And yet, another Winegard Antenna.

[stevek]

To add to my confusion of getting the best over the air TV.
Meet the Winegard Rayzar Z1 HD.

And the Danger of me climbing up and trying this baby out
Just kidding. Any idea of whose BF this belongs to.

[tomzleapin]

That's me down in Florida. The mast is military surplus that I bought on ebay. It is 4 foot aluminum tubes that stack together with a Winegard Batwing antenna on top.

[stevek]

Tom, you are a man after my own heart. Looks like something I would do.
I am always looking for a better way to get free over the air TV.
So, the line loss was OK, and you got TV OK?

I am still using my Winegard Rayzar with mixed results.

[tomzleapin]

Quite often I'm camped in areas that are quite a distance from TV stations so the mast works well. Cable length is not a problem. I recently found a site that sells telescoping flag poles:
http://www.polesandholders.com/home.php?cat=1

That might be a better option than the stacking poles that I use.

[stevek]

Thanks.... good find.
And giving me the idea.

[Mike Jean Bandfield]

Am I the only one thinking: Florida + tall mast = LIGHTNING Sucker!!! Tom, do you ground that mast to the power pedestal, ground stake or something outside? When there's a threat of lighting we disconnect power and disconnect the computer (our TV's a PVR) from the Winegard and lower it. These things can be done quickly before a storm get's too close but the thought of wrangling a 12' metal mast with a storm approaching scares me. (Oh - we don't use leveling jacks so we are electrically floating but the BF is no Faraday shell - so???) So, my sense of it is that we are woefully exposed to lightning while sitting in our BF in a thunderstorm. Most of our RVing is on the west coast so we seldom get to experience tornadoes, hurricanes and such - Thank God. What do you do?

Should we start a new thread?

-Mike

[tomzleapin]

I don't know if grounding the mast would be a good idea. Seems like it would just make it a better target for lightning. It would be best to take it down if a storm was approaching. A thunderstorm came through a couple weeks ago. I didn't dare take the mast down because of the danger of a strike happening while handling it.

I dry camp virtually 100% so I'm never hooked to power. I don't disconnect anything.