here at the house and gets used when the we have local extended power outages. Also great to use when trying to keep track of different TV shows like watching FOOTBALL and NASCAR racing at the same thing...This of course would not be a good candidate for RV use I suspect...



My TV antenna story haha...

Roy Ken

[Lynnmor]

Yes, the DIGITAL TV antenna is just marketing hype. I am so old that I remember when they marketed COLOR TV antennas.

[MFL]

Lots of good antenna comparisons made and posted on the forum.

One other consideration, is the tv itself. Some tvs, will have a higher quality tuner in them, that will allow for better reception, more channels, etc. Many RVs are coming with a not so top of the line tv in them. It has been my experience, that a high quality tv, brought in more stations, using the same antenna, than the tv that came with my FW.

Jerry

[Dutch_12078]

There are no "digital" antennas except in the minds of an antenna company's marketing department. A good working Winegard batwing works well, and even better with the addition of the Winegard Wingman UHF booster and their SensarPro signal finder/amplifier. If the King Jack worked substantially better for someone, there's a good likelihood their previous amplified batwing had failed in some fashion, or was the low end non-amplified model supplied with some low end RV's years ago. A licensed broadcast engineer and respected member of this forum has scientifically tested both antennas, and determined that the batwing/Wingman was superior to the Jack, particularly for the VHF channels.

Batwing vs.BatMan vs. Jack: The Results..

[wildtoad]

Yep the Sensar IV is the best overall mobile antenna available. The Jack is also good, but not as good. If yours came with a Sensar III you should still do quite nicely, but you can improve your signal by adding the Wingman accessory which will turn your III into a IV.

Something else to do is to check all of the coax connections outside for corrosion which is a big signal killer.

[aslakson]

According to folks on this forum who ran comparison tests, the current Winegard Sensar 4 batwing is hands down the most sensitive.

al

[dodge_guy]

See how it works! Mine barely pulled in any stations, then the switch to digital I lost everything! I switched to a King Jack antenna and I get 70 stations in my driveway! when my trailer was brand new I was lucky to get 10 strong stations.