Need help and advice please

[smitty81]

New to the scanner world and would like some help and advise getting started please. first of all, this is my scanner.
Uniden | A World Without Wires - BC340CRS

Nothing fancy or jazzy, just sipmle. I live in ord nebraska, kinda hilly and in a valley. I get decent reception now but I want better. I want to listen to low and high bands. frequencies between 30.000 and upper 500.000. I want to put up an antenna on the roof but there are so many to choose from. I need help in choosing. I want to stay under $200.00 for the antenna. I just want a simple ONE THAT WORKS GOOD!!! (PLUG & PLAY IN ESSANCE) I would like to also keep it as small as possable, I do not want my house to look like nasa. I also want to know the best coax to use. The scanner has a bnc connector. Any help would be great. Thanks

 

[zz0468]

You have some conflicting requirements...

30-500 MHz, small, simple, works good.

Pick one.

For 30-500 MHz coverage, a discone is hard to beat for consistant, honest performance. It's not a "gain" antenna, in terms of how it performs as compared to a dipole. But it's pretty consistent across it's frequency range. To go down to 30 MHz, it's not small.

People here swear by the scantenna, and the concept is simple, but performance isn't consistent across that entire frequency range, and they're poorly built.

There are other antennas that claim that wide bandwidth, and I don't think much of any of them. I run nothing but discones for receive use.

 

[SCPD]

Tri band antenna

New to the scanner world and would like some help and advise getting started please. first of all, this is my scanner.
Uniden | A World Without Wires - BC340CRS

Nothing fancy or jazzy, just sipmle. I live in ord nebraska, kinda hilly and in a valley. I get decent reception now but I want better. I want to listen to low and high bands. frequencies between 30.000 and upper 500.000. I want to put up an antenna on the roof but there are so many to choose from. I need help in choosing. I want to stay under $200.00 for the antenna. I just want a simple ONE THAT WORKS GOOD!!! (PLUG & PLAY IN ESSANCE) I would like to also keep it as small as possable, I do not want my house to look like nasa. I also want to know the best coax to use. The scanner has a bnc connector. Any help would be great. Thanks

Here's the shack's discone. It will work fine for what you want to do. As far as feedline, get some 8X. Since you're terminating to a BNC, you can't really got with 9913 or RG-8. As long as the run isn't over 50', you'll be fine.

And I'll probably have a half dozen people flame the following comment, but once you have the antenna mounted outside above the roof line, my advise is to sacrifice a little height to keep the feedline shorter to reduce signal loss.

RadioShack® Outdoor Scanner/Ham Discone Antenna - RadioShack.com