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  • Problem with antenna

    We have one of those small antennas on the roof,
    King I think, factory installed, well now it will not turn nor will the tv pick up channels. We are not technically inclined. Do we need to get a mobil tech?
    2017 Reflection 337

  • #2
    Originally posted by MikeJoyce View Post
    We have one of those small antennas on the roof,
    King I think, factory installed, well now it will not turn nor will the tv pick up channels. We are not technically inclined. Do we need to get a mobil tech?
    2017 Reflection 337
    Hi there. And welcome to the forum. Is there a chance that you can snap a photo of the antenna? Just a shot from the ground will do. Once I see the model, I can give you advice on how to proceed.

    Did it used to turn and now it won't? Or has it never turned?

    Jim
    Jim and Ginnie
    2024 Solitude 310GK
    GDRV Technical Forum Moderator
    GDRV Rally Support Coordinator

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    • #3
      It worked for a while now it will not it's dark here now I'll send pix tomorrow. Thanks

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by MikeJoyce View Post
        It worked for a while now it will not it's dark here now I'll send pix tomorrow. Thanks
        Mike, you don't have to be very "technically-inclined" to explore this problem. The King Jack is a very simple mostly-plastic device.

        From the control handle in the ceiling of your trailer, a rectangular plastic rod extends up through the stalk of your antenna to connect - square peg in a square hole - with the rotating antenna on top.

        The operating handle is very easy to remove... pry off the cover plate around the handle and remove the four screws, wriggle the handle straight down and it will come out. See if it's operating freely, no broken plastic bits in it.

        There's a pretty sizable hole in the ceiling where the handle lives, into which you can peer to explore for problems such as twisted cables.

        With the handle removed, you or someone can go on the roof (or up a ladder at the side of the trailer) and try turning the antenna; even better if you can send someone else up to turn while you look up into the hole from inside.

        These simple explorations might reveal something that you can correct yourself. If not, my radical suggestion is to not pay to get it looked at and fixed but just replace the antenna with the non-rotating Winegard Air 360 that Grand Design is now installing on many of its trailers. The antenna costs well under $100, is not hard to install, and has the benefits of a smooth low profile, no moving parts to fail, and no more need to rotate the antenna to get good signals.

        I did that recently, and it wasn't a very-technical task. Here's my write-up on it from another forum. Hope this helps.


        Update, the Winegard Air 360 has been installed to replace our damaged King Jack antenna. No pictures, sorry, but it was a very simple task.

        The King Jack came off easily. I very easily scraped the sealant off the six screws holding it down and removed them. I was then able to gently and slowly push the antenna out of the rest of the sealant to remove it (careful though, that roof membrane is THIN!)

        A single super-thin coax cable was the only connection to the antenna batwing that had been broken off - it was adapted to a regular RG-6 coax just beneath the roof. An extension of hard plastic rose out of the hole - the physical extension of the rotation knob inside the bedroom. I removed most of that and reinstalled the control assembly on the bedroom ceiling rather than deal with patching the holes there.

        There was enough - just enough - RG-6 under the roof to attach to the Winegard's TV antenna connector. However the Winegard has a separate FM antenna inside the dome that requires a second RG-6 cable connection. Apparently the King Jack feeds both FM and TV through the single cable that GD installed to the antenna? After searching I didn't find a splitter that could combine the two antenna signals onto one cable (is there one?). I tried a "backwards" use of one of the available-everywhere two-way cable splitters but it eliminated most of the TV channels. So I simply ran a short cable from the FM antenna to the inside to be used later for FM somehow. We don't use the junk factory radio anyway so not a big deal for us. With only the TV antenna connected the radio does receive a few local stations, which it might do without any antenna.

        By mounting the Winegard off-center from the original King Jack's hole I got pretty close to satisfying Winegard's instruction that the antenna be 18" from any obstacle (the bedroom air conditioner) and 18" from the wall of the trailer. I had to remove some of the lap sealant from the King Jack installation to place the antenna dome where it needed to be, but that was surprisingly easy after reading many posts here about how hard it is. Just rolling it slowly and gently with my thumbs I was able to peel it completely from the roof!

        Finally, the antenna comes with its own wall plate and booster switch. It looked identical to the GD-installed booster system for the King Jack, but since its circuit board was screened with the Winegard logo I decided to install the new one anyway just in case there are differences.

        So, does it work?! In our current location yes, pretty well. It pulls in 24 stations vs. the 27 stations the King Jack had given us. Some of them are not very stable, just like the King Jack, and it may be that the completely-missing three were unwatchably-weak ones on the King Jack (sorry, I didn't record or do this very scientifically). Most of the stations appear excellently on our GD-supplied TCL TV, at least as clear and sharp if not more so than we got from the King Jack.

        Not having to fiddle with rotating the antenna to get good signals, and having one less thing on my roof to be taken off by low-hanging trees, are nice bonuses. So far, it looks like the misfortune of losing the King Jack to a branch somewhere may be good fortune after all.
        Mark - 2018 Solitude 310GK - Ford F-350 SRW diesel short box - Pullrite Superglide hitch

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        • Jkwilson
          Jkwilson commented
          Editing a comment
          BS good post. Plenty of “Been there, done that.” experience!

      • #5
        Mark, I am considering the Winegard AIR 360 to replace the King on my Imagine. I assume the roof on your Solitude has some curve or slope. Was mounting the 360 an issue, and if so, how did you compensate with mounting and sealing?

        John H

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        • #6
          Originally posted by johnhoffman66 View Post
          Mark, I am considering the Winegard AIR 360 to replace the King on my Imagine. I assume the roof on your Solitude has some curve or slope. Was mounting the 360 an issue, and if so, how did you compensate with mounting and sealing? John H
          Hi John. First, let me suggest that when you're replying to a post - especially if you want the author of that post to know you have replied - then use the "Quote" link at the bottom of the post you're replying to. The text you're responding to will then be copied into your reply (which helps with continuity as a thread grows) and the person you're responding to gets a notification of your response.

          Luckily I've seen your question. You are correct, the roof is not flat or level.

          You can compensate for the former by using something called "butyl tape" under the rim of the Winegard half-dome. It's like a thick tape made of putty, very soft and malleable, and available at many RV supply stores as well as many hardware stores. Stick a layer of that underneath the entire rim of the half-dome, then press the half-dome firmly to the roof before screwing it down. It more than compensates for minor differences in flatness and adds some additional protection against leakage. (Of course lots of lap sealant is also required after it's screwed down.)

          As for "level", I didn't worry about it and based on what I've seen on the road I don't think others do either. Our Winegard is an inch or more lower on its outside edge than its inside edge but it works fine. I'd be surprised if the effort of creating and installing a wedge-shaped support to make the antenna level could be detected on the television screen.

          If you have a Solitude with a front air conditioner you'll find that there's not enough space to strictly observe Winegard's advice that the antenna be placed 18" away from the side of the trailer and 18" from any obstruction. I did the best I could - which was well off-center from the hole created for the King Jack antenna - and it seems to work fine. The alternative was to put it somewhere else far from that hole which again didn't seem worth the effort.

          Good luck.
          Mark - 2018 Solitude 310GK - Ford F-350 SRW diesel short box - Pullrite Superglide hitch

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