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Bill.Satellite
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To use the Sensar Pro in a manner other than it was designed seems to make no particular sense to me but I will not argue with you. I just want others to know that Winegard states the Wingman will not improve performance on any non-amplified antenna (despite what you might read in a marketing piece) and the Sensar Pro is designed to be used with a 10 default setting and only adjusted up or down if there are reception issues.
What I post is my 2 cents and nothing more. Please don't read anything into my post that's not there. If you disagree, that's OK.
Can't we all just get along?
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SCVJeff
Santa Clarita, CA.
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Tom_M wrote:---SNIP---
The SensarPro is a 10db amp. The gain setting can be set from 0 to 20. 20 equates to 10db and 0 cuts off the signal completely. I am assuming that the scale is linear but who knows? I chose to set it to 1 (0.5db) for readings of the amplified antennas because that's the lowest that would pass a signal. The SensarPro works well for either the batwing or Jack.---SNIP--- What do you mean "cuts it off"? As in nothing through the device at all? Seems to me that 0db is unity gain on the amp. I assume this is nothing more than a variable gain line amp, ya?
My guess is that the Sensor Pro is likely nothing but a generic TV front end/ tuner. They make those chipsets by the millions. So for critical testing I'll still trust my $60k instrument. I don't think I have an easy way to generate an accurate DTV carrier, because it would be fun to run the SensarPro through the mill and see how well it tracks it's user settings.
* This post was
edited 08/20/13 06:10pm by SCVJeff *
Jeff - WA6EQU
'06 Itasca Meridian 34H, CAT C7/350
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SCVJeff
Santa Clarita, CA.
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Bill.Satellite wrote:To use the Sensar Pro in a manner other than it was designed seems to make no particular sense to me but I will not argue with you. I just want others to know that Winegard states the Wingman will not improve performance on any non-amplified antenna (despite what you might read in a marketing piece) and the Sensar Pro is designed to be used with a 10 default setting and only adjusted up or down if there are reception issues. Tom is right, and I have no idea why they would state it won't work in a non-amplified antenna, unless it physically won't mount? If thats not the case, they should review their sales literature because its incorrect and they are losing customers.
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schneid
In the Wind
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Joined: 03/28/2010
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Wow, what a thread! Should I put my Sensar/Wingman back on? Maybe I could stick it on top and couple the two. Maybe put it on a swivel mount so they can point in different directions. I think you can pull that off without ghosting now that it is digital. Glad I have DirecTV. It's starting to seem pretty simple compared to this.
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Bill.Satellite
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SCVJeff wrote:Tom_M wrote:---SNIP---
The SensarPro is a 10db amp. The gain setting can be set from 0 to 20. 20 equates to 10db and 0 cuts off the signal completely. I am assuming that the scale is linear but who knows? I chose to set it to 1 (0.5db) for readings of the amplified antennas because that's the lowest that would pass a signal. The SensarPro works well for either the batwing or Jack.---SNIP--- What do you mean "cuts it off"? As in nothing through the device at all? Seems to me that 0db is unity gain on the amp. I assume this is nothing more than a variable gain line amp, ya?
My guess is that the Sensor Pro is likely nothing but a generic TV front end/ tuner. They make those chipsets by the millions. So for critical testing I'll still trust my $60k instrument. I don't think I have an easy way to generate an accurate DTV carrier, because it would be fun to run the SensarPro through the mill and see how well it tracks it's user settings.
Setting the Sensar Pro to 0 gain completely turns off the 12V power to the antenna and has the same effect that pushing the power button on the 12V power supply has. No power, no signal. Setting it to 1 is also bad unless you are sitting very, very close to those TV towers.
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Bill.Satellite
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SCVJeff wrote:Bill.Satellite wrote:To use the Sensar Pro in a manner other than it was designed seems to make no particular sense to me but I will not argue with you. I just want others to know that Winegard states the Wingman will not improve performance on any non-amplified antenna (despite what you might read in a marketing piece) and the Sensar Pro is designed to be used with a 10 default setting and only adjusted up or down if there are reception issues. Tom is right, and I have no idea why they would state it won't work in a non-amplified antenna, unless it physically won't mount? If thats not the case, they should review their sales literature because its incorrect and they are losing customers.
I think I will go with the 50+ years of TV experience provided by the Winegard Company. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm not. I am just repeating the information provided by my employer.
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SCVJeff
Santa Clarita, CA.
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Bill.Satellite wrote:SCVJeff wrote:Bill.Satellite wrote:To use the Sensar Pro in a manner other than it was designed seems to make no particular sense to me but I will not argue with you. I just want others to know that Winegard states the Wingman will not improve performance on any non-amplified antenna (despite what you might read in a marketing piece) and the Sensar Pro is designed to be used with a 10 default setting and only adjusted up or down if there are reception issues. Tom is right, and I have no idea why they would state it won't work in a non-amplified antenna, unless it physically won't mount? If thats not the case, they should review their sales literature because its incorrect and they are losing customers.
I think I will go with the 50+ years of TV experience provided by the Winegard Company. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm not. I am just repeating the information provided by my employer. I get that. But unless these is a physical problem with mounting it, the Wingman will to nothing but improve the gain of the antenna exactly as it does the powered antennas..
Call engineering and ask them the question directly, its the companies loss to say this without reason. There's at least one antenna designer here that will tell you the same thing. Ether way, Tom is correct on this.
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Tom_M
New Hope, MN
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Both the amplified and non-amplified Sensar III are physically identical. I have both and have used the Wingman on both. It improves the UHF signal on both. The SensarPro is nothing but an amplifier with some added bells and whistles. It would work on any antenna providing that a powered version needs 12 volt DC and a non-powered one does not have a balun that would short the DC.
One would suspect that a gain of zero would be unity but as Bill says, that is not the case.
Tom
2005 Born Free 24RB
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Minneapolis, MN
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Bill.Satellite
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So I learned something today. You are, of course, both right about the Wingman working just as well with an amplified Sensar as a non-amplified Sensar. Thank you for the correction and the additional knowledge.
However, I am correct that using the Sensar Pro as Tom_M was doing would not be a fair test of the antennas capabilities as turning the setting down from 10 to 1 would attenuate the available signal.
Here is the information I received that might better explain the use of the Sensar Pro.
The “GAIN” setting adjusts the amplification/attenuation of the signal. The SensarPro can amplify (increase) signal up to 10 dB when set to 20, or attenuate (decrease) signal if the setting is lower than 10. With the Gain set to 10, it is neutral, not amplifying, not attenuating. With the gain set to 1, like the user did in his test, it is actually attenuating (removing signal) the signal significantly, not amplifying like he thought it was doing. It is not linear, so I don’t know the exact amount of attenuation. With the Gain set to 15, I would guess it is about 5 dB, as the gain is probably fairly close to linear (amplifies up to 10 dB, 10 steps on the gain setting above 10). Of course, this is all in addition/subtraction to the amplifying that is done in the antenna head directly.
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SCVJeff
Santa Clarita, CA.
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So there ya go...Thanks Bill
Also thanks for the clarification on the settings as well. I haven't opened the box on mine yet, but might test it too as I now have the parameters saved and can create exactly the same screenshot as the rest of the pix. It would have been nice to have 0 (zero) equal unity, but there's only so much you can do with 2 digits.
As for the amp, there is no reason whatsoever that it cannot be used with any other antenna, including a piece of wire. But when attempting to test an antenna in front of it: Batwing, Jack or that piece of wire, you simply don't touch the Sensar Pro's gain settings. I makes no difference what the gain setting is (although unity is always better), as long as it's not changed for the comparisons.
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