Rail RX Base antenna options

So my mobile antenna choice was a success, and works wonderfully, so I'm looking at putting in a webfeed to supplement another one locally by basically picking up the area west of where it cuts off. The antenna will hopefully be going up on a 40' tower at my fire station, which is up on a hill as well. I'll be picking up the usual east/west traffic plus a branch line that goes south, so an omni sounds like the way to go. Are there other antenna options besides omni, and if not what antennas should I look at? don't want to spend a couple hundred on one but I will pay for a really good one, especially if it picks up as good as my 5/8 wave Larsen is doing.

If you're happy with the Larsen, just get another one and also buy the Base Station Antenna (BSA) kit they offer. Here's a link: LARSEN BSAKIT | Covert Your NMO or UHF Mobile Antenna to a Base Antenna - BSA KIT

Usually a directional antenna with have big enough side or rear lobes that you still hear quite a bit away from the area you have it aimed at. My setup on the South Central Ohio railroadradio.net feed is aimed south but I still hear a solid 25 miles to the north.

I gave one these try back months ago and really liking it. 2 Meter Slim Jim Antenna | KB9VBR J-Pole Antennas I had it tuned to middle of rail band. I'm picking up yard ops good 60 miles out if any thing say it works to good as i've had to turn squelch up to cut out some of the far away dispatcher's. I also live on hill and have the antenna mounted on a 31' pole mainly to get it above my roof line that's at 25'.

Eng3ineer said:

I gave one these try back months ago and really liking it. 2 Meter Slim Jim Antenna | KB9VBR J-Pole Antennas I had it tuned to middle of rail band. I'm picking up yard ops good 60 miles out if any thing say it works to good as i've had to turn squelch up to cut out some of the far away dispatcher's. I also live on hill and have the antenna mounted on a 31' pole mainly to get it above my roof line that's at 25'.

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I would assume the yard ops are on a repeater then, hearing a 5 watt portable from 60 miles is quite a feat. I may take a look at this though, I wonder if they allow a return so I can compare them vs the Larsen.

iceman977th said:

I would assume the yard ops are on a repeater then, hearing a 5 watt portable from 60 miles is quite a feat. I may take a look at this though, I wonder if they allow a return so I can compare them vs the Larsen.

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True bet they are repeater tower it's KCS main Shreveport yard and they have quite few jobs working. I know with past antennas that i've tried i've never picked this up before so it helped me out even get the remote loco's giving out their status. It's also helped a quite bit on detectors that every once while would come in but have a lot of static are now a lot better.

I use a 2 meter vertical for my Railroad listening. I built a colinear vertical for the RR band and it receives well but I can not tell any difference between it and my Diamond X50.