Antenna

[JLD]

Hello.

My antenna is the one that came with the rig. It is V shaped and goes up,with a lot of help, by turning a crank in the ceiling. I haven't used it. I thought it was for radio reception. Am I mistaken. The fellow who owned the rig before had an eight track and stereo radio. We still have that. Recently a person on another list said the old antennas were great television receivers and suggest another person not switch to a newer antenna. Now I am cornfused. I bought a $10 antenna for the TV and posted it on the tongue and aimed at the nearest towers, but if the antenna on top is for television I would love to use it. Any ideas? The antenna on top is shaped like kite with a whole lot of tubes, metal tubes that is. JLD OOOPS My rig is a '78 Sovereign, 31 feet.

[wahoonc]

JLD,
That is one of the older style Batwing attennas. If it is a Winegard you may still be able to get parts for it. They are an amplified antenna and they work great. Work better than the rotater that I have on my house (to cheap for satelite ) You can still buy them round $100 or so. Sounds like yours may be missing a helper spring. Maybe someone has a parts list they can link you to. Mine goes up pretty easy, just 2 fingers on the crank is enough.

Aaron

[Chas]

Sounds like you have the original Braun Skyliner antennae there. Even new they are a bit cranky to raise and lower, get it, cranky? It is for television reception and may have the AM/FM stereo system incorporated into it as well. You should get a look at it and see if the elements, tubes, are intact and still have the linkages connected. It may just need parts, some are still available but on my last Airstream I just bit the bullet and bought a complete new one, right around $200 at my local Airstream dealer.

FYI, they also like to leak around the mounting plate so have a look at that while you're up there.

Chas

[wildcat455]

This post has gotten me wondering what my original antenna looked like on my '61 Overlander International. It has the original mast on the outside, and a gear mechanism that connects to a directional crank over the sofa. Anyone see one of these units in operation? Are they available? It would be cool to get an old table top black and white 17 in tv and set it up over the fridge for display. Mike

[Chas]

The 60's models had a different style antennae and I think they mounted at the front somewhere. They look very strange, kinda like a mast antennae you'd see clamped onto someone's chimney and deploy with a wall crank inside the trailer.

The Braun Skyliner is a roof mounted unit and I'm not real sure what year they started installing them. I saw Swingking's 69 Overlander and his had both of them.

I am sure someone here has one of the older styles still intact?

Chas

[Chuck]

Here is a picture of my "skyliner" antenna deployed. one of the elements is a little bent, but it does work well. However, my neighbor in this picture has a new batwing amplified installed in his, and he was getting better reception/more channels than I was. (I wonder if there is such a thing as a stand-alone 12v signal amplifier that I could hook up to this to see if it helps w/ reception?).

Anyway, when I bought the trailer, this antenna had a broken front leg, and the gears that raise/lower it were stripped/frozen. I replaced the front leg w/ a piece of alluminum tubing from Home Depot; I replaced the gears w/ a kit from Braun that is still available. (didn't even have to mail-order it. it was on the shelf at my local camper supply store.) Now, it cranks up and down and rotates like new

[Chas]

Nice pic there Chuck!

Just like you have noticed, I actually got better reception with a new boosted Winegard in my Minuet than the new boosted Skyliner in my Overlander. I think I had different TV sets though and that can make a lot of difference in perceived reception.

For some reason some TV's pick up stations better than others even when hooked up to the same antennae. Last TV I had in there was this pos Apex, made in some extreme third world Asian country. My local conn's was out of the good stuff so in a pinch I bought it. I let it go with the trailer.

Chas

[Pick]

We bought an Orion at Uncle Wally's for $79 for our A/S. The number of channels we can get with the Winegard amplified antenna makes me wonder why we have a sat dish. I guess it's because Emeril is not on regular TV.

[JLD]

Thanks for the picture Chuck. Yes. That's the one I have. Now I just have to poke around and figure out what is hooked to it and what is not. There 's a coax that comes up through the counter from the bin below and then this other little gizmo that has a U connection sticking out of a little white plastic box, I think it says starlite on it. I don't know what it was meant for. I hooked the coax to the TV and checked to see if it was connected to the coax fitting in the bin. It was, but I got zero reception and the radio sounds like shortwave on a bad propagation nite, so I figure the fittings have come loose at the antenna. I can see where they feed up under the skin, but how do you get another one through. Coax goes bad with time and this stuff has skin so brittle it cracks. I am sure after looking at Chuck's pix that it is the Braun Satelite. Would it be possible to wire a piece of light wire to the feed and then pull it along when I take the old coax out? If so, that would give me some help getting the new coax up the same route. I got back a ways with my birding glasses and looked it over. As far as I can see all the rods look secure and there are none missing. OH, one other thing, does the spring for the crank go on the antenna side or the crank side? JLD

[Chuck]

I'm tempted to switch to one of the new wineguards, but I don't know....something just doesn't look "right" about one of those new, modern looking things on a vintage trailer. The old skyliner just seems to "fit". (obviously, I've been hanging around w/ architects for too long; more concerned w/ how things look than how they work... ).

Anyway...JLD: I don't know the layout of your trailer, but undoubtedly, its much different than mine. It also sounds like someone else has already done some modifications there. But I've been told before that the antenna wire can only be re-run by dropping the ceiling panel, because the original takes at least one sharp turn through a rib, and is tied up in a bundle of other wires, so there's no way to "fish" it through. The skyliners of the day were also not wired w/ co-ax; they used twin-lead 75Ohm antenna wire. (the flat stuff). In my trailer, the wire terminated at a recepticle of a type that I've never seen before, but apparently was "standard" back then...a 2-pronged plug. couldn't get one for my tv at radio shack, so I had to disconnect the wires from the back of it, and attach them to a 75ohm/coax converter, and then run coax to the tv.

There is no spring on the antenna crank. here's a link to an installation manual for the skyliner: http://www.mytravco.com/SkylinerAntenna.htm

I don't know why this guy went to so much trouble to make this site annoying, and also lock it down so you can't save the images...but the info is there. (luckily, I have a bunch of very large format printers, so I just printed out the pages (they're about 1.5 x 2 feet!), then scanned them, and reduced them to something a bit more legible.

here's a shot from the other side, and you can see the 66 safari w/ the new winegard.

[JLD]

Hi. Thanks for the site reference. There is no problem printing the images if you have Word. Just open a new Word document. Go to the images on the site. Click your arrow on the first page showing. Go to the Edit command and click on Select all. Wait a sec for it to collect the image. Then click on copy. Go back to the Word document you opened click on the empty document page and then go up to edit and click on paste. The page will transfer and come up. Then go through the guy's document page by page doing the same thing. I think it came to eleven pages.

Thanks for the great picture of your rig. I have a feeling that the old coax I mentioned does not go to the antenna. I have the same sort of plug you are talking about. Actually, it is in the bedroom.

Thanks again. Joan

[danesh]

Chuck:
We have the same antena, but it does not work. I think the crank is out, gone for good. I can manually raise the antena, which means it is in working condition. I need to get the crank working. Was that your problem too. What was the piece that you got from local RV dealer?
thanks

[Chuck]

http://www.mobile-mart.com/antenna_parts2.htm

http://www.mobile-mart.com/antenna_parts.htm

I'm sure you can get the parts elsewhere, too, but this is the only site that seems to come up when I do a google search.

I think the kit includes a couple of replacement pins, as well. Its no too hard to do; check that travco site for the manual, which includes a nice exploded diagram, so you can see how it all works.

[jwalton]

Parts are available from an Airstream dealer. Our neighbour on the last ralley bought the worm gear for his '72.

We installed a new Wineguard on an 89 excella. great reception. but it is a powerd antennea, not a boosted signal!