Digital OTA antenna used on new 2012 Winnebago?

This appears to be the new digital OTA antenna used on the new 2012 Winnebago

http://www.kingcontrols.com/jack/jack_aftermarket_antenna.asp

I like that you don't crank it up, so cannot forget it up. It is a directional antenna, which you can aim at the stations using a built in signal strength meter.

Chris Shaker

That must be a relatively new product.  At last year's GNR, I bought the antenna part of the setup (the "Jack" antenna) and replaced the Winegard batwing.  Also bought the signal strength gizmo from the King booth.

The Jack antenna is a good performer and I like the low profile (as in low windage) of the product.

Had Coachmasters in Bend, OR, install the Jack antenna for me. Very happy with it. In my driveway in Sunriver, I can pull in two of the Bend TV stations. Wasn't able to do that with the original OTA antenna. The signal strength meter makes it very easy to aim the antenna. The inside part of the antenna is much smaller than I had imagined. It does not interfere with the cabinet door mounted beside it at all.

Chris Shaker

Looks interesting...hmmmm....

I would be a little cautious of the Jack antenna. Attached are some pictures(4) of the Jack and Bat Wing antenna insides. The Jack antenna is lower to the RV roof and King Controls claims that it is less directional. That implies it has less gain in the direction of a weak TV station. The Jack antenna uses a PC board that is representative of technology used 15 years ago. It is all hand built on a cheap PC board material. The Bat Wing PC board is all machine placed surface mount parts on a good quality board(maybe G10). I would think the reliability of the Jack electronics would be a lot less than the Bat Wing electronics.

If anything this confirmed my opinion that the Batwing was the way to go.  It certainly shows a more modern engineering approach and I would agree on the thought of better reliability.  The Wingard antenna will be more directional and have better inherent gain even before the amplifier.

Welcome to smith88!

I have some issues with your evaluation of the Jack vs. the bat wing.

1.  The bat wing is a completely bizarre design for an antenna.  I hold an Amateur Radio Extra Class license (WB5THT) and know a little something about antennas - I have never been able to figure out the basis for the design unless some marketing weenie thought it looked 'cool ' and an RF guy made it work

2. Directional vs. not so directional:  The sharper the lobe, the more the gain, but the issue with a highly directional antenna is it would need to be re-pointed when you want to pick up another transmitter.  A less directional antenna is a trade-off vis-a-vis a little lower signal strength and the ability to pick up a few more transmitters without re-pointing

3. The Jack having 'old technology' and not using a glass-epoxy circuit board and no surface mount components - who cares?  With some analog RF circuits you might not have nice little surface mount components placed by a machine

I have used the bat wing with the little snap on director antenna assembly and that worked fairly well.  I installed a Jack antenna to replace the bat wing and my non scientific and anecdotal evaluation of the Jack vs the bat wing is the Jack is superior.  There could be some instances where the bat wing does a little better job of picking up the lower frequency DTV stations, but I have not done any testing.  Basically I was happy to get the large and cumbersome (and ridiculous looking) bat wing off my roof.

John Canfield said:

1.  The bat wing is a completely bizarre design for an antenna.  I hold an Amateur Radio Extra Class license (WB5THT) and know a little something about antennas - I have never been able to figure out the basis for the design unless some marketing weenie thought it looked 'cool ' and an RF guy made it work

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Me, too.

John Canfield said:

3. The Jack having 'old technology' and not using a glass-epoxy circuit board and no surface mount components - who cares?  With some analog RF circuits you might not have nice little surface mount components placed by a machine

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Me, too again.  The Jack antenna has several tuneable coils that I suspect are used to tweak the amplifier's bandpass spectrum and looks to be done for ea. unit as it is built.  The Batwing looks pretty, but it doesn't appear to have a means of tweaking.  Granted, the Batwing ckt brd would yield less variations when "stuffed", but the Jack board, if done correctly, could probably be peaked for optimum performance.

When I had my batwing replaced with the Jack, I found I was picking up more stations even on the backside of the antenna. I just love the fact that I do not have to remember to crank it down and the performance is great in my book. Maybe we will have another Ford vs Chevy type argument!

John Canfield said:

Welcome to smith88!

I have some issues with your evaluation of the Jack vs. the bat wing.

1.  The bat wing is a completely bizarre design for an antenna.  I hold an Amateur Radio Extra Class license (WB5THT) and know a little something about antennas - I have never been able to figure out the basis for the design unless some marketing weenie thought it looked 'cool ' and an RF guy made it work

Click to expand...

The batwing design looks like a variant of a terminated folded dipole to me, but I could be wrong.

NY_Dutch said:

The batwing design looks like a variant of a terminated folded dipole to me, but I could be wrong.

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I haven't recently looked closely at the bat wing I removed, but if memory serves me right, it is a simple dipole.  I think the slots in the 'wings' are only decorative.  They could have had the same performance with two small diameter rods out of the pods pod but then it wouldn't have looked 'cool' and have been worth the money they wanted out of the product.

All I know is I'm getting better performance out of the Jack antenna, and Winnebago is also using it in their 2012 models. I will be happy if Coachmasters sells my Batwing antenna to some other sucker for me after he leaves it up and drives off.

I don't see much to fail on the Jack board in the pictures, unless the electrolytic capacitors go bad.

Chris Shaker

John Canfield said:

I haven't recently looked closely at the bat wing I removed, but if memory serves me right, it is a simple dipole.  I think the slots in the 'wings' are only decorative.  They could have had the same performance with two small diameter rods out of the pods pod but then it wouldn't have looked 'cool' and have been worth the money they wanted out of the product.

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If you look at the element connections to the board in the pics above, I think you'll see that it is indeed a folded dipole anyway. And the device between the bottom connections looks like it might be a terminating resistor pack or maybe a trap. I believe the design concept using flat metal elements with the bat wing droop on the ends was done for aerodynamics, rather than RF purposes. 

Then they would have had the same performance with two small loops of rod out of the center pod.  Less wind resistance, lighter weight, etc. 

John Canfield said:

Then they would have had the same performance with two small loops of rod out of the center pod.  Less wind resistance, lighter weight, etc.

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But then it couldn't have been nicknamed the "Batwing".

John Canfield said:

Then they would have had the same performance with two small loops of rod out of the center pod.  Less wind resistance, lighter weight, etc. 

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I agree there are other designs that likely would have worked just as well, John. The fact that no one has been able to successfully compete with them for many years does speak to their success with that design though. It'll be interesting to see how the Jack holds up over time both as a competitor and a reliable product.

NY_Dutch said:

I agree there are other designs that likely would have worked just as well, John. The fact that no one has been able to successfully compete with them for many years does speak to their success with that design though. It'll be interesting to see how the Jack holds up over time both as a competitor and a reliable product.

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Now that's a reasonable argument.

NY_Dutch said:

I agree there are other designs that likely would have worked just as well, John. The fact that no one has been able to successfully compete with them for many years does speak to their success with that design though.

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It's a fairly small market and they have almost no competitors so they have had no reason to improve the product.  Their old TV dish was an abysmal product - poor design, bad engineering.  Their tracking dome had so many issues Winnebago dropped them in favor of King Dome back in late 2004.  Maybe you can tell I'm not a big fan of Winegard.

John Canfield said:

It's a fairly small market and they have almost no competitors so they have had no reason to improve the product.  Their old TV dish was an abysmal product - poor design, bad engineering.  Their tracking dome had so many issues Winnebago dropped them in favor of King Dome back in late 2004.  Maybe you can tell I'm not a big fan of Winegard.

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Yep, your bias does show through just a bit, John.  ;D

Winegard has had competitors in the RV antenna marketplace from time to time in the past, but apparently none that could put together an equivalent or superior product at a competitive enough price to attract the attention of enough RV manufacturers to make a go of it. As I said, it'll be interesting to see if the Jack fairs any better.

The Jack has definitely won me over. Since we have gone digital, the signal strength to the set is at best marginal. WHere I live. stations I used to recieve analog with rabbit ears are gone. With the Winegard Batwing I could recieve 6 stations. Now with the Jack, I am getting 14 stations which is quite an improvement. The American public really got hoodwinked on the conversion from analog to digital.