TV antenna location

[Yoshimura]

Hello, The antenna on our Roadtrek is very close to the A/C... Do you think this could affect its performance?

[rowiebowie]

Your Sole' antenna looks the same as the one on my '2012 Airstream Avenue, so they've been making them a long time.

Mine sits as close to the ac as yours and I can say we don't get very good reception, but, it may be just the antenna and not the ac. However, I've tried several indoor antennas including one that attached to the rear lounge window with suction cups that works pretty well in our house and none worked as good in the van as the Sole'.

Probably just too much metal nearby (although I have a fiberglass roof cap) and the fact that omni-directional antennas aren't really omni-directional.

I don't want a to add anything bulky to my roof and really don't want to crank an antenna around looking for signals since we just don't watch much tv on the road. But I'll be following your thread in case someone comes up with a better solution.

[hbn7hj]

I like the Winegard Automatic. Took me three of them to get a good one but it works very well. Motor driven directional under a dome. Working two years now. Hope it hangs in there. The gearbox on the motor drive failed on the first two.

Great for stealth camping. Don’t have to raise an antenna.

[jimservice]

We too have the Winegard Automatic on our PW Lexor. It is installed up front next to our Fantastic Fan. We have noticed considerable interference when our Fan is running. I think it would be safe to assume something similar from the a/c. Good luck.

[mkguitar]

Originally Posted by jimservice

up front next to our Fantastic Fan. We have noticed considerable interference when our Fan is running..

any moving spinning object near an antenna will interfere, metal worse, plastic a little better.


I'm in a similar boat to you but i know why


we try to camp where the weather is nice and rarely use our ac and really only use the fan when cooking


mike

[Davydd]

Advamced RV took care of us. What we got was a Winegard Rayzar Dome automatic antenna for over the air TV when and, where available, that also has cable TV capability. It is coupled with WiFiRanger that picks up external WiFi and boost the signal. Instead of connecting directly to the external WiFi all our devices, computer, smartphone and tablets connect to our internal WiFi network. The TV antenna is also connected to the internal network so it functions as a distributor of that over the air signal or cable wirelessly to our iPhones and iPads using an app, HDHomeRun. You don’t need an external WiFi source. Since most ARVs have WiFi Ranger I guess all you need is the free app, HDHomeRun.

We don't have a normal TV installed as we can get over the air and cable TV with our iPads and we can each watch what we want that way. The Winegard Rayzar Dome Antenna is nestled between the openable skylight hatch, Maxxfan and the air conditioner. It seems to work well.

[jrobe]

We went to a far extreme and put a Tracvision Direct TV satellite system on our van roof. Ours is an A9 model which is about 5" tall. It has a gimbal that locks onto the satellite even when the vehicle is traveling. It works amazingly well although trees at a campsite will occasionally block the signal. It also only reads the standard definition satellite channels which supposedly will come to end at some point but it hasn't changed yet. We just grab our home satellite receiver when we leave home. For some reason the price of our unit has gone way up compared to what we paid in 2017 so I probably wouldn't do it again.

[Bud]

Originally Posted by jrobe

We went to a far extreme and put a Tracvision Direct TV satellite system on our van roof. Ours is an A9 model which is about 5" tall. It has a gimbal that locks onto the satellite even when the vehicle is traveling. It works amazingly well although trees at a campsite will occasionally block the signal. It also only reads the standard definition satellite channels which supposedly will come to end at some point but it hasn't changed yet. We just grab our home satellite receiver when we leave home. For some reason the price of our unit has gone way up compared to what we paid in 2017 so I probably wouldn't do it again.

But high definition Dish network channels?

[hbn7hj]

I have the A9 also. Don’t believe it till it happens but DirecTV is going one satellite HD soon. Dish on the A9 is HD now.

If you coat it with NeverWet from Rustoleum you can receive TV in rain. Lasts about six months then you have to recoat it.

I have the winegard automatic also. First two went belly up really quick but the third is hanging in there. The gear train on the rotator would self destruct.

[hbn7hj]

Originally Posted by juliediane

no response.

Don’t know anything about residential antennas and putting a Winegard automatic on a roof would seem to be a waste of money. Gotta be a better solution.

[avanti]

Originally Posted by hbn7hj

Don’t know anything about residential antennas and putting a Winegard automatic on a roof would seem to be a waste of money. Gotta be a better solution.

In 16 years of B-vanning, I can count the number of times we have used our OTA antennas while camping on one hand. I'm pretty sure that this time around we are going to put all our eggs into the cellular data basket. I am going to shop for the best 5G MiMo setup that I can find and forget about OTA, campground WiFi and cell "boosters". For the increasingly rare nights with no cell service, we carry movies and series episodes stored on our streaming apps.

Time to move on.