Antenna Craft ST-2

[VE2XWA]

Accordingly to Universal Radio the Antenna Craft ST2 is discontinued.

Antennacraft ST2 Scanner Antenna, Antenna Craft ST-2

 

[Ryangn]

Summit Source, Solid Signal, and Scanner Master to name a few all say the same thing. Too bad cause they are great antennas. I have two of them.

 

[rbm]

And I have only two spares left!

Rich

 

[Voyager]

Radio Shack used to carry them, too.

Universal's notice may just mean they are discontinued in their stock. (they no longer are selling it)

Antennacraft's page has no such notice.

 

[popnokick]

Solid Signal has them. No "discontinued" notice.
https://www.solidsignal.com/m/product.aspx?p=ST2

 

[Voyager]

They must have changed in in the last 7 minutes...

Availability: Discontinued (Not Available)

 

[Mtnrider]

I have been looking to to no avail.....sad i have 2 as well.....and others looking for them.....On to the next best thing ? which is......

 

[Voyager]

Not manufactured yet...

Closest current antenna might be the ST-3 which is almost like half an ST-2.

 

[N3JI]

I would go with a discone for ~50-500 MHz, then dedicated 800 MHz antenna. Which is what I actually did, I guess. LOL

I found my RS discone isn't very good on 800 MHz, so I made my own 8 element coaxial colinear vertical. And 99.9% of what I listen to is on 800/700 MHz, I rarely use the discone anyway...

 

[nosoup4u]

On my radio shack discone I took a 800Mhz 3db gain whip from a mobile antenna and put that in place of the low band whip and it made a big difference

 

[n3ouc]

I always wondered if you could replace that top 30-50mhz whip with something else for like the 700/800 bands and it would actually work. Maybe I will finally try that now that I see someone else has done that. Thanks for the courage!!

Mike

 

[KMG54]

Well I guess this ends the what is better posts on the ST2's or a discone. I just looked and cannot find one either.

 

[Voyager]

I would go with a discone

Worst. Antenna. Ever.

I can pick up more weather stations with a rubber duck next to a Discone, and that applies to three manufacturers of Discone antennas - Radio Shack, Diamond, and I forget what the third model was, but it was not cheap.

On the ST-2 I get 6 weather stations readable. I've never had any Discone pick up half as many.

I've never tried the ST-3, but I bet it can get at least 3 stations.

BTW, my second choice IF the ST-2 is NLA, a Cushcraft Ringo Ranger (not original Ringo, and not Ringo Ranger II, but the Ringo Ranger). It works about as well as the ST-2 including on Low Band to 800 MHz. (note that I'm excluding commercial antennas in this statement)

 

[Fireboat03]

Yes I have one of those Diamond Discone antenna and it has no gain. My ST-2 runs circles around it.

I was looking a few weeks ago for another ST-2 and did not pull the trigger while the iron was hot.

The website does not say dis-continued so everybody is probably out of stock for right now. Waiting Game now

 

[Blackink]

And there doesn't seem to be any way to contact the folks at Antennacraft Antennas either, to find out what the story is on the ST-2 anternna, or at least I couldn't find a way/link.....

 

[Wally46]

I just don't understand why they would discontinue an antenna that works well. Can't find it on Amazon either. I better hang on to mine.

 

[Wally46]

Yes I have one of those Diamond Discone antenna and it has no gain. My ST-2 runs circles around it.

I was looking a few weeks ago for another ST-2 and did not pull the trigger while the iron was hot.

The website does not say dis-continued so everybody is probably out of stock for right now. Waiting Game now

Oh good. yeah hopefully it's just out of stock.

 

[N3JI]

Yes, the discone is a couple dB down from an antenna like the ST2. As long as you are okay with that going in, and run the absolute best coax you can, then they are what they are. I actually have a run of smaller Heliax going to mine (even though the run is only ~30', so mine does as well as I expect it to. Additionally, I use it for testing VHF & up radios, so I required something that supported multi-band transmit.

I'm very intrigued by the idea of trying an 800 MHz antenna in place of the 50 MHz whip -- I'll try that & report back as well. If that works, I might go ahead and invest a longer vertical with a bit more gain for it. I have a different 50 MHz antenna already, so losing that isn't an issue whatsoever.

BTW, excellent idea!! Cudos to the originator!

 

[n3ouc]

As I mentioned before, I am too intrigued with the 800mhz antenna on top. I also want to make sure I get an 800mhz antenna that will fit on the stud that held the 50mhz section. Worried I will pull eveything down to work on it and have something that wont fit on the stud, so if anyone does do this changeout, could you let us know what mobile 800mhz antenna you used so I dont mess it up?

Thank You,

Mike

 

[mancow]

Worst. Antenna. Ever.

I can pick up more weather stations with a rubber duck next to a Discone, and that applies to three manufacturers of Discone antennas - Radio Shack, Diamond, and I forget what the third model was, but it was not cheap.

On the ST-2 I get 6 weather stations readable. I've never had any Discone pick up half as many.

I've never tried the ST-3, but I bet it can get at least 3 stations.

BTW, my second choice IF the ST-2 is NLA, a Cushcraft Ringo Ranger (not original Ringo, and not Ringo Ranger II, but the Ringo Ranger). It works about as well as the ST-2 including on Low Band to 800 MHz. (note that I'm excluding commercial antennas in this statement)

I agree completely. The only use I've found for discones is the wide band transmit capability.