Community Forums

smlranger · 07-03-2014, 10:01 PM

My Allure has a bat-wing motorized antenna that will raise and lower but will only rotate a quarter turn then sticks there. I ask thinking of replacing it and curious what other CC owners may have used as a replacement. It is pretty sucky at reception.

Dave 430 · 07-03-2014, 10:40 PM

Gary,
I guess since we have the same year model things go out with ours about the same time it goes bad on yours. My bat wing antenna will rise, but it then rotates by itself 180 degrees and that is it, I can not make it rotate in any other direction. I called up the manufacture and they said "OH, the magnetic inside has gone bad" thinking I could do it myself, I ordered the $5 magnetic and they sent it to me. You have to completely take apart the mechanism on the roof, to replace this magnet. So i will be paying attention to what info you get about replacing the antenna.

mytime · 07-04-2014, 07:28 AM

Gary,
I had a similar problem early on with my ota, seemed to have a mind of its own. The mfg. Sent me springs for the 2 legs, no help. After a battle truing to fix the problem, and a few ugly words, they agreed to send me a replacement which also came with a new control box, that has been a couple yrs ago. It has been doing good since then.
You may want to check the caulk around the base, make sure no obstruction, you can also bend the 2springs to add more pressure onto the arms. Good luck

mel s · 07-04-2014, 07:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smlranger

My Allure has a bat-wing motorized antenna that will raise and lower but will only rotate a quarter turn then sticks there. I ask thinking of replacing it and curious what other CC owners may have used as a replacement. It is pretty sucky at reception.

smlranger
Sorry to hear that.
I have the original 18 year old "hand crank, hand rotate" amplified Winegard batwing antenna on my coach.
I have tried/tested a number of different OTA antennas, (including the King Controls Jack), and I found that my "old' batwing, (with a Winegard Wingman: Winegard GS-WING Wingman Sensar TV Antenna Upgrade (GS-WING) from Solid Signal, added), receives the "new" digital TV stations best, (especially distant stations).
BTW, before that trying/testing I replaced the original antenna amp with a Winegard Sensar Pro signal meter: SensarPro TV Signal Strength Meter
Mel
'96 Safari

smlranger · 07-04-2014, 11:26 AM

Well, it appears there has been some 'operator error' involved. In fact, my antenna does work better than I thought. It helps to wait for the TV's to complete their rather prolonged search for the digital channels. The antenna does turn some and I am now getting bunches of OTA programming.

Reading the directions actually helps (as the DW always tells me

).

cdjcase · 12-03-2014, 07:02 PM

After struggling and repairing the batwing for 3 years, I replaced it with the Winegard "flying saucer" antenna and it works better than the mechanical nightmare.

CarlAda · 02-25-2015, 07:12 AM

On a previous coach, I replaced the crank up antenna with a Jack antenna. Was very pleased with it.

mel s · 02-25-2015, 08:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mel s

smlranger
Sorry to hear that.
I have the original 18 year old "hand crank, hand rotate" amplified Winegard batwing antenna on my coach.
I have tried/tested a number of different OTA antennas, (including the King Controls Jack), and I found that my "old' batwing, (with a Winegard Wingman: Winegard GS-WING Wingman Sensar TV Antenna Upgrade (GS-WING) from Solid Signal, added), receives the "new" digital TV stations best, (especially distant stations).
BTW, before that trying/testing I replaced the original antenna amp with a Winegard Sensar Pro signal meter: SensarPro TV Signal Strength Meter
Mel
'96 Safari

BTW, for the best possible reception aim/point a Winegard
"Batwing" like this:

However if you have a "Batwing with the Wingman added"
aim it like this:

Mel
'96 Safari

Smitty77 · 02-25-2015, 09:23 AM

I'm in the process of adding two new Winegard OTA's that will have an A/B setup.

A = New RZ-8500 Auto. This will be wife friendly, and I expect will support us 85% of the time.

B = New manual crank Sensar IV. This will have to primary duties:
1) Primary is for me to raise the WiFiRanger Bullet with their new higher dBi
new RV friendly antenna. (I'll attach it to the arm to get it up a bit higher
off of the roof. Then lay it down flat when the arm is lowered for travel.)
2) For time when the stations are just too far to pull in by the RZ-8500. The
Sensar IV should have some extended range for pulling in more distant
stations.

We're also now adding the Trav'ler Satellite for Direct TV, having never used our older SD KVH in motion unit that has been removed for two years now.

I look forward seeing how well the RZ-8500 performs in the real world. It is spendy - but figured if the DW was happy with 'making it easy' it was worth the extra coin. We'll see....

Best to all,
Smitty