Antenna question

[slasher42]

Hi everyone,

A quick intro here. My wife got me a Uniden BC125AT scanner for Christmas. It has long been a wish to get a scanner for my Birthday/Christmas, as when I was a kid my dad has a scanner, and it provided for endless entertainment and a good hobby for him.

Anyhow, I had no problem setting up the scanner, got my Windows 7 drivers working with the scanner, was able to program our local frequencies into it as well, and scan for others. The biggies issue I think I'm going to have with it is with reception. I live a couple of miles outside of Isanti, MN (about 40 minutes north of downtown Minneapolis), With Isanti being a small town (about 2K people), it's not like we're the center of a lot of scanner activity. On top of that, I've noticed depending on where I am in my house, reception varies greatly. In one area, I can pick up NOAA clearly with a strong signal, but about 20-30 feet away, I pick up nothing.

That being said, I'm looking to purchase a better indoor antenna for it, that may give me better reception. Since I'm new to this, I'm not sure what kind of antenna to get. The antenna is a BNC connection. I would prefer to keep the cost under $50, but would examine something in the higher price range if the bang is worth the buck.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Don
Isanti, MN

[LtDoc]

Since most of what you'll be listening to/for will be VHF/UHF stuff getting an antenna as high as possible is a good thing. That means that you will also have to connect that antenna to your scanner, so there will be a need for some cable to do that (and all the other complications associated with that, like where to run it so that it isn't in the way/hidden, you know?).
Antennas in general are 'tunable', can be made to work on particular frequencies/bands better than others will. Unfortunately there are no "one size fit's all" antennas like that so there will always be some compromises that have to be accepted. There's a big difference between 'perfect' and 'acceptable'! In most cases, 'acceptable' will do just fine. (Ain't nothing in your house perfect except your wife! Right??)
I can also understand being 'frugal'! So, here's one 'frugal' way of doing that 'frugal' antenna thingy. Got any wire laying around? Has to be strong/big enough to suppost it's own weight, and an electrical conductor. After that, anything will work. Run it from the center pin of that BNC connector on your scanner, out a window, and throw the #$% thing over the house. You will be surprised at what it will pick up. That's one 'cheap-n-dirty' way of doing it. It won't be -good-, but it'll beat that 'ducky' on the scanner.
Can't go outside with it? How about in the attic? Looking for height mainly. If there's metal in the roof or it's covering, forget it. Or how about stringing that wire around the ceiling/wall edges? Got metal siding on the house? Connect to it with that wire. If it'll conduct electricity it can be made into an antenna or part of an antenna. Turn your imagination loose, sort of.
Why do you hear some things better in one spot than in others in the house? Because signals are attenuated or blocked by stuff, walls, etc.
All of this is a sort of 'make do' until you find something better, it's definitely not a super good solution, but it really does work.
Have fun.
- 'Doc

Some facts.
Antennas would rather be above metal than beside metal and they don't like being under metal
Higher is always better until it get's unpractical or ridiculous.
Outside is better than inside because of 'RF' obstructions/attenuation.
The antenna you had before the last one will always be better than the one you have now!

[N8IAA]

Don, you may want to post in the MN state forum. It appears that your county has multiple TGID's on the state digital system. You'l get a more informed answer/help from local scannists
HTH,
Larry

[DickH]

Originally Posted by LtDoc

... You will be surprised at what it will pick up. ...

And he'll be REALLY surprised when it picks up a bolt of lightning. Dangerous thing to do.

[Ed_Seedhouse]

Originally Posted by DickH

And he'll be REALLY surprised when it picks up a bolt of lightning. Dangerous thing to do.

As long as the antenna top is below the height of any nearby trees or poles he needs to worry more about lightning hitting them, not the antenna. That doesn't, however, mean that lightning is not a worry and any antenna of some height should have provisions for draining charge on it to a proper ground. An antenna properly constructed can actually help keep direct hits away by acting as a "lightning rod" as developed by a certain past president.

There is nothing mystical about lightning - it is perfectly real, but well understood and there are very well known and very effective ways to deal with it.

[hertzian]

My only issue is pushing outdoor antennas on handheld scanners which aren't really designed for that. Sure it may work, but it is a major invite to overload, which may leave a new user scratching their head when they shelled out so much money.

So slasher42, what are the frequencies of interest that you listen to mostly?

The duck that comes with the 125 is typical Uniden centering around 155mhz or so. You may want to look into a dual or multiple band duck for a nice little improvement over the stock one, but it all depends on what frequencies you listen to.

[LtDoc]

Lightning? For a wire thrown over the house? I'd make bets about that not happening -because- of there being a wire on the roof. As for 'over-loading' a hand scanner, I really doubt that too. Is it possible? Of course it is, but it's really, really doubtful. Especially if the problem is lack of signal to start with.
The biggest danger with an antenna such as that is the rock you tie on the end of it to throw over the house/limb or whatever. Don't break any windows or hit some one in the eye...
- 'Doc