OK, I know I am an outlier but I enjoy it. I got a few new antennas and a friend helped install them in my attic. Well, in reality he did the work and I watched... Thanks Joe!
Due to my HOA I cannot have outside antennas (I knew this before moving in...) so I have an attic full of various antennas. Since I have dozens of scanners and other radios I like to have a variety of antennas to allow me to experiment and get the best results for the desire of the day.
I have about 2 dozen antennas in the attic, including 4 ST-2's, a few ST-3's, 2 discones, a couple MON-51's, some CenterFire's, a couple wire dipoles for HF and some two-way stuff for ham, GMRS or monitoring. Depending on the antenna I have either RG8x or RG6QS with a couple RG58 leads. Each of the cables is labeled at each end with numbers. Cables with no antenna connected have a red tape stripe on the close end. Most cable lengths are 25 or 50 feet and some of the RG6QS's we trimmed down from 50 to what was needed, about 25-30 feet.
When we added a couple CenterFire antennas (they work pretty good BTW) we also replaced a couple of the cheaper RG6QS cables and trimmed down a couple others. Since I had bought pre-made cables and I wasn't sure of the lengths I would need a couple of them turned out to be way too long. I also have a few spare coax cables in place in case I need to replace one or add yet another antenna down the road. We also relocated a couple antennas to get them further away from the HVAC stuff.
The OCD part of me led me to compare each of these antennas on a variety of frequencies to see what antenna would be used for what purpose. I picked out what I thought would end up being the best antenna and found as many constant transmitting stations as I could on my R8500. These included mostly trunked or other data signals. For HF I chose a fairly weak AM station in town as well as WWV on 3 freqs (5, 10 and 15 MHz.). I programmed all of these into the R8500 and created a database in FileMaker to record the results. I know this is not the best way, but it is the way I had available to me. Without a calibrated monitor I had to rely in the relative indicated signal strength with a little bit of fudging for voice quality.
Reading the indicated S-meter readings I entered them into the database. I reduced the number a bit based on perceived quality if it was scratchy or difficult to read. For each of the bands I then created a calculation field that added each of the scores for that band and then divided it by the number of channels in the band, then rounded it to the nearest 10th. This provided me with the antenna that provided the best results for that band.
I then started parcelling out the antenna assignments based on these results. First I assigned the HF and transmitting antennas. The remaining antennas available for scanners and receivers were then assigned. I used the best antenna for the R8500 and the next two for my 2 8-port multicouplers that feed 7 scanners each. I had an 800 MHz. two-way antenna that was assigned to a PRO197 to be used for data collection with PRO96Com and Unitrunker.
There were several antennas that I chose not to use at this time but may end up using them for something down the line. I am still thinking about a flagpole antenna for HF down the road as well as a couple hidden antennas like random wires along the tile line on the roof or vent-pipe antennas.
This works well for me and it allows me to change things around as needed. If I have a need for coverage in a specific band I can select the antenna that works best on that band.
I have often thought about setting up a patch panel and may end up doing so at some time down the road. I worry however about the loss involved with adding another set of connectors and jumpers. It might neaten things up though.
Due to my HOA I cannot have outside antennas (I knew this before moving in...) so I have an attic full of various antennas. Since I have dozens of scanners and other radios I like to have a variety of antennas to allow me to experiment and get the best results for the desire of the day.
I have about 2 dozen antennas in the attic, including 4 ST-2's, a few ST-3's, 2 discones, a couple MON-51's, some CenterFire's, a couple wire dipoles for HF and some two-way stuff for ham, GMRS or monitoring. Depending on the antenna I have either RG8x or RG6QS with a couple RG58 leads. Each of the cables is labeled at each end with numbers. Cables with no antenna connected have a red tape stripe on the close end. Most cable lengths are 25 or 50 feet and some of the RG6QS's we trimmed down from 50 to what was needed, about 25-30 feet.
When we added a couple CenterFire antennas (they work pretty good BTW) we also replaced a couple of the cheaper RG6QS cables and trimmed down a couple others. Since I had bought pre-made cables and I wasn't sure of the lengths I would need a couple of them turned out to be way too long. I also have a few spare coax cables in place in case I need to replace one or add yet another antenna down the road. We also relocated a couple antennas to get them further away from the HVAC stuff.
The OCD part of me led me to compare each of these antennas on a variety of frequencies to see what antenna would be used for what purpose. I picked out what I thought would end up being the best antenna and found as many constant transmitting stations as I could on my R8500. These included mostly trunked or other data signals. For HF I chose a fairly weak AM station in town as well as WWV on 3 freqs (5, 10 and 15 MHz.). I programmed all of these into the R8500 and created a database in FileMaker to record the results. I know this is not the best way, but it is the way I had available to me. Without a calibrated monitor I had to rely in the relative indicated signal strength with a little bit of fudging for voice quality.
Reading the indicated S-meter readings I entered them into the database. I reduced the number a bit based on perceived quality if it was scratchy or difficult to read. For each of the bands I then created a calculation field that added each of the scores for that band and then divided it by the number of channels in the band, then rounded it to the nearest 10th. This provided me with the antenna that provided the best results for that band.
I then started parcelling out the antenna assignments based on these results. First I assigned the HF and transmitting antennas. The remaining antennas available for scanners and receivers were then assigned. I used the best antenna for the R8500 and the next two for my 2 8-port multicouplers that feed 7 scanners each. I had an 800 MHz. two-way antenna that was assigned to a PRO197 to be used for data collection with PRO96Com and Unitrunker.
There were several antennas that I chose not to use at this time but may end up using them for something down the line. I am still thinking about a flagpole antenna for HF down the road as well as a couple hidden antennas like random wires along the tile line on the roof or vent-pipe antennas.
This works well for me and it allows me to change things around as needed. If I have a need for coverage in a specific band I can select the antenna that works best on that band.
I have often thought about setting up a patch panel and may end up doing so at some time down the road. I worry however about the loss involved with adding another set of connectors and jumpers. It might neaten things up though.