Tuesday, May 22, 2012

King Controls RV JACK HD Antenna & SureLock Signal Finder Review

In the world of RV’ing there aren’t many options for pulling in digital TV. Regarding the JACK HD antenna, lets comment on the positive first, at the Paul Wolff campground in site # 33 we got one dot on the SureLock signal strength meter and managed to pull in 49 channels. Fantastic, with the factory batwing in this same position we got 3 channels, 2 of them Live well and the other, ABC and that was it. So we know the JACK antenna pulls in stations even when the signal is poor. Good job on the electronic portion of the design. Thumbs up

My negatives are the following, very cheap construction quality. For the price I expected much better. The longevity of this product is questionable to me for the following reasons. 1. As mentioned cheaply built. 2. The soldering quality is poor, if I soldered like this I would have been kicked out of High School electronics class. 3. Nothing to keep out water, poorly designed and built cabinet. This is huge Thumbs down and I may take mine back down to caulk the perimeter inside but not the holes that help it breath from the bottom. This should help when driving in the rain. 4. The included power “injector” is too weak to power the antenna from the front of the coach so I had to use the Winegard SB-2000 that was in the coach when we bought it. I know the antenna is getting the right voltage but it’s probably a little low on the milliamp side, we’ll see how it holds up.

The SureLock Digital Signal finder came in handy since I removed the digital converter box which gave signal readings. I needed something to help me aim the new antenna. I have to reinstall the converter box so the TV in the bedroom can work, just need to figure out if you can use a converter box on an already converted signal, not real sure but will find out.

Thanks for stopping by, I’ll find out more about use a mix of tube TV and Digital TV when I get the answers.

Here is the box (image from Google search)

jackantenna

Here is the box contents (image from Google search)

jackantenna2

SureLock Digital TV Signal Finder (image from Google search)

SureLock® Digital TV Signal Finder

Here is the finished install.

IMAG0585

8 comments:

OWS said...

by a satalite stupod!

Big Matt said...

OWS: ESAD, please :)

Erik, do you happen to have a Smart phone?

Erik's RV Blog said...

Matt - Yeah, I have an HTC Thunderbolt and aside from some quirks I love it.

Erik's RV Blog said...

OWS - You crack me up. We didn't buy an RV to watch a few hundred channels, we watch RetroTV, RTV, THIS and a few other retro styled channels at night after we have enjoyed ourselves outside. I see no reason to spend money on something we wouldn't use.

Is Mommy and Daddy buying a satellite system for your new awesome RV? What kind of rig did they buy for you?

OWS said...

stupod peple by droid! iphone best! i also have macpro!

Erik's RV Blog said...

OWS - I know you're trying to get me to lock down the comments section. I also know you can't possibly be as stupid as you come off here.

I know Mommy and Daddy probably did not buy you an RV but I don't doubt that they probably coddle you. The world does not spin around you, you are no more special than anybody else no matter how much Mommy tells you that you are.

Get a life, grow up or just go away, you bring nothing to the discussion except to lower the overall IQ of people who might read your comments.

Go away, find another protest to whine at.

Big Matt said...

Erik, since you have the exact same phone as me, I recommend installing this app on it, works rather well for actually locating where the antennas you're aiming at are before the aiming starts :)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=potkay.tvantennahelper.free#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDUwMSwicG90a2F5LnR2YW50ZW5uYWhlbHBlci5mcmVlIl0.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the information,they are really helpful for me. keep publishing such nice posts. You can also use the outdoor hdtv antenna