Antennacraft HD 1850 vs. Winegard 8200
 

Has anyone tried a head to head comparison of these two antennas?

I am likely going to be shopping for one now that we don't have access to any fringe or deep fringe VHF only antennas other than a couple of very expensive Max series from Ability HDTV.

VHF low is similar to FM, they are next to each other.

Antenna craft and Winegard both made FM antennas, and there is an independent site that has modeled the FM antennas. http://www.ham-radio.com/k6sti/curves.htm

If you take the gain for the FM antennas from the manufacturer and compare it to the gain modeled by an independent party, that will give an idea of how the manufacturer estimates gain compared to the real world.
Then apply that correction to the VHF low gain for the 1850 vs 8200.

I did all that at one point and there was less than a 1dB difference between the 8200 and the 1850. Just from antenna design the 1850 should have better gain from being slightly longer.

All that being said, based on Winegard’s specs, the HD7084P is better for VHF-low and the HD8200U is better for VHF high.

In my experience, the Winegard antennas seem better made than the antenna craft antennas.

I ended up buying the 1850. I've used both Antennacraft and Winegards over the years and I get better results from Antennacraft. I found the MXU 59 is the peer of the Antennas Direct 91XG while the Winegard 9032 was a major disappointment. The 7084 was a decent VHF antenna but the UHF section was not as good as either the HBU 55 or MXU 59 or 91XG.

I think Antenna craft makes much crap this days

Antennacraft is no longer in business. They DID make SOME good antennas. The Y10-7-13 is/was my favorite of the bunch.

Antenna Craft went out of business a few months ago. They won't be making anything any more.

All I know is that they have been the best antennas I've used along with the 91 XG that I owned in recent years. Better than any of the Winegards. The Channel Master 4221 is a good antenna too but gave that one away. Have not tried the new 4228 yet.

Spoke to one of their major distributors about it. Turns out there were some alleged improprieties going on at the management level and it resulted in the company going under. They actually were seeing an increase in antenna sales, not a decline as some have suggested. But with the parent company going under and the money management problems at Antennacraft, no one was interested in buying the brand. Sad end to an otherwise good product.

I used it head to head with the Winegard YA 1713 and the Y10-7-13 was the better antenna. And the VHF section on the HBU 55 was also better than the Winegard. I still have one Y10-7-13 and am stashing it away for the appropriate time.