Winegard Wingman


try2findus

try2findus

Senior Member
After searching through the posts of the last 7 months, (the search is so helpful) I do not see any postings regarding the Winegard Wingman. We have read some of the reviews on the Camping World website but what are the opinions out there?

Should we just bite the bullet and go more high tech? We still have a few years before we hope to fulltime and don't want to shell out too many $$$ or sign any longterm contracts...

We really do like to watch the news, weather and late shows while traveling and of course the DH loves his football, so please give us some opinions.

Thanks
 
TexasClodhopper

TexasClodhopper

Senior Member
Re: Winegard Wingman

Hey, we were just there in Baton Rouge this past Saturday. Visited the capital building and almost got eaten by that giant red mud bug at the museum! :clown:

"Digital" TV is mostly UHF transmission which is much more line-of-sight than VHF which was just discontinued. (The "digital" part of TV really makes little difference to the reception by the antenna.) Your TV reception system has to receive a certain level of signal (signal 'volume', if you will) for the 'digital' part of the TV to operate. (Think of it like breaking the squelch level in a CB radio.) The good news is that if you receive above that level, you will see a very fine picture. The bad news is that below that level you will see nothing. (No snowy picture like in the "old days.")

You will get better reception by putting up more metal, by putting the antenna up higher and by making your antenna more directional (or combinations of these.) Here's a link to a bunch of antennas that might help your situation. You might have to do more searching on the model numbers to find a seller, and you probably will have to do some work to get them to mount to your batwing. They are not RV specific.

http://www.hdtvantennalabs.com/hdtv-antenna-reviews.php
 
Grandview Trailer Sa

Grandview Trailer Sa

Senior Member
Re: Winegard Wingman

The Wingman sells in my store for $29.99. Not much to shell out, and it works!! I can install one in less than 5 mins.

At one campground I installed a Wingman after the customer had scanned his channels without it. He picked up 4 more channels. At another campground a customer went from 3 channels to 13. In my Mother in Laws back yard I get about 35 channels. In my own yard I get 10.

NOW, you do have to re scan your channels each time you move, and every location will be different as to how many channels you pick up. I do believe that the newer TV, the more channels you will receive. I have heard a lot of complaints about the converter boxes. Maybe they don't work so great or it is the operator....I don't know.
 
Kirk

Kirk

Senior Member
Re: Winegard Wingman

We got one of the converter boxes and it worked pretty well with the standard bat-wing antenna from Winegard. If you plan to use a converter box, don't get the cheapest one available as there are some pretty poor quality ones out there and also some excellent ones. We bought one from Zenith which cost the $40 card from the government and an extra $23. But it is much better than the cheap ones. The good boxes will pass the signal through uneffected if the box is turned off. That is important for an RV if you have the box between the signal selector switch and the TV. But simply turning off the box you can connect to the to the campground's cable signal and it will work.

Another feature that is good about the better boxes is that they can display programing information, sometimes better than the digital TVs do. And the one that we have has a signal level indicator that we can use to adjust the antenna to get the best possible signal strength. This too is something that our new digital TV sets do not have. After we used the box for a time, we replaced the front TV with the intention of keeping the box for the rear TV but the wife liked the new digital TV in the front so well that we bought a second one and gave the box to our son.

As to the "Wingman" it does work. If you are in an area with strong TV signals, you probably do not need it but in more rural areas you will. Where we have been for the past two months we got 13 channels with the converter box and the standard bat-wing. Adding the "Wingman" to our antenna increased our number of channels from 13 to 19. When we removed the box and installed the two digital TV sets we found that the number of stations was exactly the same as before, or very nearly so. I'm not positive that it didn't improve just a little, but not much.
 
try2findus

try2findus

Senior Member
Re: Winegard Wingman

Thanks for all of the input. I think we've decided to forego the Wingman and keep doing more research as most of our travels are out west where the signals seen harder to receive.

We are trying to plan a trip up to the Skyline Drive this fall and will try to stop by and see Ken at Grandview Trailer Sales. I feel confident he will help us decide on the best product for us.
 
H2H1

H2H1

Senior Member
Re: Winegard Wingman

Hey Jeanie and Randy try to make it in Oct, we are planning on going that way for out fall outing. As well as some others. I will say this about Ken he will not try to push anything on you that you don't need or want. We may buy a Wingman this Oct when we show up at his place. Take care and good luck.
 
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