Replace old TV antenna with new one

[perryg114]

I was wondering if I could replace the old TV antenna that is no good for digital TV with a high gain UHF/High Def Antenna? I would like to use the existing mount and retain the fold down feature.

Perry

[vswingfield]

Originally Posted by perryg114

I was wondering if I could replace the old TV antenna that is no good for digital TV with a high gain UHF/High Def Antenna? I would like to use the existing mount and retain the fold down feature.

Perry

The old antennas are perfectly fine for digital TV

See:

http://www.airforums.com/forums/f310...era-79034.html

http://www.airforums.com/forums/f450...nna-35211.html

http://www.airforums.com/forums/f450...-it-64500.html

http://www.airforums.com/forums/f450...nna-61689.html

and many other threads. The need for a special antenna for digital signals is the biggest piece of misinformation since the 1950s when people thought you needed a special antenna for Color TV vs Black & White.

One thing be be aware of is that on some models, like my 1983 Excella, the antenna also serves as the radio antenna.

By the way, parts for the Skyliner antennas are still available.

[DKB_SATX]

Depending on how your antenna is configured and what's wrong with it, you may be able to get good performance with just a decent UHF add-on to capture signals in that band in addition to VHF. The current crank-up "Sensar" is installed with an amp, I believe. I don't know if your trailer has an amp, I know my '75 does not. (At this point, it doesn't have an antenna either... the PO deleted it altogether, but it doesn't seem there was ever an amp.)

[perryg114]

Well mine is an 81 and I think it is FM only not FM/UHF. High def is UHF and old analog is FM. I will have to look closer at it. I think it may also have a broken wire. It still works and goes up and down ok.

Perry

[vswingfield]

Originally Posted by perryg114

Well mine is an 81 and I think it is FM only not FM/UHF. High def is UHF and old analog is FM. I will have to look closer at it. I think it may also have a broken wire. It still works and goes up and down ok.

Perry

I have the same antenna, Braund Skyliner, on my 1983 Excella and my 1967 Trade Wind. Yours should be the same. Worked great for old UHF and still works great for HD. A bad connection would make it not work, though. Get good connections and it will work fine.

You will need to scan for stations when connecting your HDTV or tuner box.

I have attached a pdf of the manual for the Skyliner antennas. You can see if it matches yours, I'll bet it does.

[perryg114]

There are two connections for the antenna. There is one in the back bedroom and one up front where the entertainment center is located. THere is a two prong connector. I am assuming that both of these connections are hooked directly to the antenna internally? The PO has a rats nest of different interfaces. I think he had a CB or ham radio at some point. I have not had time to sort out this mess.

Perry

[slowmover]

Our 1983 Silver Streak was in very good original condition. But the coax to the H&H BRAUND "Galaxy 300" antenna wasn't. That, plus an R&R of the antenna made all well.

[vswingfield]

Originally Posted by perryg114

There are two connections for the antenna. There is one in the back bedroom and one up front where the entertainment center is located. THere is a two prong connector. I am assuming that both of these connections are hooked directly to the antenna internally? The PO has a rats nest of different interfaces. I think he had a CB or ham radio at some point. I have not had time to sort out this mess.

Perry

Those two-prong connectors are still avialable, but they are for connecting to the flat 300 ohm wire that TVs used before the widespread adoption of 75 ohm coax. In my Excella, there is a coax from the Antenna to the back of the plate that the two-prong connector is a part of with an adapter built in. I disconnected the two-prong connection, drilled a hole, and mounted the coax so I could connect directly to the coax. Works great. (You would also have to deal with this even if you installed a new antenna.) I never have done it to the outlet in the back since I don't have a TV in the bedroom, but it would work just fine there too.

[perryg114]

I still have the connectors. I don't have a small highdef TV though or do I. I have a little tiny one I use for a video monitor for analog cameras but I think it will recieve high-def as well. I need to get a high def USB reciever for my Win 7 laptop that already has Windows Media Center on it. When we were in Florida the other day I used it with an external monitor to play movies for my daugter. We have two media center computers at home and it is nice because they act as a DVR to record whatever you want and watch it whenever you want. I really don't want to get a satelite dish because the whole point of camping is to enjoy the outdoors and not sit and watch TV in the trailer. It would be nice to have access to local news and weather.

Perry

[slowmover]

Originally Posted by perryg114

I still have the connectors. I don't have a small highdef TV though or do I. I have a little tiny one I use for a video monitor for analog cameras but I think it will recieve high-def as well. I need to get a high def USB reciever for my Win 7 laptop that already has Windows Media Center on it. When we were in Florida the other day I used it with an external monitor to play movies for my daugter. We have two media center computers at home and it is nice because they act as a DVR to record whatever you want and watch it whenever you want. I really don't want to get a satelite dish because the whole point of camping is to enjoy the outdoors and not sit and watch TV in the trailer. It would be nice to have access to local news and weather.

Perry

Would make it more difficult to add one, I agree. On the other hand, in bad weather it's nice to have the option and therefore worth fixing or adding. A very long trip tends to help the sentiment in this regard . . . I never did bring it up to my wife, but, of course, some neighbor just had to tell her all about SAT-TV, ha!

[SARGE/AF]

Originally Posted by perryg114

I was wondering if I could replace the old TV antenna that is no good for digital TV with a high gain UHF/High Def Antenna? I would like to use the existing mount and retain the fold down feature. Perry

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Little unknown fact, currently HD signals are still broadcast with old analog signals piggy back, but in the future you are going to see the analog sigs disappear completely then you will have no choice in getting a HD antenna.
I dont know which antenna you have weather it is the wing or old style tube aerial. But in either case changing the antenna is not really necessary, you do not need to add the HD antenna to them, but in some places it would make a difference. It is smaller and just attaches to your current antenna, Both Camping World and Radio Shack carry this add on.
If you do not want to do that just pick up the HD conversion box that goes between your tv and antenna connection, which makes your current antenna recieve HD signals better. But remember you are talking about different frequencies so when useing the older antennas without the up grade you will notice a slight difference in the signal quality.
Me personally, both my 83 Excella and my current 97 Legend I added the HD antenna to the wing and then all I needed to do was connect the HD tv, it was the cheapest way and no reduction or loss of signal quality.
Radio Shack also carries the connector that changes your 300 ohm flat wire connector to a cable connector.

[jdalrymple]

A wireless signal is a wireless signal. Digital or analog simply refers to how the radio waveform is changed, or modulated, to carry the tv picture and sound.

The only requirement of the antenna is for it to be more or less the right length and shape to catch as much of the transmitted rf energy as possible. A larger antenna can be better, but hard to attach to the roof of a trailer……

Analog or digital modulation makes no difference to the antenna.

TV signals are still broadcast in the VHF and UHF bands. If one scans for new channels, the TV will tell how many analog and digital channels it found. Personally, I have not seen any analog channels in over a year.

Any tv antenna may be connected to the entertainment FM radio. Leaving the amplifier off when listening to the FM radio may sound better. A FM radio does not require as much signal to work, and may sound distorted if the amp has the incoming signal really ramped up.

The batwings do have an amplifier in the head of the antenna. This is the best place to boost the signal, as soon as it is “caught” by the antenna. The wall plate in our trailers is simply the power supply. It sends voltage up the coax toward the antenna to power the amp. It also blocks this voltage from reaching the TV and destroying the receiver.

[Splitrock]

When I removed the OEM antenna, the wire was broken at the point where it entered the body of the trailer. It looked fine due to the glob of Vulkem on it. When I heated the Vulkem, the wire just fell out.

[Alden Miller]

I believe I will be starting on my antenna replacement tomorrow evening (if UPS delivers my new antenna).

My Winegard Sensar II was apparently broken off inside the roof of the trailer and while it would go up and down getting it to rotate directionally wasn't working. While I was trying to figure this out the antenna decided to show why it really wasn't working and just fell over.

While looking for a replacement I opted for a Winegard Sensar IV which has the little Hi Def add on already. I am hoping to use the existing set up on the trailer so no new drilling or attaching needed.

Currently to prevent rain from coming in I have a cat food bowl upside down on the top of the antenna hole. This appears to be working fine since it rained for two days straight after I took the old antenna out.

-Alden

[journeydog]

FWIW
Recently, I was looking around for something, when I saw this post concerning an antenna vs. television problem - QUOTE:

"I thought at first this antenna didn’t work at all. When I scanned for channels, my new Samsung KS800D SUHD TV would only pick up DTV Air channels that did not work because I do not have Direct TV. The regular AIR channels did not show up. This new Samsung comes with a One Connect Box. You plug all your your devices into this one box then just one cable goes from the box to the TV. The TV itself only has inputs for the One Connect cable, an ethernet and a USB cable. I read online at a Samsung site that when you auto program the channels it will not work if the antenna is plugged into the One Connect Box. You must plug it directly into the TV. There is not a cable plugin on this TV, so if there is a tuner on this TV it is worthless. I was told by Samsung that there is a tuner on this TV. I tried it on 5 year old Hitachi TV and I didn’t have time to count all of the channels. There were lots and lots of them." UNQUOTE
I think the poster might have confused DTV with Direct TV instead of Digital TV, but the info regarding Samsung TVs might be relevant to problems some AS folks are having with non-reception of OTA channels.Winegard vs. Samsung?

On a previous SOB RV, I had numerous OTA channels with a Jack antenna and a Vizio TV combo - I now have a total of one OTA channel with a Winegard omni-directional antenna and Samsung TV combo - both configs in the same location.
Mmmmmmmmmmmm.....

[uncle_bob]

Hi

Ok, the person you quoted has a very basic disconnect. They seem to believe that DTV = Direct TV. The abbreviation in this case stands for Digital TV. It's what replaced "Analog TV" back many years ago. We no longer have analog TV broadcasts in the US. A TV that is looking for analog channels simply isn't going to find them.

All of the modern Samsung TV's (including those that AS uses) have digital TV tuners. If you go back far enough (before digital tv existed) there are indeed Samsungs that only have analog tuners. They are getting pretty old by now. There are also a few generations of digital TV's that came out early with flakey tuners in them. Again, that's a 15+ years ago sort of thing.

Many modern TV's have multiple inputs on them. The AS also has a cute issue with turning on the antenna preamp. Get any of that mixed up and you will get no channels. Get it right and the Samsung TV's do about as well as any other TV. Since campgrounds are often on the outer fringe of TV land, counting on over the air is an iffy bet.

Bob