Antenna

[kuba122]

Yep. On the wineguard booster. The Cable input (the connector on the outside) was connected to the television set 2 output instead of the cable input.

[kuba122]

Yeah ... the antenna is a weak spot. I also have an external bigger antenna with another bigger amplifier that I can put up. It is a pain, but, worth it on rainy days, for sure. We live 70 miles from the transmitters and most places we camp are at least 50 miles out or so, it seems. Nicely done! When I did our antenna/TV work .... I discovered that Starcraft had wired the booster incorrectly. I'm going to look at my notes and post, here so others can check theirs.

[moallen]

Most of the places we camp are 50 miles or more from TV towers, and they are all UHF, which doesn't go as far as VHF. In fact, we can only get one over the air TV station at home, and it's a public TV station. Can't put up an outside antenna at our condo, so we have to go with cable to get the network stations.

[uct]

My fixed antennae works great once I realized you have to turn on the booster. I also have tried to get my radio out like your picture but it will not release????

[Houston Remodeler]

Our 2015 has the crank up version. Seems to work just fine.

Glad we didn't have the "new and improved" type

[moallen]

Here's a couple pictures I took of removing the radio/dvd player. There should be a pair of metal pieces about 3" long that you insert into the sides of the radio/player after removing the face plate. That will disengage it from its housing.

You can see the 2-way antenna splitter just to the left. Better have a box of band-aids handy if you stick your hand inside!

Radio_1.JPG (132.5 KiB) Viewed 4472 times

Radio_2.JPG (180.26 KiB) Viewed 4472 times

[moallen]

I wish there was an easy way to mount it on the roof. It could be done (I think) if I had the crankup batwing style antenna. Oh, for the good old days... at the risk of being called an old fogey, I'll complain some more about the supper-dupper HD omnidirectional antenna that comes with the 24rls.

Any FCC tech will tell you omni-directional means equally bad in all directions. And despite all the hype, a FCC tech will also tell you an HD antenna is nothing but hype to sell antennas. The fixed low profile antenna is more convenient but at the cost of good reception.

Next complaint - poor radio reception. After pulling out the radio and digging through all the wires behind it, I discovered it's fed by the same onmi-directional antenna through a splitter behind the radio. A 2 way splitter drops 3.5db or 50% of the signal. Not good for either the radio or TV. Granted an amplifier then boosts the signal for the TV but not the radio. Of course, then it splits it again for the bedroom TV.

I'm thinking about removing the 2-way splitter and installing a real radio antenna probably at the top of the mast I'm using for this 4 bay antenna.

In case anyone is interested, here's a diagram I drew showing how the radio-TV-antenna is wired, at least in my 2016 24rls. Some people have mistakenly thought the switch on the amplifier switches between the Ant and Cable inputs. That's not quite true. The switch simply turns the amplifier on or off. In most cases, amplifying the cable input boosts it too much and causes the TV not to work.

From years of dealing with TV signals at home in fringe areas, I can say you need a signal before you can successfully amplify it. You can't make something out of nothing.

TV_Radio_Wiring_Diagram.jpg (46.2 KiB) Viewed 4473 times

[jcarlilesiu]

That thing ought to get reception for miles. Any thoughts on maybe putting a hinge on it and manually lowering and raising it from the roof?

Sent from my SM-G925V using Tapatalk

[msmith]

Great idea, so did you have to move the switch to cable or anything. Thanks Max

[moallen]

One thing I've been disappointed with about my 24rls is the new style low profile fixed antenna. It's been the same at all my favorite campgrounds. Where I used to get decent TV with the old style crankup Winegard's, I'm lucky to get anything with the new supposedly super-duper HD antenna on my 24rls.

This was my first trip out to test a 4-bay home antenna I had mounted to a 14' mast. I just clamped the mast to my slideout. Wow - what a difference. If I switch between antennas, I get 1 shaky station on the factory antenna. But on my new rig, I get 9 rock solid stations.

I admit it's a hassle taking it along. But it does fit inside the trailer on the floor, and it does hookup quick. I just connect to the outside jack. Total cost was about $55. I thought about replacing the factory antenna with a crankup style. But that was a whole lot more money and would not have been a simple job.

antenna.JPG (244.69 KiB) Viewed 4452 times