will older antenna pick up digital channels?

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an RV or an interest in RVing!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

kbg1963

New member
Joined
Jun 3, 2011
Posts
1
I recently bought a 2007 5th wheel camper with a signal commander Model 500LS antenna on it. should it be able to receive the new digital tv signals or do i need a new antenna?
 
It probably won't pick up digital signals in it's present form. Wienguard makes a UHF batwing antenna that bolts right to the bottom of your antenna this is reported to work very well. They sell for about $30 and install in about 2 minutes. 
 
kbg1963,

I have the standard batwing antenna on our coach. I also have a digital ready TV. We pick up any digital channel that is in our area. If you don't have a digital capable TV, then you need a converter box to access those channels.

I'm not familiar with the model antenna you have but, if it's a standard type antenna, then you should be able to access the digital channels.

Upon a quick search of the internet, it appears the antenna you have is similar to mine.
 
Yes it will work fine, the digital channels are in the UHF band and the antenna does not know the difference between analog or digital channels.
 
To sum it up, your existing antenna is perfectly capable of receiving digital signals, but as Sarge mentioned many of the digital signals are now in the UHF band, where the batwing reception is a bit weak. The "Wingman" low cost add-on he mentioned will significantly increase your antenna's UHF reception range.
 
First to an antenna there is no such thing as television, only radio and the old TV antennas were designed to pick up Radio signals in the VHF Low, VHF HIGH and UHF bands.  I can look up the frequency range if you like but it starts at 56 MHZ and goes up to the 1.x GHZ range.

When the world went all digital (Well the country) that frequency range DID NOT CHANGE. thus to the antenna, nothing at all changed (Ok, VHF low is not much used any more,, but where I'm parked I use VHF-HIGH (Old channel 7) and UHF (old channels 4x for the most part)

The antenna can not tell the difference between Digital and Analog, to it they are the same.

HOWEVER;;; There are "omindirectional" antennas. and "Bi-Directional" and "Mono-Directional"  I will attempt to describe all 3

To picture this you need a pencil or better yet a spool of thread or a bottle cap, and a two toothpicks. and a necklace chain, just the chain.

Now put the pencil, bottle cap or spool on the table, arrainge the chain around it so as to form a circle centered on the item.

This is an omni antenna.. Draw a circle where the chain is.

Now replace the spool with a toothpick, Draw the ends out (Techincall it you should form it into a figure 8 but drawing it out in an oval centered on the toothpick, with the toothpick lying on the SHORT axis.. Draw another line around the chain.. NOTICE how much farther it runs out rom the toothpic along the major axis.

now break the 2nd toothipick in half and lay the half against the center of the first like the upright in the letter "T".  pull the chain into an egg shape pulling it farther out in the direction the half tooth pick points.. This is a MONO directional antenna

The Omni is the Winegard "Flying Saucer"

The BI-Directional is the Winegard Sensar "Batwing"

The mono direcitonal is the Sensare with the Wingman add on.

Does this help.

The more directional the antenna. the farther it "Sees"
 
The technical explanations are interesting.  But for a short answer: on our 2007 Winnebago, we use a digital converter box in order to convert the antenna signal for our non-digital ready tv.  It works fine. 
 
The key here is in Mollibee's response. The antenna will likely be fine but you will need the converter for older TV sets. I bought mine at Walmart using the coupon that the Federal Gov't gave out several years ago. I think a model  with ANALOG CUT THROUGH is desirable so that non digital signals can bypass the unit's conversion process automagically.

Yes,  there are some OTA stations that were not obliged to go to digital broadcast.
 
kbg1963 said:
I recently bought a 2007 5th wheel camper with a signal commander Model 500LS antenna on it. should it be able to receive the new digital tv signals or do i need a new antenna?

kbg1963

I'm not really sure how your original post changed to a discussion of converter boxes, but, JohnFrom Detroit, is spot on, as usual, even though his answer may be a bit technical. Your Signal Commander model 500ls antenna is quite capable of getting the digital signals from UHF & Vhf hi &lo which covers the digital spectrum.
Hope this helps
Dave
 
If it's the original TV you probably will need a converter box, though.  Our unit is a 2007 and the antenna works fine (with a bit of fiddling to tune in channels) with the converter box.
 
Yep - just like Gary said . . .forget the technobabble, and enjoy the tube.  If you need to improve the reception, like I did, look closely at the "JACK" antenna  Worked a lot better for me, up here in the woods.
 
My 97 gulfstream had an older batwing antenna and when the digital switch over was made, I couldn't pick up much.  I got a new antenna head replacement (3rd gen I think) and that helped a lot, plus that DTV thing camping world has that just clips on, but it not tied into the actual antenna wiring.  I was getting 3-4channels at my house with old antenna and ~15 after.  The booster didn't do much in my area for reception once the DTV switch was made.
 
Back
Top Bottom