Installing king jack hdtv antenna

dmarlo · 08-28-2017, 10:04 PM

Newbies, needing help. Planning on changing standard antenna with a king jack. Which sealant is best? Dicor or butly?

Awilson · 08-29-2017, 04:51 AM

I'm no expert but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night. LOL! Seriously I would use the butyl tape under the lip and screw that down and dicor or eternabond tape over the top of the fasteners. Double sealed against water.

aceinspp · 08-29-2017, 06:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dmarlo

Newbies, needing help. Planning on changing standard antenna with a king jack. Which sealant is best? Dicor or butly?

What kind of antenna do you have now? Id save my money and just by the regular king jack as all pick up HD as I just put one on my TT for half the price. Mine all I had to do was change the head of the antenna. Later RJD

dmarlo · 08-29-2017, 06:05 PM

Thank you for responses. Not sure on current antenna. I think we got caught up as new owners and started buying upgrades would knowing if we needed it.

Bob Vaughn · 08-30-2017, 01:37 PM

I replaced my standard crank up antenna with a Jack antenna....with in a couple months I found a small twig hanging from a limb and ripped it off. I replaced it and with in a month coming home on a road that I had traveled hundreds and hundreds of times and semi's use once again I had the new one ripped off. The achilles heel of these antenna's is the housing is very flimsy plastic and the least bit of pressure breakes them off. I went back to a crank up with a HD digital antenna head and have not lost it ......I was very disappointed in the jack antenna....

ben31 · 08-30-2017, 01:52 PM

If you have the crank-up antenna, you can get the King Jack replacement head. Easy to replace the head and still just crank it up and down. Yes, I did find the King Jack helped quite a bit. If you do this, when you install the head, face the flat side toward the direction that cranks down and your inside arrow will now point in the direction your antenna points (unlike the winegard, which is offset by 90 degrees).

dmarlo · 08-30-2017, 07:41 PM

Thanks to all.

CAD-on the road again · 08-30-2017, 07:45 PM

We too had our King Jack antenna ripped off by a low hanging wire. BUT we replaced it and gonna try it again and watch out for low objects. Because the HD in it brings in a beautiful picture. I contacted the company that makes them and they will tell you what to use when you install it. They said they changed them from 12 incjes tall to 8 inches tall due to being ripped off. By the way it makes a god awful sound when it happens !!

Sunseeker24 · 09-06-2017, 09:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChrisRickard

By the way it makes a god awful sound when it happens !!

Mine hasn't been ripped off by a tree yet, but the stop that keeps the antenna from spinning completely around has broken due to branches. Having a broken stop allows the antenna to spin anytime you hit a branch which makes it real tough figuring out how many times the antenna lead has wound around the base.

The biggest design flaw I see in the King Jack is that there is no turn lock on it so anytime it hits a branch it will spin on its own. If the branch is tough enough and your close enough to the stop. the stop will break.

Right now, I am living with the guessing game as to the antenna lead not being wound too many times seeing as there is no easy way to just take the head of the antenna off. This means you have to remove both the dicor and the mounting bolts to access the antenna lead wire so if anything breaks, your stuck replacing the entire unit.

If the reason for changing TV antennas is because you want a "DTV" antenna, just purchase a 'DTV" head and replace that. Parts are still available for the old style crank up antenna and you don't need to remove the entire unit to repair broken gears, etc.

Hope this is of some help.

Summit1 · 03-18-2018, 06:48 AM

I finally decided to buy the King Jack OA8300 (replacement for OEM "bow tie" on my V-Lite); bought it on sale at the RV dealership yesterday. All I need is some warm weather so I can get up on the roof and swap the old for the new. My problem here at home is that there is no OTA TV reception (that I know of) with the OEM antenna. So, if the OA8300 produces any signals at all, it will be a bonus.

Not sure how much gain (in dB) the King Jack provides over the OEM, but it will be an interesting experiment.

Awilson · 03-18-2018, 07:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Summit1

I finally decided to buy the King Jack OA8300 (replacement for OEM "bow tie" on my V-Lite); bought it on sale at the RV dealership yesterday. All I need is some warm weather so I can get up on the roof and swap the old for the new. My problem here at home is that there is no OTA TV reception (that I know of) with the OEM antenna. So, if the OA8300 produces any signals at all, it will be a bonus.

Not sure how much gain (in dB) the King Jack provides over the OEM, but it will be an interesting experiment.

I would be interested to hear about your results. I have an RV builder close to me that swears by these antennas, especially the total replacement one that has signal strength lights inside the cabin.

Macrosill · 03-18-2018, 07:59 AM

On my previous trailer I had the Winegard Sensar with the Wingman UHF upgrade. On my current trailer I have the Kingjack. In my home area, and overall opinion, the Kingjack outperforms the Winegard.

Onto the OPs question, Butyl tape under the mounts and dicor on top of the screws and around the edges like everything else mounted to the roof, minus the AC.

Summit1 · 04-27-2018, 06:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Awilson

I would be interested to hear about your results. I have an RV builder close to me that swears by these antennas, especially the total replacement one that has signal strength lights inside the cabin.

I finally had some dry and fairly warm weather, so up to the TT roof I went. The changeover too about fifteen minutes, with a helper inside the trailer to manipulate the antenna and its mounting bracket. Using the existing "power injector", I measured 13.66 VDC at the antenna end of the cable, so I connected the antenna.

Keep in mind the red LED indicator on the bottom of the antenna is not easily seen in direct daylight.

I was receiving no signals over the air from my driveway, and that was not changed by the new antenna... my location is simply lousy.

While I cannot yet compare old vs. new, I expect the new OA8300 will be enough improvement to justify the small ecpenditure of time and money. I will do a (not scientific) comparison next month while parked next to a fellow camper who still has the "batwing".

sask · 04-28-2018, 05:32 PM

I bought my RV used. It had a king Jack antenna but did not seem to work very well. I removed it from the roof and took it apart and discovered that the cable that goes up to the antenna head was snapped. There is supposed to be a small plastic stopper that prevents the head from rotating to the point where it would stress the antenna wire. It was broken which in turn allowed the wire to be broken. I repaired the plastic tab using some UV repair glue. The cable was hard to replace since it is quite thin and needs to be flexible to rotate inside the shaft. I also noticed some stress cracks at the base of the antenna mount. Mine is repaired for now but the whole antenna seems to be a bit on the fragile side.

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