Newbie Doesn't Understand Reception

[jjudson]

I have a Bearcat 246T scanner. I wanted to increase my range of reception, so I went out and bought the Radio Shack discone antenna. I mounted it on my roof, and it sits about 30 feet in the air. I used 50 feet of RG-58 cable to connect the antenna to my receiver. Now, while it seemed to increase my reception a little, I am very underwhelmed by my extended range. I am about 8.5 miles as the crow flies from both Camden, NJ and Philadelphia. With my new antenna setup, I can only pull in a very few trunked channels from Camden (very soft), and none from Philadelphia. The best I get from Philly is a motor sound on a couple of fire channels.

Can anyone explain to me why my reception with this setup sucks?

P.S. I use the channels downloaded from this site for Camden and Philly through ARC246 software with no additional editing.

Also, I've posted this same thread on the antenna forum.

 

[trooperdude]

Are Camden and Philly 800mhz systems ?

if so, the discone antenna (unity (read NO) gain) with RG58 is about as good as a dummy load.

No gain. You are probably losing most of your signal before it even reaches
the receiver in the cable.

Followups to the antenna forum.

 

[randyf]

cable

use r.g 6 it is sattelite grade

 

[gmclam]

RS discone

Several issues at work here.
1. What frequencies are you trying to receive? More importantly, what is the HIGHEST frequency (800 MHz) ???
2. What scanner are you using?

You already provided a big clue with the fact that you're only using RG-58. While that cable will work OK for low frequencies (below 100 MHz), too much signal will be lost in the higher frequency ranges.

I installed a RS discone here earlier in the year. I also used a low loss coax. Ironically I originally experienced a problem with "too much signal". It wasn't that I had too much of the signals I wanted, it is that I also picked up some strong FM (and AM) broadcast signals. I added a filter from ScannerMaster that removed the FM broadcast and everything below 25 MHz and that improved my performance greatly (on VHF).

1. Use the lowest loss coax you can find.
2. If you are in an urban area or near a strong RF signal, a filter may be needed.

Good luck

 

[dkostrey]

Philly is digital. Without a digital scanner, no matter what coax you use you still won't recieve them.

 

[jjudson]

Camden Freqs are:

0866.1625
0866.7375
0867.7875
0868.1875
0868.7000
0860.9875

Philly Freqs are:

0866.2875
0866.3625
0866.8375
0867.0625
0867.0875
0867.5625
0867.5875
0867.8625
0868.0625
0868.0875
0868.2875
0868.5875
0868.7875
0868.8125
0868.8375
0866.1000
0866.3375
0866.5875
0866.6875
0866.7875
0866.8000
0866.8125
0867.1000
0867.1125
0867.3500
0867.5750
0867.8125
0867.8375
0867.9375
0868.0500
0868.3125
0868.3375
0868.5375
0868.5500
0868.5625

 

[jjudson]

Philly is digital. Without a digital scanner, no matter what coax you use you still won't recieve them.

Digital? Okay, I REALLY a newbie. I guess the BC246T isn't a digital scanner?

If not, I'm considering buying a base scanner. Any suggestions for a digital one?

 

[moonies]

The pro-2096 is an excellent base digital scanner or the uniden 996 are the 2 top models for digital signals.

 

[Slyster]

I'd go handheld though... the pro-96 (or equivalent Uniden) becuase you CAN use them as base unit's!... and you wont regret being able to take them all over the house!

 

[loumaag]

Philly; it seems to me that I remember some comments about not being able to get that system much outside the city limits. Steering, downtilt, etc. seemed to play a part in restricting its reception outside of Philly. Maybe it was another big east coast town, but I was pretty sure it was Philly.

In any case as others have pointed out, Philly is 100% P25 CAI, so you need a digital scanner.

 

[n2mdk]

This thread should be combined with the same one in antennas

 

[loumaag]

Thread closed.

All further responses should be addressed to this thread:
http://www.radioreference.com/forums/showthread.php?t=81519