Old Antenna

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Leasure

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So, at our house we have an old TV antenna. Its not going to be used due to the digital take over. I was thinking about gettting a BNC Connector to coax, and use it? Is that able to be done?
Im in a basement, and just getting back into listening.
Thanks.
 

W6KRU

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I'm not sure what kind of antenna you have so I don't know how well it's going to work. If you try it, climb up there and rotate it 90 deg. TV signals are horizontally polarized and what you want to listen to is vertically polarized. It will be severely attenuated in it's current position.
 

Leasure

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Yes, but we have satellite now, and we are not going to be using this. We only got one channel anyhow. Will this work? Im about to run into town and get me one.

Edit- Well i bought the scanner, picked it up on sale for about 70 bucks, and got the BNC Connector. Programed in what I wanted, and I am getting the local PD (I do live in the country as well). All fire bands and such have been programed, but nothing.
 
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ridgescan

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It's a very directional antenna, and as DDan says TV sigs are horizontally fixd, so-turn that sucker sideways on the mast, point it in the direction of the traffic that interests you, and give it a try:)
 

Leasure

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Well here is the thing. Im at my parents house. My dad hates wires. So doing away with that antenna, I figured I could use something that's already there, and on top of that im in the basement. I have a mobile set up with my scanner, but wanted to listen in the house as well. So i picked up a PRO-135, and a BNC to coax. Plugged it into the ext. antenna coax coming down, and I could hear the local PD, and I think I hear the local FD get called out, but it was early morning. As for the coax im not sure.
 
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kb0nly

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Sneak up on the roof, remove tv antenna, put a cheap $25 radioshack scanner antenna in its place and use the existing coax. Yeah there is probably lots of other things you could do, new coax and such, but this is the least invasive.

If he doesn't want you removing the tv antenna just put the scanner antenna on the top of the mast above the tv antenna and make a coax jumper to go from the scanner antenna down to the coax connected to the tv antenna, disconnect the tv antenna and connect that to the jumper up to the scanner antenna.

Get inventive!
 

Leasure

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Sneak up on the roof, remove tv antenna, put a cheap $25 radioshack scanner antenna in its place and use the existing coax. Yeah there is probably lots of other things you could do, new coax and such, but this is the least invasive.

If he doesn't want you removing the tv antenna just put the scanner antenna on the top of the mast above the tv antenna and make a coax jumper to go from the scanner antenna down to the coax connected to the tv antenna, disconnect the tv antenna and connect that to the jumper up to the scanner antenna.

Get inventive!

Hmm.. I guess I never thought of that.. haha!
Anyhow, any radio shack scanner antennas you would know of? I get a 30% discount, so I might as well stay there. How about the inline amp that we have already present?
 

davidmc36

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How about the inline amp that we have already present?
I would by-pass the amp if possible. It is probably optimized for freqs that you won't be looking to pick up and may attenuate ones that you do and/or cause interference. Is there connectors going in and out of it? Can you get a union to hook the in and out coax connectors together?
 

Leasure

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The set-up that I have now is as follows; Antenna about 150 ft up outside of house, coax running down into an amp, out of the amp into a spliter that goes to one TV in the house, and to a coax-to-BNC connecter, to my PRO-135 handheld.
 

nycrich

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The television antenna is designed to be mounted horizontally to get TV signals that broadcast sending signals that are horizontally polarized. Radio signals from police, fire, aircrafts are mainly vertical polarization. Like the previous post above, it will drastically cut your reception. You will have to drill holes in the antenna main beam 90 degrees and mount it .
The elements on the TV antenna are cut originally for the VHF-low (54-76Mhz) VHF High (approx 170-220Mhz) and UHF (approx 500-800 Mhz).What this means is that out of band signals like pagers, etc will come over the regular signals causing lots of interference, ghost images , etc. The antenna would also be very directional and pick up signals only in one area.
The hobby is really for experimenting so if you want to try the antenna go ahead. Radio Shack sells a matching transformer that has two separate leads (300 ohms) that screws on the antenna and another side that terminates as an F connector. From here you can buy adapters from F to BNC or F-PL259, etc.
I would prefer to get a dedicated antenna that would be much smaller, less wind resistance/damage, and one that would really pick up signals in the scanner bands without the interference.
 

n8emr

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So, at our house we have an old TV antenna. Its not going to be used due to the digital take over. I was thinking about gettting a BNC Connector to coax, and use it? Is that able to be done?
Im in a basement, and just getting back into listening.
Thanks.

The old antenna (properly maintained) will work fine on digital television. Also you can use the antenna
for your scanner, they work ok on UHF and VHF signals but not so well on 800.


Either way you should replaced the coax cable going to the antenna and check the grounding system.
If the antenna is 20 years old or the coax is 10 years old its a good idea to replace them.
 
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