Wilson Electronics 800 Mhz 8-Element Yagi

[jkm]

Hello to all,

I was wondering if anyone has played around with the Wilson Electronics 8-Element Yagi antenna? The antenna is actually meant to be used with cellular telephones, but it seems close enough to work with trunked systems in the 851-868 Mhz region. With a few adapters, I've managed to get to an SMA connector from an FME connector (which is on the 5 Ft. jumper that I got with the antenna.

So far, I'm pretty impressed with it. I had originally bought it to try to receive a new APCO P25 system in the next county north of me on which I was having severe multipath problems due to the simulcast nature of the system. Using the yagi seems to have cleared up a great deal of the problems and I get about 90% of the transmissions clearly now compared to 40% before.

I also took it outside and played with it for a while, and was quite surprised to hear both Montgomery County and the City of Dayton trunked systems, both of which are around 75 miles from where I live! And when I turned the beam 180 degrees away from Dayton, I could hear, on the same control channel as the City of Dayton, the Heath, Ohio trunked system. With the Wilson Electronics Magnet Mount Antenna I bought as well that I have on the car, I can barely hear either of those systems.

I guess 800 MHz is really sensitive and the antenna, to work directionally, really needs to be outside; inside of a building, the signals seem to bounce all over the place and things that are west of me come in best when I point to the southeast :-P Still, even inside it doesn't do that bad of a job considering.

Just wondering if anyone else has had experience with this antenna. It's definitely worth taking a look at.

Justin/W1IX

[h8tdigitalradio]

Originally Posted by jkm

I was wondering if anyone has played around with the Wilson Electronics 8-Element Yagi antenna?

Hello,

Yes, Wilson Electronics makes good antennae. I have used the 8 element Yagi for some time and pleased with results. Very good DXer. The Magnet Mount DB819 with FME to SMA adpater worked great locally for mobile apps. I now use the NMO mount. No issues with Wilson Electronics. Btw, it works well on other bands (VHF-Low, VHF-Hi, and UHF).

73

Dave AKA The Tripzter

[Styler1]

I use one also. Had exact same problems you had with multipath on a P25 system. I was able to point it to null out the offending signals. Went from nothing but garbled crap to 95% copy. Strange thing is I live only 2 miles from the tower but experience multipath & phasing issues because of the close towers. It's on a 20 foot mast and I am running RG-6 but the amount of the gain makes up for the lossy coax.. Great antenna!!

[philkoz]

I bought one 6 months ago. It has worked wonders for me. Due to my condo situation, I actually mounted it in my attic. I need about 30 ft of coax, so I'm running a 4-output signal amp also. I am able to pull in the infamous 'Tower 701" that Detroit uses at 90%+ from about 20-30 miles. I am also able to get several other 800 systems in the area 100%. I ran the yagi with a discone into a Diamond MX-37 (I believe thats the model) duplexer. Again, because of my condo situation, trying to limit amount of coax for now. Fortunately, most of the 800 systems I monitor are generally SW of me, so a rotor is not needed yet. I'm getting great results on VHF, UHF & all the local 800 systems.

Just my 2 cents....!!!