Pro 96 antenna

[weisej]

I bought a digital scanner a few months ago it came with the original antenna and a 800 antenna but the 800 antenna doesn't seem to work any better then the original one. I now have been thinking why is this and I'm also looking for a good antenna I can use in my home, car, basiclly anywhre and get decent reception. Any help would be great.

[MPSCS]

For portable use, the RS-800 antenna is hard to beat, and users are normally very satisfied with it. How far are you from the tower sites you're trying to receive? Are you certain your programming is correct?

Using a scanner in a car is not always 100% successful.

[weisej]

I live in Allendale, MI by Grand Valley State and travel to Kentwood often. I'm not sure exactly where the towers around me are located. I have entered all control channels listed in the RR database that are close to my locations. There used to be a map that showed the towers with the channels for the towers but I seen the admin has deleted that off the MPSCS DB site. When using the RS 800Mhz antenna I hear 800 ok (still feel like it doesn't expand my range much like many users say how it doubles there listening area) the 150-160 freqs and 450-470 freq which I use to hear Kent and Ottawa PD and EMS are not clear but become clear when I reinstall my rubber duck antenna that came with my pro 96. So Im wondering if this is just a problem with my RS 800 antenna if I should buy a new antenna or if im expecting to much out of the 800 antenna?

[MPSCS]

The RS-800 antenna is designed and tuned for the 800MHz band, so it won't perform well at all with VHF, and just does ok with the 450MHz UHF band, so that is normal. There is no perfect one-does-all antenna. The antenna supplied with your scanner makes an attempt to do that, and not very well.

It's important to know where the sites are located so you can program your scanner properly. Also, the PRO-96 was designed for one site per bank. However, if you put a null spacer frequency between the sites, you can put more than one. I used 800MHz as an example. Pick a frequency you know will not be active, and use it as a spacer. Also for your site frequencies, make sure you're only programming the control channel frequencies, not all the voice frequencies. The primary ones are in red on the RR database, and you can also program the alternate control frequencies, the ones in blue. But not the ones in black.

ie:

primary freq for site 1
alternate freq for site 1
800.0000
primary freq for site 2
alternate freq for site 2
800.0000
primary freq for site 3
alternate freq for site 3
800.0000

See if that helps.