Sensar/Wingman HDTV sensitivity

[dunebuster]

I just got a Wingman to put on the Sensar antenna of my Montana trailer. Haven't had time to check it's reception.

I was just on Antennaweb.org site looking at HD signals/directions for an upcoming trip. Most of the signals available are labeled yellow or red strength and are UHF channels. Will the Sensar/WIngman combination pull any of these signals in??

What is the sensar/wingman combination rated as using the Antennaweb.org color scale??

[dunebuster]

FInally got the trailer back from dealer repair and tested HDTV reception.

First, the Samsung B26LN360 doesn't have a signal strength meter when selecting Air ( I thought that the Cable mode was hiding the option) so that doesn't help.

After hooking up the TV to the original Sensar antenna and cranking it up and pointing to the Detroit station antenna farm region in Southfiled and scanning for stations, All the local stations came in crisp and clear, but that's only 16 miles so it should. Rotated the antenna to Toledo and all of their stations at ~47 miles, TV Fool shows them at an average signal -79dB and they were good. Took a shot at Lansing stations (55-60 mi and -90 to -105dB) and nothing there.

Then I climbed on top of the trailer and put the Wingman on and retested, Toldeo stations looked better, 3 Lansing stations came in good enough to watch during the day. (yes testing was done around Noon so maybe night time may be a bit better but I don;t expect much as I don't think there is any bounce propagation at UHF freq's)

One other thing I noticed and was a bit concerned was directionality impacts. The Yagi design of the wingman should make the stations you are pointing to have better signal strength, but I was wondering about rejection/reduction of other signals not in line with the Wingman line of sight. But still with pointing to Lansing MI ~280 degrees, the Toledo stations at 180 Deg were still good. The local Detroit stations were still excellent.

To me the bottom line is the Wingman appears to improve HD reception for distant stations. Looking at the FCC database, many HD transmitting antenna use the same tower as the analog signal came from but the analog antenna is mounted higher giving it a longer line of sight and more range. Hopefully we will see stations move the HD signal to the higher position improving range and reception capabiity.

I've got 2 more state parks to camp in during July where OTA reception is needed, so maybe I'll report back then on how much the wingman helps.. The nice thing is the installation was very easy and removing it to test won't be much of a problem.

[dunebuster]

Just found where the signal strength meter is hidden, so I can report some better metrics later..

Note: moderator: should this thread be moved to General RV Discussion instead of where I misplaced it under RV Tech Support??