Winegard Batwing Antenna

I made the mistake of not ordering my new camper without a TV antenna. I wonder if anyone has installed one themselves. I would use a Winegard Batwing Sensor III which is on sale from camping world for $115.00.
What I am wondering is if Trailmanor has special blocking in the roof and if they installed the coax to that spot during manufacture.

I talked with Ed and there is no blocking he suggested that I run the wire along the edge of the roof and down the stabilizer and follow the wire bundle up into the fridge compartment and connect into the TV outlet. I did and it went good. It is not to hard to work at the back of th fridge when both outside panels are removed . I found a tv cable in the fridge compartment not connected to anything on that end, I'll trace it out when I have time although Ed sais ther was not a wire to aarea where they usually put the antenna. Great reception of channels from Duluth even though they are over 100 miles from my home.

[Bill]

A quick call to Ed Lytle at the factory (have your VIN handy) would answer the blocking question. But blocking would go in as the roof is being vacuum-formed, and I doubt that it would be done on a custom basis. Either they all have it, or none of them have it.

The cable is a different story. My TM is closed up across town so I can't look at it right now, but I don't remember that there is a cable either inside or outside the TM. The cable rises from the outside connector on the batwing, then loops back down and disappears - somewhere - and then shows up under the TM, below the refrig if I recall. For the life of me I can't remember the details of how it gets there. Help us out, anyone!!

But if you mount the batwing in the same place that TM does, and then run the cable over the edge of the roof and down the lift arm with all the other wiring, it ought to work just fine.

So I think your problem is very manageable.

Bill

[commodor47]

Bill,

The batwing coax cable runs to a pass through at the base of the hand crank. Removing the hand crank handle and cover plate reveals a cut opening in the ceiling aluminum (very sharp edges!!) where the gray coax coming from the batwing connects to a pass through to the coax leading to the lower area of the refrigerator. From there another pass through connects to the Wineguard wall plate on the panel along the side of the refrigerator. I am not sure how the coax is routed from the crank handle to the lower refrigerator area. Could it run along the wiring channel in the center of the front shell ceiling, along side the A/C then into the outside wiring harness along the support arm of the front shell and then into the lower refrigerator compartment?

I am in the process of placing some photos on a hosting site and will post a link shortly.

Dick

Hi Guys,

The coax cable is inside/behind the white trim where the wall meets the ceiling.

I had to remove mine to make sure where the leak was coming from(darn wineguard cable cover on roof).

If you look at the end of the front shell on the curb side at the top corner and pull back a little bit of the seal material you'll see some other cables/wires heading down from the trim, at least on my 2001 thats the way it's run.

I guess from the wineguard itself they just ran the cable through the foam of the roof over to the side wall and dropped it out and ran it down the wall.

The TMer from Australia did a similar wiring with round puck LED lights by running the wiring through the foam and it looked real nice.

Just wondering what type cable are you using? Another TMer was looking at upgrading to ???? I can't remember now but it was a higher through put type cable as I remember.


Good luck
Bob

[commodor47]

Bill,

Here is a link to photos depicting the coax cable routing of the Winegard batwing antenna . . . at least the cable locations I was able to trace out.

https://photos.google.com/album/AF1Q...hRgSwjm3pFxhUg

The powered antenna feature was not working and I traced the problem to a shorted pass through above the hand crank. It was tight quarters. Fortunately I was able to pull out enough extra cable to repair the short. I added the electrical tape to secure the connection.

Dick

GoodHarbor, in addition to all of the previously posted advice, make sure that you place the antennae far enough forward on the front shell so that the seal (or even the top) of the rear shell doesn't hit the inside crank when the TM is closed. My factory crank seems to be real close to the front seal of the rear shell, so much so that I make sure the crank is not in the rear position when closing.

Chap

[Bill]

Nice pictures, Dick! So the cable does, in fact, run through the foam inside the wall? It seems unlikely that a retrofit could duplicate that routing.

Bill

[commodor47]

Bill, GoodHarbor,

I took a closer look at the Wineguard coax routing: the coax drops through the floor on the right hand side of the refrigerator access area. From there it is bundled with several wires that snake along the bottom of the TM and feed up the inside support arm of the front shell. There is a white rectangular cover over the bundle (and a black plastic wire wrap). The bundle is then attached to the bottom edge of the front shell by two black straps. From there the wires feed up into end trim of the front shell, through the bag seal.

Dick