HD tv antenna

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I am considering a Rayzar automatic amplified hdtv antenna or a King Digital hdtv AVH system for better tv reception. I would appreciate information and comparison of these two items.
 
Well the BEST RV antenna is the Winegard Sensar IV with Sensar Pro inside. you do have to manually aim.

The Automatic antenna from Winegard i'm not sold on since I do not know how it works for sure. As I understand it locks on the STRONGEST carrier on the theory that all the TV transmitters are grouped together on the same mountain.. Generally a valid theory but in at least one park I stay at I need to be two notches clockwise of the strongest signal for best result. Hard to do with the automatic.

The JACK from king Controls I'd not recommend.. Decent at UHF fails at VHF epcially the low band.

Independent lab testing nothing beat the Sensar IV.. Nothing.
 
I find this discussion humorous. I have a $30 indoor antenna that I have placed in the cabinet above the TV. I bought it off Amazon after my roof mounted antenna fell apart. I live 20 miles from Orlando and it picks up over 50 stations and it gets a signal that is a knockout on my 4k tv.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IF70T4M?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage
 
Tom,
  Same here. When my roof antenna gave it up I bought an antenna meant for apartment dwellers with a mount similar to a household dish mount. I discard that and clamped it to an extendable pole saw pole. That in turn is clamped to my ladder. When I set camp I extend the pole up and run the cable to my cable hookup in the service bay. Both TV's get signal that way I use the internet to find out where the local OTA antennas are and aim accordingly using a cheap Boy Scout compass. If the OTA antennas are in different locations I split the difference. The compass is the only tool I use for my dish set up as well. I am currently about 35 miles north of Dallas and get over 50 channels as well including Fort Worth. I must say though that several of my channels only speak Spanish, I have a couple that speak Vietnamese or something too. The antenna channels reception rival my dish reception too. Handy, when heavy weather interferes with Dish TV.

Bill
 
I just checked the locations again. I'm actually 55-60 miles from the nearest OTA broadcast antenna. Height and aiming do make a difference for that kind of distance. I also remember from childhood that UHF channels were more directional than VHF channels. My parents were luddites they didn't get cable until the late 80's, they didn't even get color TV until finding a black and white TV became a problem. Not sure when that was, I was off seeing the world.

Bill
 
I am probably twenty to twenty five miles from antennas. I don't get channel two but then I rarely watch tv so I don't miss it. I am sure if I were to screw around with pointing the antenna I could get two. I watch Netflix and Amazon Prime about 95% of the time. And between those two I watch Netflix about 95% of that time. There are a number of great series on Netflix that I love watching and the fact that there is no commercials makes it really painful when I do watch OTA. Starting today I will be watching the football playoffs for the next month. On my 4k TV football looks totally unrealistic. The image looks like I am there. When it displays a picture of an ice cream cone I want to lick the screen. Right now Top Gear is my favorite series followed by Man vs Food, Brain Games, Ted Talks, The Pyramid Code, and America's Book of Secrets. Plenty of great movies to watch too.
 
How do you watch netflix? I'm curious. Do you have to stream it over cellular, or through a satellite tv dish? We don't have the gigs for cellular. Besides the cell tower nearby actually bogs down when everybody in the park turns on their hotspots when the park WIFI won't even open an E-mail. This happens every day, twice a day. Late in the morning through early afternoon and every evening to maybe 10-11 o'clock. There are still a few active landline hookups in this park we are settled in for at least a year while we work and shovel money into the bank for another adventure. our site happens to have one of those active hookups, the ATT guy was here a couple weeks ago for someone else and confirmed our site was active. Not sure we want another bill, might go with land line and stop the pay as you go dish.

Bill
 
I have a Comcast landline Internet connection. I can get Netflix through my smart TV, my surround sound receiver, my Blu ray player, my Playstation 3, my Fire TV box or in an emergency I can get it through the hot spot on my cell phone. It also comes in on my laptop and my Chromebook. I used to use the park Wifi which was plenty strong enough but every time there was rain and lightning the wifi went off until it was rebooted, which sometimes took three days. For only $24.33 per month I get a 30 meg signal that is beautiful.
 
Tom, is your comcast land line over cable or a telephone land line?
Trying to get a handle on this, I truly am a luddite.

Bill
 
driftless shifter said:
Tom, is your comcast land line over cable or a telephone land line?
Trying to get a handle on this, I truly am a luddite.
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It is over a cable like cable tv comes in on. If I wanted cable tv all I would have to add is a splitter and a cable receiver. In order to keep my bill this low I had to buy a cable modem and a wifi router to avoid paying a fee each month. They cost about $50 from Amazon and were simple to set up. I think they charge about ten dollars each per month.
 
SeilerBird said:
It is over a cable like cable tv comes in on. If I wanted cable tv all I would have to add is a splitter and a cable receiver. In order to keep my bill this low I had to buy a cable modem and a wifi router to avoid paying a fee each month. They cost about $50 from Amazon and were simple to set up. I think they charge about ten dollars each per month.
Click to expand...

Sounds like my setup. Xfinity internet only: $25 a month. Own modem and router. If I want television, I can go online and upgrade my service with a few clicks, and pay more. Splitters and cables already in place from previous owner.

But with all the shows and movies available streaming online, why bother with TV and the commercials?

Anymore TV is for sports fans. Most games can't be live streamed on the internet.
 
srs713 said:
But with all the shows and movies available streaming online, why bother with TV and the commercials?
Click to expand...
And the fact is cable is horribly priced. $50 a month minimum and you 200 channels of crap. And if they are going to charge you that much it should be commercial free. Netflix for $13 a month is a bargain.
 
SeilerBird said:
I find this discussion humorous. I have a $30 indoor antenna that I have placed in the cabinet above the TV. I bought it off Amazon after my roof mounted antenna fell apart. I live 20 miles from Orlando and it picks up over 50 stations and it gets a signal that is a knockout on my 4k tv.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IF70T4M?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage
Click to expand...

Yup, 20 miles. What happens if you are 40 miles, 50, 60.. 

One of the campgrounds I frequent is 60 miles from Detroit, but I still get decent TV most of the time using my Winegard + Wingman + Sensar Pro.  Your indoor antenna woudl not get anything.

Of course if you are LONG TERM parked... And I mean LONG TERM (IE: Sticks and bricks)  HEIGHT is MIGHT.  I have tested and proved this over nad over.. HEIGHT IS MIGHT.

As I said above, My parent's house, in a "no tv" area got full coverage (all major networks and then some) using a big Channel Master 100+ feet up in the sky.  Worked great.

In another case.back in 1978 I got a new 2-way Radio, Wilson WE-800 (2 meter ham rig) 1 watt as a hand held or 10 if operated off a car or external power supply  FM.  Well the Detroit Tigers were playing a night game,  That means I coudl not go home from work (Road blocked by fans leaving the game) so i got the fully charged radio out of my locker and went up to the observation deck, 22 floors up.

I'm chatting with some hams in Toledo, via a repeater station in Adrian MI (That's the link that counts) when someone else tried to join us.. About all we got of his call was "VE3"  (that's about half the call)  Well VE3.. Includes Windsor, CA, which I can see from where I'm standing.  So I relayed for him for a bit.

Finally he and I move off to what is called a Simplex frequency (We are talking directly to each other not over a repeater).  We got to discussing our Rigs (Hams and RVers are alike this way) He's running either 30 watts ERP at 40 feet or the other way around (Forget which I mean it's been a while) I'm running about a quarter watt Effective holding the radio in my hand...... 250 feet above ground....

I was solid into the repeater.. Him, on a scale of 5, he was about a 2.

HEIGHT.. Is MIGHT.

I have been in many parks where even the few feet additional you get when you crank up the winegard makes a BIG difference.
 
As John says, tv is easy if you are in/near a metro area. OTA is usually solid and cable is available as an alternative. It's those places that are 40-50 miles or more from  a good-sized city that  get weak signals and little choice. Maybe not even all three major OTA networks. The Winegard always comes out best in the tests, and the newer versions of the Sensar have excellent VHF and UFH reception, but you can't get what isn't there. The current model Sensars are much improved over the 1998 model you probably have, so an upgrade, with either the Wingman add-on or a new Sensar to replace the old one is probably worthwhile if you are a tv fan.

The new Rayzor auto-seek/tune model (no crank-up) is spiffy and convenient. If the primary auto-seek choice doesn't work for you, you can select the second best orientation to get a different choice. AAnd you get that second choice with the touch of a button rather than cranking the antenna around to see what you can find. Not inexpensive, though.
 
Gary RV Roamer said:
The current model Sensars are much improved over the 1998 model you probably have, so an upgrade, with either the Wingman add-on or a new Sensar to replace the old one is probably worthwhile if you are a tv fan.
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I don't know what improvements were made other than incorporating the Wingman.  I would think that an old amplified antenna with the added Wingman would give about the same performance.  The Sensar Pro only helps in pointing the antenna.  What am I missing?
 
lynnmor said:
I don't know what improvements were made other than incorporating the Wingman.  I would think that an old amplified antenna with the added Wingman would give about the same performance.  The Sensar Pro only helps in pointing the antenna.  What am I missing?
Click to expand...
The SensarPro is also an inline adjustable 10db pre-amplifier.
 
As I understand it locks on the STRONGEST carrier on the theory that all the TV transmitters are grouped together on the same mountain.. Generally a valid theory but in at least one park I stay at I need to be two notches clockwise of the strongest signal for best result. Hard to do with the automatic.
Click to expand...

John, we were just looking at one today.  It searches for both UHF and VHF channels.  Yes, it locks onto the strongest signal/s, but there is a manual override in case the channel you want is in another direction.  The way it works is that you first turn on the Winegard to locate the signals.  Once locked onto the signals you turn on the TV and then program it to find the local channels just like we do now with the old crankup antenna..  In theory I can see where this would be more efficient because it gets the signal first and then finds channels.

ArdraF
 
I don't know what improvements were made other than incorporating the Wingman.  I would think that an old amplified antenna with the added Wingman would give about the same performance.  The Sensar Pro only helps in pointing the antenna.  What am I missing?
Click to expand...

Probably no difference.  The Sensar IV appears to have simply integrated the Wingman UHF antenna (both old and new models already have an amplifier). Typically the engineers can do a better job with a new design as opposed to an add-on gadget, but I think you have to go to one of the Rayzor models to get a new design altogether. In addition to the fully automatic model, the Rayzar comes in bi-directional and omni-directional versions.

http://www.winegard.com/over-the-air-television-antennas?q=mobile
 
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