antenna

[bendebuhr]

ok so heres the deal. i have a uniden base scanner. it ran me aroud 200 dollars, so its a pretty decent one. i live in the upstairs level of my house, and have a cb antenna with a magnetic mount that is on my air conditioning unit outside my window. (ghetto, i know.) for some reason, i can not pick up the ambulance to hospital communications (MERCI for those of you who know), at all. all i can hear is the hospital. however my girlfriends dad who lives way out of town picks up the ambulance just fine. i need a suggestion as to buying a better antenna, and if i should mount it in a diffrent place. any advice is great!

 

[Astrak]

Well yeah, a different antenna would be ideal, something tuned for the VHF public safety band. An AC is probably not an ideal location for an antenna to be mounted.

 

[engine3]

try picking yourself up a magnet mount scanner antenna and put that where your cb antenna is and i,m willing to bet you see a differance in reception

 

[gewecke]

A good all band scanner antenna would be the first change,but if you don't have a higher place to mount it then your a/c unit is not bad since it provides a good ground plane surface! A 2nd floor a/c would be slightly better too.
N9ZAS.

 

[izzyj4]

With the CB antenna it's only tuned for that band though it will pick up Low band signals great. To listen to higher bands (150, 400 and 800 ect.) I would recommend purchasing one of those Radio Shack mag mount antennas. They work great!! I have one that I use and use the old tin sheet under it for a ground plane and I pick up almost everything. Spend the $20-30 bucks for it, its worth it for a quick easy fix. Also like everyone else said, find a different place for the antenna rather than the AC you'll get too much electrical interference.