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Old 10-17-2012, 05:40 AM   #1
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Post TV Reception

Good Morning All, New member here. We just picked up our new Pinnacle on Thurs. 10/11. Great unit. Went for our "shakedown" cruise, a few minor little things the dealer is taking care of. Anyway my question is about TV reception. We were only able to pick up 3-4 channels, we have the standard Winguard antennae and in the owners manual they talk about something called the Wingman which is "guaranteed" to boost your reception. Has anybody tried it, and other than going the dish route any suggestions to boost reception. Yes I reprogrammed the TV. Thanks
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Old 10-17-2012, 06:23 AM   #2
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I added the Wingman to mine. It does help...a little. Nothing to brag about but sometimes a little improvement can mean the difference of getting a signal and not getting any.
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Old 10-17-2012, 06:43 AM   #3
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The Natl Broadcast network now operates on UHF frequencies... CH 7 and UP... This requires you to be more exact on pointing the antenna toward the transmitter station.

What we do that helps alittle bit is during the first phase of scanning in the digital channels if we do't start seeing digital station start counting up in the first 15% of the scan we will stop the scan and move the antenna a few degrees in either direction and restart the scan again. Here on the east side of the US where towns are closer together I guess we usually get between 6 - 36 digital HDTV station using our OTA BATWING with the UHF add-on.

Some folks have good luck with using a UHF HDTV signal finder like the SURELOCK which you can place in series with RG cable feeding the BATWING antenna.

Of course unless you can scan the digital TV signal into the HDTV unit you wont be able to view it. Not like the old analog TV days where you stick up an antenna and search around in all directions looking for a snowy picture to tweak up on...

The digital quality HDTV pictures are usually very good to view or almost nothing at all...

The fact that we can receive great quality full screen digital HDTV signals we use our OTA antenna at camp sites that have CABLE hookups so that we can get the local towns digital Natl Broadcast in full wide screen high def mode and then switch back to the cable side to watch cable channels. Its sort of like once you start watching full blown HDTV its hard to go back to standard tv signals.

Being in our off-road POPUP mostly we like to have the 24/7 radar channel up from the local towns to keep tabs on bad weather...

Oh some folk also like changing their BATWING antenna out for the JACK antenna. Good claims all around that it out performs the BATWING antenna. Installs in-place with the BATWING roof mount hardware. Still other folks have experimented with the multi-Bow Tie UHF type antennas with good results...



The best reception we ever got was with one of those $80 HD VHF/UHF high gain antennas from LOWES mounted on a pole to the side of our POPUP. This did great but was much longer than our popup was and would hit the trees when moving it around looking for TV signals. It also didnt last long as I had to take it down and fold it up before transporting so I finally broke off a couple of elements doing this and had to quit using it... Always got alot of looks from fellow campers...

sample photos from google images
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Old 10-17-2012, 06:56 PM   #4
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The Jack antenna is much better than the Wineguard with the Wingman. The Wingman does help the Wineguard. With the Wineguard I have to keep playing with the antenna to get different channels. With the Jack I get 5 more channels and I don't have to move the antenna. The only thing I am disappointed about with the Jack, is that when I mounted it to the Wineguard mount, the Jack antenna would hit the AC unit and I could not lower it all of the way. At some point I will buy the Jack that mounts directly to the roof. For now I have it on a pole near the camper.
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Old 10-18-2012, 09:32 AM   #5
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As mentioned, HDTV does require accurate antenna aiming. I have the Winegard Sensor but also rely on a couple of websites to help me determine what direction to point the antenna. I use http://transition.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/maps/ and http://www.antennaweb.org/

Hope this is of some help!
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Old 10-20-2012, 02:46 PM   #6
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Thanks everyone for all the good info. I'll post what I try and how it works.
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Old 10-21-2012, 07:02 AM   #7
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Added a Wingman to our WineGuard and it works pretty good.
We also use park cable when available, but we had to add a signal booster to get the bedroom TV to get a clear signal.
Since we Fulltime we now have Dish Satellite TV also, use the Antenna or the park cable if available for local news and events.
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Old 10-21-2012, 07:29 AM   #8
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I installed that wingman adapter it it really does work better. I probably doubled my channel count to about 35, but then again most of those channels I'll never watch. I get a lot of spanish and korean channels over the air, and then with those some are even the same programs on different channels. I used the website listed above to find where the stations are being broadcast from. I then made a cheat sheet for the places we stay at regularly that says what channels we get at each CG and where to point the antennae. I have to use a compass app on my iphone to point to the correct position.

I think a lot of people don't really know how to work the antennae. I live on Long Island and I see many people point the antennae due south and due east. They then probably wonder why they don't get many channels. lol

When the question of TV comes up, I always ask the poster if they have a smart phone, an ipad or a laptop. If you do and you also have wifi at the CG then I strongly suggest a slingbox. It's a device that you keep at home that is installed on your home network. You connect your slingbox between your cable box and your TV.

Once that is connected, it will allow you to watch your home TV from your smart phone, tablet or laptop. You can easily connect these devices to the flat screen in your camper. You can watch and control your home cable box from any of these devices. It's basically like you're sitting on your living room couch, even though your miles away camping.

It's not complicated to install and there are no monthly fees. The only fee is the $150 or so for the slingbox itself and then you're good to go.
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Old 10-22-2012, 10:19 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cm11599ps View Post

It's not complicated to install and there are no monthly fees. The only fee is the $150 or so for the slingbox itself and then you're good to go.
The only monthly fee will be your Internet cost. I guess that Internet monthly fees are a given anymore and that is why most advertizes state there is no monthly fee...i.e. MagicJack comes to mind.
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Old 10-22-2012, 01:55 PM   #10
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Originally Posted by rbrumfield View Post
The only monthly fee will be your Internet cost. I guess that Internet monthly fees are a given anymore and that is why most advertizes state there is no monthly fee...i.e. MagicJack comes to mind.
Of course. You will still have your home internet bill to pay for but as long as you are already paying for that then there is no additional fee to use the slingbox.
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