Apartment dweller nightmare

Hi folks, prior to last year I lived on the 2nd floor of a 2 family and had a discone mounted on the exterior which brought in superb reception. Last year I moved to a garden apartment and the rules explicitly state that nothing can be put anywhere exterior to your windows.

So I've had to make do with two magnetic mount all-band antennas which sit on metal L-shaped brackets which are mounted on the interior window frame. Those I use for various frequencies, except P25. For that I have a 536HP sitting on the top of a desk hutch and use a back of the set telescoping antenna. I found that it's the only antenna and location that I can receive local P25 stations.

The magnetic mount antennas are about 20-30 years old. (maybe new ones are needed?)

Is there anything else I can do to improve my reception? Thanks

Social engineering

I suspect engineering in the traditional sense will have limited results in a so called garden apartment.
Any chance you could make friends with/do favors for a neighbor or the super. on an upper floor. You could
then deploy your uniden scanner higher up and connect to it via the siren app.

Can you access the attic?

iMONITOR said:

Can you access the attic?

Click to expand...

Yes, there is a hatch to the attic area in the hallway. I've considered it before but was hoping for a easier solution. I haven't been up there yet but I know that the cable installer had to go up there. Will give it a look this next weekend and then try and learn how to run the antenna line down and through the wall. If I can do it, I'll re-assemble the discone and put it up there. Thanks

Perhaps as a temporary measure until you can get something into the attic: Consider a flat panel "leaf" type TV antenna placed in the highest window you have. TV antennas overlap many of the popular scanner bands and can be used with coax cable adapters to go from the typical F-connector to your scanner. The antennas are available in nearly every home / hardware store, Walmart, oniine, etc. Put it as high as you can in the highest window... and rotate / adjust position until what you want to hear is best signal. If the window you want doesn't face the direction of the transmitter you want to receive, you may be out of luck unless you have another window that does face the signal. The flat panel / leaf type antennas are directional and usually offer some receiving gain. They work for VHF Hi band and UHF quite well.... no VHF Low band however.

Given that your mag-mounts are 20-30 yrs old and probably use RG-58, you might be able to replace the coax with lower loss cable. Even new RG-58 at 700-800 MHz has bucket fulls of loss add in the fact that coax doesn't age well, replacing it would be my first action.

You might also consider buying a tripod mount of some sort and mounting your discone on it. Place it on your patio when you want to use your scanner and take it inside when you are not using it. That might work if your management is too anal retentive.

A few comments:

1. Forget the discone, it is not the best antenna for 700-800 MHz, it has a screwy upward radiation pattern and no effective gain. I would spend 1/2 the money and get something different.

2. I was also going to mention one of the flat panel HDTV antenna for mounting on a window, but if the windows are Low E glass with vapor deposited metal on the inside this may not work so well on the inside. You might need to mount the antenna on the outside of the glass if the windows are Low E.

3. If you decide to put an antenna in the attic, I would consider just poking a 1/4" hole in the ceiling rather than worrying about running the coax inside the wall. You can easily patch a small hole with spackle and often it is not very noticeable if the ceiling color is close to the neutral spackle color.

4. I would consider an LNA as an option as well. What you cannot do with an antenna you can often make up with a good quality LNA. See this thread - https://forums.radioreference.com/s...60107-vhf-770mhz-antenna-recommendations.html

5. Is there any way you can get an antenna outside on a patio or along the side of the unit, even if it is just hanging from a window? You may need to disguise it depending on the building and where you are located.

JamesO said:

A few comments:

1. Forget the discone, it is not the best antenna for 700-800 MHz, it has a screwy upward radiation pattern and no effective gain. I would spend 1/2 the money and get something different.

2. I was also going to mention one of the flat panel HDTV antenna for mounting on a window, but if the windows are Low E glass with vapor deposited metal on the inside this may not work so well on the inside. You might need to mount the antenna on the outside of the glass if the windows are Low E.

3. If you decide to put an antenna in the attic, I would consider just poking a 1/4" hole in the ceiling rather than worrying about running the coax inside the wall. You can easily patch a small hole with spackle and often it is not very noticeable if the ceiling color is close to the neutral spackle color.

4. I would consider an LNA as an option as well. What you cannot do with an antenna you can often make up with a good quality LNA. See this thread - https://forums.radioreference.com/s...60107-vhf-770mhz-antenna-recommendations.html

5. Is there any way you can get an antenna outside on a patio or along the side of the unit, even if it is just hanging from a window? You may need to disguise it depending on the building and where you are located.

Click to expand...

Sorry for not getting back to this thread sooner but here is an update. I borrowed a ladder from my brother that allowed me to access the hatch to the attic that is above my main hallway. I saw where the cable installer had drilled a hole that opened to my closet in the bedroom and decided to make a similar hole next to it. Another hole drilled between the closet and the "office" and I was able to feed the cable as far as a bookcase on the opposite side of the room. Put my 536HP on top of the bookcase and using Wi-Fi and Proscan I can control the radio from the computer.

Granted, I'm using RG-58 but in my previous abode the discone was mounted outside and very high with a 20 ft. cable length and I didn't have any reception issues. Now, it's assembled in an attic which is only about 4 ft. high. The vertical antenna part bends about 7 inches from the tip but I don't think that that will matter much.

The reception is horrible. The 2 mag mounts I have next to the windows outperform the discone, as well as a standard telescoping back of the set antenna. My next step has been implemented and I am waiting for a delivery of a 25ft. lmr400 cable. I'll let you know how that turns out.

jackj said:

Given that your mag-mounts are 20-30 yrs old and probably use RG-58, you might be able to replace the coax with lower loss cable. Even new RG-58 at 700-800 MHz has bucket fulls of loss add in the fact that coax doesn't age well, replacing it would be my first action.

You might also consider buying a tripod mount of some sort and mounting your discone on it. Place it on your patio when you want to use your scanner and take it inside when you are not using it. That might work if your management is too anal retentive.

Click to expand...

No patio unfortunately. See my message to JamesO for my situation and progress. We'll see how a better cable works. Thanks for helping.

popnokick said:

Perhaps as a temporary measure until you can get something into the attic: Consider a flat panel "leaf" type TV antenna placed in the highest window you have. TV antennas overlap many of the popular scanner bands and can be used with coax cable adapters to go from the typical F-connector to your scanner. The antennas are available in nearly every home / hardware store, Walmart, oniine, etc. Put it as high as you can in the highest window... and rotate / adjust position until what you want to hear is best signal. If the window you want doesn't face the direction of the transmitter you want to receive, you may be out of luck unless you have another window that does face the signal. The flat panel / leaf type antennas are directional and usually offer some receiving gain. They work for VHF Hi band and UHF quite well.... no VHF Low band however.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion. I got the discone in the attic and am waiting for a better cable.

kb5udf said:

I suspect engineering in the traditional sense will have limited results in a so called garden apartment.
Any chance you could make friends with/do favors for a neighbor or the super. on an upper floor. You could
then deploy your uniden scanner higher up and connect to it via the siren app.

Click to expand...

I'm on the second floor so I was able to get into the attic.(barely) Put the discone in and am waiting for some better coax. BTW, the super lives below me. I've been using Proscan to operate the scanner. Works great.

LNA-400 installed and it does make a difference! Several NWS stations that I couldn't hear before now come in, weak but monitorable. Able to listen to a P25 site that I couldn't pick up prior.

Moose said:

LNA-400 installed and it does make a difference! Several NWS stations that I couldn't hear before now come in, weak but monitorable. Able to listen to a P25 site that I couldn't pick up prior.

Click to expand...

So did you install an LNA as in the LNA-400 you mentioned in the post above or the LMR-400 coaxial cable?

JamesO said:

So did you install an LNA as in the LNA-400 you mentioned in the post above or the LMR-400 coaxial cable?

Click to expand...

Sorry, getting old. All these similar sounding names got me confused. It is the LMR-400 coax.