Installed the King Jack directional over the air antenna and a portable satellite antenna on the roof

 We were very displeased with the performance of the omni directional over the air television antenna located inside the Winegard Connect 2.0. We have been trying different over the air antennas for years and always went back to the old Batwing directional antenna because we have not found anything as good. We did mount a King Jack on the Batwing once and found it to be almost as good. Not wanting to deal with the problematic crank up mechanism on the Batwing or worry about forgetting to lower it before hitting the road we opted to install the King Jack for our over the air antenna. We chose to drill the hole and mount the rotational control inside the cabinet housing the satellite and television equipment. To be on the safe side we measured carefully and then drilled a pilot hole using a long 1/4 inch drill bit up from the inside.

Drill bit used for a pilot hole coming thru the roof

Rather than using an extension on the hole saw and risking damaging the ceiling or the roof we drilled with the hole saw from both inside and on the roof.

Notice the thickness of the roof and that it is solid Styrofoam with a sheet of metal and luan on the roof side. We did not have to use the extension on the King Jack and just adjusted it for the thickness of the roof. The hole saw should be sharp to cut thru the metal sheet. When installing the dryer vent we noticed the same sheet of metal between the Styrofoam and the luan on the exterior wall. Forget running wires inside the roof or side walls on this coach because they are sold Styrofoam. We did notice that if you can find one of the cable raceways the factory installed in the floor or the ceiling you might be able to fish a new cable in. Removing the panel at the bottom of the shower we noticed a raceway from there to the fresh water tank under the bed. We made a mental note of this just in case we decide to install a diverter valve inside the shower to route water back to the fresh water tank when taking a Navy shower. The purpose of that is to keep the water flowing in the tankless water heater without sending it into the gray tank when boondocking.

Once we got the hole drilled thru the roof we disconnected the over the air coax from the Winegard Connect and used an F-connector splice to attach the King Jack RG-6 to that same cable. We used the existing power injector that Thor installed and that cable was already routed to were it needed to be. The King Jack does not come supplied with a length of RG-6 and we made our own. We keep a roll of RG-6, connectors, stripper, and compression tools handy so did not have to purchase anything.

Connect to existing RG-6 by removing it from the Winegard Connect

In preparation for installing the portable satellite antenna on the roof we removed the cable plate that Thor had installed and replaced it with the four cable version that comes with the roof mounting kit.

We used Steren coaxial cable clips to fasten RG-6 routes to the roof. Be sure to cover them with self-leveling caulk to keep the moisture out.

The instructions for mounting the satellite antenna on the roof gives distances that the unit must be located from other objects on the roof based on their height. We wanted to install the satellite in the center of the roof but that would have violated those distance requirements. That is why we mounted it were we did.