Antenna on the 1850

rchancey · 02-15-2014, 04:42 PM

I am looking for where the coaxial wire comes from the antenna. I found a wire that seems to be it in the cabinet by the steps going to the master. It would nice to understand how the coaxial wires run.

mainah · 02-16-2014, 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rchancey

I am looking for where the coaxial wire comes from the antenna. I found a wire that seems to be it in the cabinet by the steps going to the master. It would nice to understand how the coaxial wires run.

Do you have a small plate with a TV connection and a switch? If so it goes from there to the antenna. If you remove the plate there is an extra connection that may go else where for a remote TV.

rchancey · 02-16-2014, 05:53 PM

I found where the coaxial wire comes into the trailer and I verified I had a connection to the antenna. I cannot get any reception while inside my metal building. I cannot move the trailer outside and wondered if it was the building that stops me from getting anything or could I have a bad antenna. Do these antennas go bad or is more likely that no reception is due to being inside ?

**JohnB** · 02-16-2014, 06:04 PM

I have had the amplifier on the roof inside the antenna go bad. After replacing the wall unit and nothing... Doing a wiring check and nothing.... Then ran a spare piece of cable from inside, out the door and up to the roof direct. Still nothing.

Then replaced the antenna head and life is good.

reception inside a metal building, that might be a challenge.

Good luck

John

rchancey · 02-16-2014, 06:11 PM

Ok, I did everything you did except replacing the head. Not sure if that means replacing the antenna itself ? How much is it, where would I find one ? How can an antenna go bad puzzles me.

**JohnB** · 02-16-2014, 06:23 PM

Need to figure out which one you have and what new one replaces it. They are sold in a lot of places. Here is one.

Amazon.com: Winegard RV-2005 Amplified Head Top Sensor: Automotive

In my case at the time, I think 2006... I ended up buying the whole roof system, arms and all. But if you hunt, you may be able to only buy the head itself.

How do the go bad? Mine was sealed pretty good. They must of glue bonded it together as I was going to trouble shoot it at the board level. I use to do TTL logic on circuit boards years ago. Odds are moisture some how corroded into the electronics shorting something out. Do not really know as I scraped it. I should of broke it open to see what was in side. There is a PC board in side that much I saw the green board.

rchancey · 02-16-2014, 07:22 PM

Mine looks different from your replacement. Do they even make this type anymore (see photo attachment) ? I was thinking of securing a smaller newer version to this antenna so I can raise and lower it. Radio shack had some small ones, not sure they would work ? I also found an amplifier in the same of the connection for the coax cable. Not sure it works either.

Gene · 02-16-2014, 07:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rchancey

.... I cannot get any reception while inside my metal building. ....

With the metal sides and metal roof I see in the picture you will not get any TV signals unless the transmitter is really close, like maybe 5 miles away. You are effectively inside a Faraday Cage. Faraday cage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

mainah · 02-17-2014, 06:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rchancey

Mine looks different from your replacement. Do they even make this type anymore (see photo attachment) ? I was thinking of securing a smaller newer version to this antenna so I can raise and lower it. Radio shack had some small ones, not sure they would work ? I also found an amplifier in the same of the connection for the coax cable. Not sure it works either.

That's quite the rig. It is an old style antenna and probably won't work real well even out of the garage it was designed for much lower frequencies than are now used. It may have a amp also the picture was not good enough to tell. Is there a wall plate inside with a switch and a TV connection? A proper antenna for the new TV frequencies will be a lot smaller. Most of the campers had a Winegard bat wing antenna they were much smaller and the amps were inside of the unit powered by the coax cable. The best place for a signal amp is right at the feed point of the antenna. Does that thing have a crank inside to raze it? I guess I am wondering if you could adapt a new high freq antenna to the mounts they would be about 1/4 the size. As far as an amp if it is inside that is not the best place and with out test equipment it would be had to tell wither it worked or not. The Winegard ones were pretty simple if you had no picture and had 12 volts at the coax connection at the antenna the amp was bad.

**JohnB** · 02-17-2014, 07:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rchancey

Mine looks different from your replacement. Do they even make this type anymore (see photo attachment) ? I was thinking of securing a smaller newer version to this antenna so I can raise and lower it. Radio shack had some small ones, not sure they would work ? I also found an amplifier in the same of the connection for the coax cable. Not sure it works either.

The Winguard Sensar is what the newer campers have. They work well. This one has the wingman feature built in
RV Antenna - VHF UHF Winegard Sensar Antennas

There is also a wall power supply to go with it. Mine uses this
Amazon.com: Winegard RV-7042 White Wall Plate Power Supply: Automotive

You can also add a Wing man unit to help on more channels and better clarity if you find one with out it.
Amazon.com: winegard wingman

They do work well.

Good luck

John

mainah · 02-18-2014, 06:26 AM

The biggest problem he is going to have is the spacing of the lift bars and the only way out maybe a Yagi antenna between the bars if one's long enough. I got to say I have never seen a Yagi camper antenna most all of them are the bat wing type.

dtstanton · 02-18-2014, 10:57 AM

I had understood that DTV carrier is in the same freq range that analog was, just that the info/data in that carrier envelope has changed from analog to digital. <confused>

mainah · 02-18-2014, 04:13 PM

Nope much higher. That is why the antennas are a lot smaller. Other wise you would have been able to use the same old antenna. The antenna design is by frequency digital has nothing to do with the antenna only the frequency.

Gene · 02-18-2014, 06:18 PM

When TV stations went digital most (but not all) moved from the lower VHF channels (2 to 13) to higher UHF channels. I found there were a few exceptions. I found one in Maine still using channel 7 (WVII) and I found a few more still in on the upper VHF frequencies.

It really confuses people that stations use their "virtual" channel number which is NOT their RF channel number. ex: My local channel 10 is really on channel 51 but still call themselves channel 10 (WJAR).

dtstanton · 02-18-2014, 08:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gene

When TV stations went digital most (but not all) moved from the lower VHF channels (2 to 13) to higher UHF channels. I found there were a few exceptions. I found one in Maine still using channel 7 (WVII) and I found a few more still in on the upper VHF frequencies.

That's how I understood it, Gene. They still occupy most of the UHF area - where analog channels 14 - 83 were. Still within the old allocated TV broadcast bands, albeit a smaller area. I would expect that the old UHF antennas would serve the purpose. Most rooftop antennas from "yesterday" cover both VHF and UHF so you could watch channels 3 - 83 if they were available - not just channels 3 - 13. That's why they were made with both the long (angled) and the short (perpendicular) elements.

mainah · 02-19-2014, 12:02 PM

Yes they have moved up into the UHF range and beyond all the way up to old analog cell phone freqs. The old antennas were called log periodic each element had a frequency it was tuned to the longest elements were the lowest frequencies and the little ones the highest so any of the big elements are virtually worthless anymore and would actually be detrimental. You could cut off the UHF part and use just it but it would not cover enough of the band to make it worthwhile. The new antennas are cheap and work for all the frequencies. The little add on parts for the bat wing antennas are called directors they add gain to the old bat wings. The amps inside the bat wings are very broad banded and they will work on most of the new frequencies.

Gene · 02-19-2014, 06:34 PM

Just to clarify the channels now used. We used to have channel 2 to channel 83 over the air. In 1982 Channels 70 to 83 were tanken away from the TV band and used for cell phone frequencies. ( aprox 807 MHz to 885 MHz). With the digital change, channels 52 to 69 were de-allocated in 2009 which was 700 MHz and higher.

dtstanton · 02-19-2014, 08:09 PM

And 2010 recommendations were for it to cut back even further - to channel 30 at 572 MHz. Don't know where that stands today.